Nothing to add

It's not surprising that very few of the posts in OMF evoke any comments. The explanation could be that its most assiduous readers are diffident about expressing fulsome praise, or are merely stunned into admiring silence by OMF's forceful arguments and subtle analyses, or the erudition and percipience of its content.

My own view, however, is that after their biweekly perusal of the latest posts these readers simply have no time to spare to set out their own viewpoints, most of them being fully occupied by such things as chairing multinationals or ecumenical conferences, running major law practices, fulfilling their ministerial responsibilities or studying for their doctorates.

However, there are exceptions, and it is interesting to note that it is the posts dealing with the least interesting topics that seem to attract the most comments. For example, a boring and facetious item I posted about an opinion poll some years ago attracted some two thousand words of comment. After a brief and relevant comment from an old friend, two other ladies joined in with lengthy dissertations on feminist issues. I felt impelled to insert some hot news about gastro-oesophageal reflux before drawing the stimulating discussion to a close.

I suppose all this happened because the word sex had cropped up in the original post; similarly, a rather feeble post in which Jehovah was mentioned inspired a bit of tedious chat. Yet what I thought was a fascinating piece - lavishly illustrated - about the theatre in North Korea evoked no comments at all.

So you really can’t tell. Perhaps there are keywords other than the two I have mentioned which are bound to elicit a reaction from readers; I might try a few.


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