I was not suggesting the layout amendment arose out of an egoistical desire. You have no need for such resort; your posts are powerful enough to stand on their own merit and brilliance.

However, the new layout, IMO, will “automatically” reduce both the urge and propensity of commentators to engage in animated discussions and debates of issues at hand.

If you juxtapose and assess your prior posts against current ones, you will see that the level of robust debates has diminished significantly. Some of it is caused, as highlighted by you above, the rejuvenated cathartic zeal to decimate off-the-mark postings before they can raise their heretical heads. However, the layout change has also caused a great ennui to descend on your commentators. Mark my words.

And thus my long sigh. This was a fantastic and exciting blogsite before. I hope that a puritanical zeal does not dessicate it of its animating succour. I would hate to see it blend in to the blandscape.

The change in the layout comment section was not prompted by a desire to stroke my ego. This is just the way comments are arranged in WP 2.8. The old plugin that laid out comments, per post, no longer works. I also preferred the old way of laying out the comments. Incidentally if you think that the number of ego-gratifying comments have gone up then I would kindly ask you to actually read the comments on a recent post vs comments on old posts and do a comparison. You may perhaps find, on evidence, that the opposite is true.

Indeed if the tone of comments would change based on WP plugins, then WP would be a greater blogging software than I thought.

If there is something that has changed, I have more severely moderated comments which I believe are 1)off-thread and 2) hateful. That has nothing to do with the blog template change though.

I preferred the previous avatar of the “Latest Comments section”, where one could see the names of the latest commentators against the main five threads being discussed. Thus if I preferred a particular comment thread, I could concetrate on that thread alone.

The current incarnation comprises a steady and continuous stream of comments, 99% of which relate to the latest comment. Thus any developments occuring in the past few threads is swamped by comments on the latest GB posting. So if someone finds those comment-threads more entertaining than the latest one, (s)he can no longer track them.

Posting and subsequent comment developments are now inevitably straight-jacketing themselves in to
(I) a brilliant (or good) posting by GB, followed by
(II) 95 paeans on how great GB’s posting is, mixed with possibly 5 good comments which are worth reading and expand one’s knowledge

There is nothing wrong with praising GB’s comments. I find most of them trenchantly side-splitting. However, the blogsite was something more than homilies. It was a fantastic forum for seeing how the relevance of a topic was far more wide-ranging than originally considered. It was an eye-opener, throwing up wonderful facts, mischievous factoids, and surprising implications.

If the argument deviated too much from the original path, “Whack”. Slap on the wrist from GB !!

This healthy debate, opportunity to present as well as imbibe facts was also a key ingredient, GB’s personal brilliant with and humour notwithstanding, that made this blogsite special.

I can see it blanding (not a mistype) in to the blandscape of unusual blogs, comprising one benediction, followed by 99 supine homilies. Gratifying to the ego? Yes. Cutting edge? No longer.

Sorry not to mince words. I was apprehensive that this would happen after the changes were declared, but decided to give it a month or so before voicing misgivings. Nothing has persuaded me since to alter that perception.

P.S. – i am technologically challenged! Please tell me if this happens ONLY on my machine…

About your book, pliss be careful that Nazim of fraandship and loveship fame might sue you phaar yousing hees prop-rai-tari lengege

I have heard from a friend that some of these publishing companies tend to be “kanjoos-makkichoos” types… This friend (an author) is being paid, only about 60 cents to a dollar as royalty for every book sold.

I am reminded of Mr.Micawber’s pithy dialogue: “One cannot obtain blood from a stone” (in Charles Dickins’s novel David Copperfield)

Arrey bhai…by self entertainment, did you mean “self-gratification”? I am pretty sure GB’s book would not contain risqué centerfolds.

I don’t know. You tell me.

Tarzan wrote: “i always like him.”

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

“[Toilet] is the only place where i get 15-20 mins of isolation and self entertainment.”

Arrey bhai…by self entertainment, did you mean “self-gratification”? I am pretty sure GB’s book would not contain risqué centerfolds.

100 bucks? 100 rupees? or 100 dollars?