Robert Scoble and I have the same furniture

One happy person: Tara, with her dad on her favorite swing, on Easter Sunday.

Robert Scoble writes a famous blog for Microsoft. I write a less famous one for me and my pals, or whoever. But Robert and I now have the same furniture in our living rooms: our white leather comment policy. It's one that says, this is my living room, I want to keep it clean and elegant, and you can visit if your comments respect that.

I get comment spam and I delete it. Doesn't take too long and people don't have to bother looking at comments like "Hey! I love your site and I know know where you can get a super discount deal on 100 purple washing machines!" I have had a few nasty little comments, not many really. I'm not interested in letting you all see the potentially racist and just plain obnoxious one to my post "Bright chicks in Yunnan" (okay, okay, I was asking for trouble with that title), for example. Of course, I have fewer visitors and fewer comments than Robert.

Robert has had a kind of brown and tan washable tweed comment policy, where anyone could come in and put their feet up and eat chips and smoke cigarettes and generally leave a bit of rubbish if they felt like it. Mostly they haven't, but I get tired of skipping over that stuff, and so do a lot of other people. He's come to the same conclusion.

Long live white leather comments.

Speaking of which, Christopher from Hawaii wrote a long and thoughtful comment to my post "Blogs mean equal voices". I've been reflecting on it since, meaning to reply, but meanwhile visited his site (see my blogroll to the left, here), Tropical Embellishments, and read an interesting exchange about seeking happiness and a better life.

This is one of the other threads on Robert Scoble's post, and I think he was just given some very good advice. Spend more time with happy people, surround yourself with happy people and give less time to those who are not.

I have a friend, Mary, who very actively lives this way. I have observed an interesting phenomenon, in case you think this might be unkind to those of us who are sometimes grumps. People know she looks for happy people, and even the grumps tend to be happier around her - they give it their best try. So by raising expectations, she brings out the best in people.

Here is one of the happy people in my life, Tara, with her dad on Easter, on the swing.