For Better Commenting, Take an Oath of Reply.

My interpretation is that an "Oath of Reply" is only meant to create an obligation to reply if the thing being replied to expects a reply. (Some comments don't.)

There may be comments that expect a reply but to which actually replying is not helpful (e.g., because they're some sort of taunting trollery, or because the writer unfortunately makes it clear that they haven't understood something basic and probably never will). In those cases, though, there is still some value in replying -- it lets the other person know that you have paid attention to what they wrote. I would expect someone with an "Oath of Reply" in force to reply to these saying something like "Thanks for your feedback. I don't expect to be engaging further with this line of argument, because unfortunately I think you have misunderstood my intent so fundamentally that it wouldn't be helpful." or "This is the reply I promised, but I think you are trolling and won't reply to any more of your comments unless something changes my mind on that." Maybe that's noise in the sense that it doesn't add extra information to the main discussion, but I think it's productive noise in the same sort of way as "please" and "thank you" and other conversational pleasantries are in casual discourse.

gjm expresses it well! I think you’re right that some comments are in a special category of clearly not needing a reply. Maybe there’s a way to briefly acknowledge that the comment has been seen and considered, however.

Thanks for linking this in to the conversation.

Committing to reply to any comment seems like [a bad idea].

Then don't. It could be 'at least one', or 'First', or something. There could also be something like 'if no one posts any comments on this, then (after a week) I will'.

There's also the option of including a 'unless I think you're a troll' clause.

I also want to give my commenters a chance to talk to each other without me interrupting.

The oath could be conditional on being invoked?

Like, 'I will respond to the first 5 questions

a) about this piece

b) directed at me*'

*(It's easier to do this if there's a way to be specifically notified, like an @ option).

That depends on the expected number of trolls and I would assume some implicit disclaimers like '... this is intended to be understood charitably and not to the letter of it." One might want to make that explicit though and then refer to e.g. The Standard LW Oath of reply." Something like

My Oath of Reply is to respond to top-level comments at least once while there is an ongoing discussion [details to be defined]. I will likely pursue longer-form discussions. If commenters provide especially helpful feedback, I'll note it here along with an acknowledgement.

The oath of reply is meant as a prior-increaser for receiving a reply specifically for an audience aiming for good faith dialog. So any assumptions or modifications needed to specify the sort of conversation you’re looking to have are appropriate. Much of this needs to be implicit, as we’re all busy people and don’t need 10 pages of legal boilerplate for this stuff.

Yep!