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Comment Policy

June 25, 2012, 9:19 am

I suppose it is time again to remind folks about my comment moderation policy, which is:  I don't moderate.  I certainly strongly request that commenters remain civil, reasonable, and respectful.  But, the combination of being lazy and not easily offended cause me to almost never moderate on content, except to eliminate obvious spam.

Readers should remember that the existence of comments from morons does not mean that I in any way endorse them - I simply have no desire, paraphrasing Napoleon, to interrupt a moron when he is proving himself to be such.  I have never fully understood folks deleting comments of foul-mouthed idiots who disagree with them in spectacularly stupid ways -- aren't you just helping your opposition?  The only folks I am ever tempted to moderate are those who agree with me, and do it poorly.  Back in college, I used to much prefer a group argument when I was the only person on my side, as I always found that people who leaped to my defense did more rhetorical harm than good.

Tags:
Category: Blogging, Computers & the Internet
  • Mark2

    I always get bummed out when you post this notice. Always wonder if I fall under this category.

    "The only folks I am ever tempted to moderate are those who agree with me, and do it poorly."

  • http://cardioblogy.blogspot.com/ Jens Fiederer

    Either SOME comment must have gotten your goat, or you just wanted to encourage us to scan the comment sections for the offending item!

    I'd have to say your policy of benign neglect works fairly well....the comments don't look any worse than those at an actively moderated site.

  • http://myweeklycrime.wordpress.com Elliot

    I uhgre with yew.

  • Don

    "With friends like these..."

  • Barbara S. Meyer

    As Warren's Mom, one of the morons he has argued with the longest, I would like to tell one story about one of those arguments. One day when he was 8 or 9, I stormed out of a room where I had been trying for at least a half hour to persuade him that I was right about something. I went into a room where his father was. He looked at my red face and the smoke coming out of my ears and said, "You know what the problem is, he's smarter than you." Fortunately, I walked out of that room too before I killed him or I would still be in jail today.

  • TXJim

    lol Elliot. Nice one.

    Hi Warren's Mom! A funny story that I will share with my wife, as an innoculation, in case I ever say something similar.

  • IGotBupkis, Purveyor of Fine Cynicism Since 2008

    Ms. Meyer: at the very least, your son is smart and entertaining. That reflects well on you, both as a person and as a parent.

  • DHL

    I usually engage the fools who comment on my blog, when they aren't foul-mouthed. It can be entertaining for me and, hopefully, my reasonable readers.

    Give it a try, you might get a kick out of it!

  • Zach

    I judge a lot of high school debate. Every judge knows that it's important to keep personal biases out of your decision. I find that it is very hard to judge teams who are advocating positions (bear in mind, I have no idea what the students actually believe except that they think their position gives them the best chance to win the round). Debate topics are usually very biased towards liberal thought, and so I usually wind up with 2 teams that I don't personally agree with anyway. On the rare occasion I do get a team that appeals to my personal biases (government shouldn't do that, CAGW is junk science, government shouldn't do that either, etc.) they usually make a ton of mistakes that often go unexploited by the other team, and I find it very hard to keep my decision fair.

  • Steve D

    'aren’t you just helping your opposition?'
    Wait; the purpose of all this blogging and commenting is to win arguments? I'm going about it all wrong, then. I thought it was to learn something!

  • http://thelibertypapers.org/ Brad Warbiany

    Warren,

    At The Liberty Papers, I really only have a few rules. Don't outright threaten anyone, don't let the name-calling get so screwed up that it stifles all discussion, and maintain a common name or pseudonym. In 7 years, the bulk of moderation activities I've had to do were related to the final point.

    Zach,

    I've heard that before. People are often unprepared to argue against a libertarian point of view, because frankly, they've never had to do so. So when the very people advocating the libertarian position make logical errors, those on the other side who haven't encountered the arguments might have a tough time spotting the errors.