Several other bloggers, co-bloggers and yours truly have noted an unwelcome shift since the Middle East broke out in its latest spate of turmoil and violence:
It has turned VERY ugly in comments.
In fact, as this weblog approaches its third anniversary, it has reached a point where I’m under a lot of criticism from people from ALL sides (including people who post here) because I don’t like deleting ANYONE’s comments or banning commenters that go way over the line. What’s “over the line”? It’s common sense, and the people who cross it know full well that they’ve pushed the envelope.
So in recent weeks I tried to leave polite warnings about guidelines.
I removed some offensive language. I left several warnings that some comments would be deleted. This was amid getting emails from cobloggers several times A DAY, several top bloggers and readers from BOTH parties complaining about some of the truly inflammatory racial things being said in comments here.
And the problem comments came from both sides. One person who emailed me complained bitterly about a certain person’s comments. I defended that person.I left gentle warnings. I deleted one of his posts. And explained why. Then I had to delete another one.
Then I had to delete a post by the reader who complained to me about him for going over the line in the OTHER direction….and that reader who had complained then angrily emailed me back saying this site was like the “Nazis or Pravda.” I explained that the limits apply to BOTH sides in the debate.
And that other guy? He virtually asked to be banned after not taking the hint — so we banned him.
There is a BIGGER ISSUE at play here here for weblogs. This weblog believes in the interplay of ideas — ideas that are often at odds, perhaps bitterly so. Because opposing ideas don’t cause brain cancer. In case you haven’t noticed, we link to blogs of ALL kinds here (and regularly LOSE readers of the right and left who say if we link to X blog that they hate they’ll never ever visit us again).
Can this approach survive in a mega-polarized world where political debate to some is hurling insults and personally going after writers who express an opposing view?
Some bloggers have intricate systems to register people who want to comment. Some screen commenters carefully. We’ve chosen to let anyone who wants to comment do so and WANT to continue doing so. (Some blogs don’t even allow comments anymore).
Our co-blogger Jack Grant, who has his own great weblog, sent us an email and with his permission we’re reproducing parts of it here:
I haven’t been tracking the comments at The Moderate Voice too much lately because I haven’t been posting, and even when I was writing frequently, I had set up a filter on my email to send the comment notification emails to a special folder that I would peruse only occasionally because of the nature of many of the comments received, which were not in the nature of respectful disagreement but instead attacks on everything from my logic to my supposed agenda. I decided I didn’t need to read that kind of raving from those who most often had no weblogs of their own and therefore no body of work that presented a basis for debating views.
That experience, right when readership of The Moderate Voice was taking off, prompted me to think about what the rationale was behind comments at weblogs, and what was the point to blogging itself. That was when I formulated the comment policy at my own weblog, Random Fate.
There is one argument that says any deletion of comments based upon content is somehow suppressing debate. If there were not so many venues for starting a weblog that are no cost or low cost, I would say that argument had some strong legs to stand on, but given that even many popular blogs are based at Blogger, the argument becomes substantially weaker.
The entire point behind trackbacks is to promote cross-blog discussion, and if people are willing to truly debate a point, they should be willing to lay their entire argument and position out, which requires more space than reasonable in a comment thread. Also, they can be as hateful and despicable in their own space as they like, and even be so anonymously, without defiling the pages of weblogs for which they are not paying the associated costs. I happen to pay for my own host and maintain my own blogging software setup, so I see no need to subsidize the rants of others. Joe is kind enough to allow me to post on his space, but I never forget that Joe is paying the bills, and it does affect the content of what I choose to post at The Moderate Voice.
I choose not to read the comments on most weblogs now, because I have found in the vast majority of cases there is little value-added for the time consumed. I do follow trackbacks, which have a far better return on the time invested.
I now SKIM comments because due to a killing travel, performing, writing and blogging schedule I have to choose between doing posts and reading comments.
But over the past three weeks I have been deluged with complaints about several commenters — one in particular. I defended him until today when he virtually asked me to ban him — and I gave him his wish. And, as in the few other cases where I banned someone, I don’t feel good about it even though I am not sympathetic to his perspective (nearly a whole branch of my family was wiped out by the Nazis). MORE from Jack:
So, ultimately, it comes down to this question: What is the raison d’etre for the weblog? Why does the blog exist, why do people post to the blog?
I don’t want to speak for Joe, but from my understanding he does want to encourage debate amid the chorus of lockstep, unthinking majority of politically oriented blogs in blogworld.
I question whether the debate can be kept reasonable without some type of control over the comments, whether that be verified registration with a valid email address and an evaluation period where the bona fides of frequent commenters are checked, or active comment approval by either Joe or the respectivepost authors each approving or rejecting comments to their own posts.
The lowest-common-denominator of human nature in my mind rules out the uncontrolled anarchic approach because the level of that denominator is below what I consider acceptable.
I am almost beginning to agree, yet I would assert that most people who debate, even passionately or angrily, DO NOT GO OVER THE LINE.
As I said before, though, Joe is paying the bills, and I abide by whatever decision he makes. Unfortunately, I fear the early, “glory days” of blogging are over and now the crazies are out spewing their bile around and ruining it for everyone. ‘Tis the nature of every human endeavor.
I’ll be re-reading Jack’s comments often as time goes on. But for the present, readers who want to comment should know:
(1) There is still free debate here. We have readers who are from both parties: independent-thinking conservatives, liberals and centrists.
(2) We know some sites allow any kind of language but there are some words not allowed in daily newspapers that we don’t want on this site. So if you use one, it may be deleted from your comment — and I’ll bet you’ll find that it will not take away from the idea behind your comment. Just as happens in comedy, you can “work clean” and communicate just as effectively.
(3) If you go over the line in making racial comments (we have now deleted a comment that was anti-Muslim and generated complaints from people who were Jewish, several comments that were anti-Semitic, and one that viciously attacked a co-blogger) we will delete it. If it happens a lot and our warnings aren’t heeded we may have to move to ban. If you virtually ASK US to ban you, we will do so.
(4) Commenters who use fake or nonexistent email addresses and leave comments that go over the line are likely to be banned faster.
(5) Highly personal and/or slanderous attacks on this site’s writers and/or reader commenters are NOT appreciated and will not be allowed.
(6) We NEVER EVER “un-ban” anyone because it takes A LOT for someone to be banned from this site.
Blog comments without some kind of limits or standards are problematic. You can’t get on talk radio without some standards being followed (many shows screen; all use a 7-second delay). Newspapers and magazines select letters to the editor.
We love free and spirited debate with people from all sides giving their viewpoints, so we’re not doing a big comment moderating system. But there are some limits.
And if you don’t like our limits? Take Jack’s advice. Start your own blog if you don’t have one.
So our experiment continues — even though we are aware that there are more restrictive options than we’ve had to seriously consider for the first time in nearly three years.
UPDATE: We have now instituted a general comments policy that readers will see when they register for comments and when they post comments.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.