Comments on: Moderation Matters

By: Steve Jackson

Steve Jackson — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 03:02:12 +0000

I don’t think there’s any actual question about whether it’s reasonable to ban the uncivil. Reasonable people might differ on whether to let a first-time offender off with a warning, or ban immediately. I tend to feel that all my users have visited forums before, and no trash-talker is legitimately unaware that he’s giving offense.

Re #15 – The “disemvowel” schtick is awfully cute, and amused me no end when I first encountered it, but it’s a half measure.

By: Steven Klotz

Steven Klotz — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 07:22:39 +0000

You inspired me to write a moderation policy for my blog. I got creative, since my only comments so far are from a close friend…

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 00:20:24 +0000

One could always disemvowel any uncivil comments instead of removing them …

By: Nathan

Nathan — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:04:21 +0000

“Don’t be a dick, or I’ll cut out your (virtual) tongue.”

That is so going to be my Moderation Policy.

By: Robert Walker

Robert Walker — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 20:18:41 +0000

Well, my website/blog isn’t popular enough (yet?) for me to have to worry about this issue, but I like your casual attitude about it, John. Myself, I guess I feel even a little more casual about it, because even if my blog starts to get more comments, I don’t feel the need to post a moderation policy. At this point, I think that the general rules of the game are known to those who would comment at all in the first place. Especially the dickheads and spammers.

And, to be honest, I’m just not the kind of guy to care all that much about the opinions of the typical whiny complainer. Just let them bug off and live with it.

And as for the “law”… I’m a little confused? We have free speech in the US? When did that come back? ;)

By: Three-Legged-Cat

Three-Legged-Cat — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 18:30:26 +0000

@DG Lewis #10 I'm veering somewhat off topic here, but in the UK there was a very high profile case where that happened. farmer gets life (he has since been released) burglar started legal action (fortunately he gave up!) Of course, our gun laws are very different to those in the USA.

By: Arachne Jericho

Arachne Jericho — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 15:07:05 +0000

@Patrick M #8:

Weird. People have to have a policy on blogs? I could see forums where there is no clear owner or the owner is a corporation, but a personal blog?

Oh totally. Anything that even slightly hints at “I can post stuff, even a tiny comment” starts to give some people airs of “the site owner TOTALLY owes me for the content I put on their site, and the attention I give to them, for I comment, and therefore am IMPORTANT.”

The other symptom I’ve seen is, “Free speech applies everywhere of course, and this site doesn’t really look different from every other site out there, therefore I can LAMBASTE this person for having an opinion I deem stupid.”

I know a mom with a bicycling blog that I advised to Akismet spam block some mothers who were upset she was having her kids bike. Like, really, really upset. Profanity-stalking-capslock-upset. The joyful thing about Akismet is that a single block also blocks the IP address for the future.

Also, forums also have owners, where owner == “whoever foots the hosting bill, web development, and time spent dealing with idiot users and trolls”. Lots of people, for some reason, do not understand this (hence “this is not your personal arguing machine” statements that must be made).

Basically, anything that has community tied to it at all, personal blogs encouraging such things included, is vulnerable to the, ah, self-entitled. It’s so much more helpful to have a policy to warn some of them off.

I expect the first troll to come along in about a month due to my “Like this site? Buy me a coffee” Paypal link. Because it is *sacrilege* to offer up a link for people to tip you for content.

By: DG Lewis

DG Lewis — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 13:34:11 +0000

Patrick M @#8:

“Complaining about censorship on someone’s blog is somewhat akin to someone breaking into a house and then suing because they got shot.”

You know, I don’t have access to LexisNexis, but I’d be willing to wager that with a little digging you could find a case where that’s happened.

By: Steve Buchheit

Steve Buchheit — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 12:15:16 +0000

As one of those who have skirted close to John’s moderation que, I can only say he’s exceedingly fair here.

By: Patrick M.

Patrick M. — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 12:07:38 +0000

Weird. People have to have a policy on blogs? I could see forums where there is no clear owner or the owner is a corporation, but a personal blog?

Heck, I can’t even register here so I could go back and delete or edit a post. As blog owner, you could even edit this post so it said something entirely different.

Complaining about censorship on someone’s blog is somewhat akin to someone breaking into a house and then suing because they got shot.