Comments policy in 2010: what do readers think?
Posted on Thursday 31 December, 2009
Filed Under Blogging
SEVERAL regular readers have pointed to the increasingly acrimonious tone in this blog’s comments box, and have suggested that I start deleting comments, and even banning individuals of which they disapprove. However, I don’t plan to go down that road. Well, not yet, anyway.
There are number of reasons why I want Dave’s Part to stick to a full-on freedom of speech format. Not least of these is that I actually enjoy a good old fashioned no-holds-barred comments box slugfest. That’s not everybody’s style, but it is mine.
That’s why this blog is designed for people who are passionate about their politics, and ready to argue the toss in support of their position.
Some widely-read British far leftist bloggers routinely take down comments with which the main writer cannot deal. Others rely on moderation. OK, these things are up to the proprietors, but to my mind, such measures kill the flow of debate.
In almost four years, I have removed removed less than half a dozen comments from this website. Mostly this was unavoidable; some comments were plainly libelous, others identified people who wish to remain anonymous online. Apolitical abuse in obituaries written about personal friends also got the chop. Other than that, I have abided by the title of an old Chuck Berry song as a rule of thumb: let it rock.
Accordingly, I positively welcome comments from rightwingers, including those on the hard right, provided only that they come up with reasoned arguments. Hey, Tories! Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough!
People like Bill Corr are obviously a million miles from this blog’s openly socialist stance, and yes, I do think some of his contributions are racist. But my gut instinct is that he says nothing with which you lot cannot deal.
On the other hand, this bloke is upsetting sections of my core (or should that be ‘non-Corr’?) readership. Are you guys man/woman enough to take it? Opinions, please.
I also positively welcome comments from the mad as fuck ultralefts. However, I was particularly incensed by this recent jibe from the execrable Southpawpunch:
I agree with Eddie and John above and someone else who made a similar comment yesterday, that this blog is heading way downhill due to the “collection of racists, fascists and idiots that infest the comments”
I think the blog owner needs to decide whether he wants comments here from Lefts, such as myself (maybe he doesn’t) or the aforementioned – as, for me, it’s going to have to be one or the other.
By way of context here, readers may be aware that I am facing a four-day jury trial at the High Court in April, in front of Mr Justice Eady, in response to an action brought by the subject of one of a 2007 post.
One of the grounds on which I am being sued is a comment left by the above-mentioned Southpawpunch, who has disgracefully proved too pussy to provide a witness statement, lest the British state rumble the identity of this fearsome revolutionary. Thanks a lot, comrade.
Unsurprisingly, I don’t give a shit whether our heroic self-proclaimed ‘Left’ ever comments here again or not. But even in these circumstances, Southpawpunch most emphatically is not banned.
So let me throw this topic over to the masses. Would tighter control make for more intelligent discussion, or is it better to reject censorship and let people – from all points on the political spectrum – sometimes talk crap?
At this stage I will restrict myself to an appeal to one and all; keep the comments box political and at a halfway decent theoretical level in 2010, please folks.
Happy New Year. Even if it brings a Tory government and a couple of BNP MPs at Westminster, opening up a decade of domination for the British right as the left continues to flounder in its own stupidity.
<<Go back
Comments
113 Responses to “Comments policy in 2010: what do readers think?”
-
- Yemen: an unfinished revolution
- Comment Is Free: An honours system for those who fight to make Britain a better place
- Democracy crushed; elected President arrested; World wrings its hands
- Fabians change policy on unpaid internships
- Kamal al-Fayoumi arrested as Egyptian regime retaliates to strikes
-
-
Meta
-
“Andy Newman, the intellectual midget and embodiement of reactionary postcolonialism is getting a good trashing at Harry’s Place.”
Yes, the HP boys are pretty down on reactionary postcolonialism, since they prefer reactionary colonialism. Though given the direction of Dave’s blog and the fact that it seems to attract a pretty similar shower of schlemiels to HP, maybe a merger is in the offing.
Jock McTrousers: You remind me of the lady who congratulated Dr Johnson on not including any swear or crude words in his Dictionary. ‘Why, Madam, have you been looking for them?’, said the good Doctor. You can recall all the stories about sexual misbehaviour in the Bible, and relish repeating them. Does it give you an erotic thrill? Take up long distance fishing or something.
I looked up the tale of Abraham ‘pimping’ his wife. Yes, I had forgotten it strangely enough. Let’s see, does the procurer, Honest Abe (Satisfaction Guaranteed, Cleanest Girls in the Negev) go to Pharoah and offer his wife, Sarah? No, he travels to Egypt to escape a famine, and knowing that the Egyptians when they see how beautiful his wife Sarah is, will kill him and steal his wife. So, a paln is hatched, that he will pretend they are brother and sister. The Pharoah duly helps himself to Sarah, but the Old Man Upstairs commonly known as God or the LORD, was displeased and sent pestilence onto the Pharoah’s family. The Pharoah ejects Abe and his tribe, including Lot.
You still haven’t answered the question as to which son God asked Honest Abe to sacrifice. It’s very simple, just type the answer in. But, for a chap who can’t distinguish between the names ‘Mohsen’ and ‘Sue R’ this might be too difficult a task. Just whisper it to the bullrushes like King Midas’ barber and I’m sure it will reach me somehow.
I repeat, these are all just folk tales, there is no proof that the people involved ever existed as such. The same goes for Mohammed as well, there is no proof that Mohammed ever existed. Or, to show I am an equal opportunity doubter, there is no proof that Jesus existed either. BUT, as St Paul (who did exist) wrote, ‘Take the wheat and leave the chaff). (I’m sure my good friend Bill Corr, as a former altar boy will be able to supply the reference).
It’s ‘The Trout Piano Quintet’ by Franz Schbert, Opus 114.
The Old Trout accuses me of having been an altar boy.
I never was. In fact, I didn’t enter a Catholic church between my baptism and an aunt’s marriage when I was 12.
In fact I grew up as baptised Catholic but, as they say in the North of England, non-denominational.
Are readers here CERTAIN that there is NO Roman reference to Jesus in surviving records?
Here is something very smart about the WCC and the Republic of Vietnam:
http://frontpagemag.com/2010/01/04/remembering-south-vietnam-with-an-ecumenical-christmas-card-by-mark-d-tooley/
The interesting thing about Horowitz’s site is that he’s a lefty turned somewhat right but not a lefty turned into an apologist of despotism.
There was an error in my last post.
The reference was to the [American] National Council of Churches, not to the World Council of Churches. It is amusing to see that a Vietnamese refugee from the delights of Reunification did the artwork for their 2009 Christmas Card; this is then juxtaposed with the laudatory gush the NCC’s emissaries had to say about post-1975 Vietnam.
This is from INFORMATION CLEARING HOUSE:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24308.htm
… a site to be recommended to all even though some of it is nonsense.
Bill
Here’s a polite request to limit the frequency of your comments. Posting as regularly as you do, often in rapid-fire succession, is off-putting to others.
This remark is aimed at frequency, not content. But half a dozen comments a day max, please.
Strange thread, really, since few of the comments are about comments policy at all. I guess an open policy is best, but that involves the occasional shit storm.
I’m sure that Bill Corr says more than is necessary to make his ‘point’, whatever it may be. (I simply do not care what he says.)
Stranger to me are the comments of SueR, who seems to live in fear of Muslims.
Who told you, Mr Ludd, that I check under my bed every night for Muslims and I carry a rasher of bacon with me everytime I go out? It’s only sensible.
Bill Corr – your often random off-the-wall comments are quite Off Topic. Have you tried posting them at Socialist Unity or Lenin’s Tomb instead? You will get more attention there. Thanks!
I doubt your comments policy is perfect, or even close to perfect, but it’s infinitely better than that practised by Andy Newman at Socialist Unity.
@ Infantile and Disorderly
Isn’t that akin to pointing out Dave is a better babysitter than Herod?
Bill Corr. Dave & Bill must have taken a sample poll re-your comments. Keep posting Bill. Say what you want when you want and as many as you want.
Dave,
I think I’m coming round to your arguments on moderation, having just perused SU blog and notice another snide comment by Newman.
It is a pity, but reading SU blog as I do it is most annoying to come back to a particular thread only to see fairly innocuous comments deleted.
It’s not as bad as Lenin’s Tomb, but that’s not saying much.
But, Dave, one area on your blog is open to room for improvement, the spam filtration.
You get a lot of disguised spam at the end of these threads. It might be worthwhile trying to fix that, if only that, problem.