I like to ask folks for feedback. One of the things I have to decide in the next few months as I move We Are Respectable Negroes forward is what to do about an official commenting policy.
When I started We Are Respectable Negroes I wanted to create a salon of sorts where different people could talk about topics and issues that are not receiving due attention in the mainstream media. Consequently, there is much complexity of thought and opinion surrounding the various issues addressed on this site. We talk about race, politics, popular culture, history, academia, and other issues of both private and public concern. Sometimes these exchanges can become impassioned. However, they should still be grounded in mutual respect, intellectual honesty, and rigor.
I also decided to have a relatively relaxed policy towards comments and posting. I have chosen to leave the option available for folks to post anonymously for example. I also do not require OpenId or registering in order to comment here on WARN. I did this so that new folks could feel free to contribute without being unduly hindered. Blogger's software is also not very robust in the options it allows for comment moderation. Consequently, this choice was a practical one as well.
I have a few questions--especially for those of you who read WARN but do not comment--this is also a chance for lurkers to introduce themselves as well.
Is the current tone of the comment section encouraging or discouraging you from participating? Are there issues you would like to discuss but feel that your point of view would be dismissed, subject to bullying, or otherwise rejected prima facie by other posters? Is there anything I could do as an administrator to make you more likely to chime in?
We have a nice group of folks who always comment. My goal is to broaden that community as much as possible, while still allowing for civil discourse. As we broaden the conversation, out of necessity we are going to have to ensure that some basic rules of order, politeness, and common sense are stated plainly for those new arrivals.
At some point, I am going to have to write a more formal commenting policy. For now, here are my principles going forward here on We Are Respectable Negroes. Please feel free to make suggestions.
1. Don't be impolite. Please be respectful of the other commenters. The goal here is to have a robust conversation. WARN is not a "chat site" or place to "try to get your name up" by "owning" other people. This site is also not an opportunity for you to blog by proxy. If you want to share your talking points, propagandize, write a treatise, or free ride, you should start your own web project. If you would like to offer up a guest post please email me and we can talk about your proposed idea.
2. Keep the conversation moving forward. Chime in on the topic at hand, relate it to other pertinent matters. Share some readings, links, or other material that could enlighten us. Conversations have a life of their own. That can be indulged without derailing the topic at hand.
3. Disagreement is welcome and encouraged. We Are Respectable Negroes is not an amen corner. However, if you cannot disagree without calling names, acting childishly, or generally being a jerk, then please refrain from posting. I am pretty flexible and pragmatic. Readers who have been here longer and have a track record get much more leeway than new arrivals. The rule still generally holds. Such is life.
4. I reserve the right to delete comments which are not moving us forward or that otherwise violate these very basic guidelines for civil conversation. I also reserve the right to ban repeat offenders. I have only done this on one occasion. I hope that I will never have to do so again. After talking to other people who have been writing online for much longer than me (and are much more successful at it), I am slowly coming to see the wisdom of occasionally pulling the weeds out of the garden in order to encourage growth and new life.
5. I write about the topics which interest me. I do not write for the approval of others or to otherwise please people. I enjoy learning from all the good folks who have found their way to WARN. However, I am not going to be subject to the whims of others who get upset because I do not parrot or mirror their political views, hobbies, or interests. As I always say, the Internet is a big place; feel free to start up your own project.
6. I believe in free speech. However, free speech is not a license to be rude, uncivil, harass, bully, or heckle others here on WARN. If this is your preferred means of interacting with people online it is not a good fit for We Are Respectable Negroes.
7. For now, I am going to leave the "anonymous" option available for those who would like to comment. However, I am going to be very robust in policing comments written under that category. I would suggest picking a name and using it for purposes of encouraging responsible dialogue where we can all learn by talking--and hopefully listening more--to each other.
54 comments:
what if we are signifying and playing the dozens?
@Weird. I think I would pick up on that part of the black oral tradition of signifying and the like.
@CD:
Congratulations on advocating for a set of standards for your site.
As they mirror the standards I have long advanced, I hope you will reopen the door to civil exchange.
If I see this posting, I will know that you are seeking civil discourse in line with your stated standards.
@Colorbind. You don't learn do you?
Take the chance to sneak in through the backdoor after a time out--don't return on the wrong foot. You were the only person informally banned here on WARN. Carry an olive branch and some fruit; don't come back with snark or a snicker.
"I think I would pick up on that part of the black oral tradition of signifying and the like."
Is a racial slur like "jiggaboo" playing the dozens? I move that that be banned. Is threatening to kick someone's ass playing the dozens? Ban that too. Then I won't have to curse nobody out again.
Stop playing and just install disqus so that you can properly and adequately control isht in your house. Simple.
Oh yeah, you can keep blogger comments running in parallel so that both databases are populated. This is about 99.999% transparent to the users. You'll see a boatload of spam coming through the blogger, almost none coming through disqus.
Who gets to police the host aka CD?
CD has called me many names one of his posts referred to me as playing with my dick.
I regret WARN taking this posture toward comments as WARN will now lose it special status as a truly progressive Black site.
I also acknowledge my role in CD 's misstep here .My posture this last couple of months was to try to move CD from his redundant and derivative dictator style of editing to emcompass a more evolving WARN
With this edit now from CD it is apparent that I have failed.I will of course abide and comply with CD's comment policy going forward this is not a good look for the state of Black blogging etc but we solider on...
Peace & Love
Who gets to police the host aka CD?
rotflmbao...,
the quintessential poster child for unselfconscious jigga-BOO-ology...,
anon, if you had the substance of thought to start your own blog, you would be free to run unpoliced as well, god forbid. i don't kick your door down and tell you how to behave, so don't do it to CD.
does someone calling you names hurt your feelings? do you need to tell the lunch aide about it so they get detention? grow up. act like an adult.
"the quintessential poster child for unselfconscious jigga-BOO-ology...,"
Yeah, that's the kind of garbage I'm talking about.
Freebones,
Why are you dictaing terms for me in another's site?
Why must I start a blog to register an opinion on a site which invites opinion?
Why is it my opinions make you react in such a fashion that you have to be snarky and childish and then you have the audacity to lecture to me to grow up and act like an adult?
I have reluctantly agreed to the terms of engagement here nevertheless I will always reserve my right to react in kind to thise who seek to defame and insult me.
Clearly you have not agreed to CD's new code of conduct in here with regard to comments.
Please explain your actions or simply adhere to the new code of conduct on WARN.
Peace & Love
Nomad,
Thanks for your objectivity:-)
Not one second after I agreed to CD's edict did CNu continue to engaged in his twisted demeanor.
Clearly he has decided to ignore CD's edict and the code of conduct for comments.
I think now the forum will understand what I have been up against but more importantly how I despite my reservations about censorship and dictorial posturing by our host I will adhere to the new code of conduct on WARN.
Just sayin..
BTW as another show of good faith I will now identify my comments with my new tag of
Urban Guru aka UG
Ok. Once more before giving up. Here's a suggestion:
PLEASE READ BEFORE COMMENTING
In order to keep the comments section interesting to all readers, comments are moderated and the following will be deleted:
-Personal attacks and insults
-"First"
-Hate Speech
-Off Topic
-ALL-CAPS
-Abusive Net-Speak ("i thk dis iz crazi")
-Trolling or derailing the conversation
-Spam
-Proselytizing for or against a religion
-Using the reply feature without actually replying to a comment
Moving On..
I think I will take CD's offer and pen a narrative for WARN.
My theme will be on how a white jewish mayor in Chicago lack of cultural and racial tool set has him unfit and incapable of playing a significant role in ending the the volume of urban homocides presently in Chicago..
I will explore how the pathology of white racism/supremacy continues to damage and impact the roles of whites in our society from being mayors in urban venues to educators in urban school systems.
I will aso explore how the inability of whites to fashion a sincere relationship with their Black counterparts of all ages especially has created the potential for a continued fractured America as we evolve towards a brown and post industrial society and nation
@CDV
I read your words as accepting my proposal. Just to be clear, please explain "sneak in", "back door", "snark or snicker". I do not want (nor do I think would others)to violate your standards. FWIW, I thought I was offering an olive branch. I am here to learn. Thank you.
does someone calling you names hurt your feelings?
rotflmbao...,
What has you witnessing chronologically grown-assed men crying like little bishes in the textual/imaginal sphere - is more crippling to these geriatric toddlers - and whatever utterly pathetic discursive sphere they actually influence - than any institutional or direct interpersonal racism any of them has ever experienced in their whole and entire lives!!!
Somebody looking at these imbeciles "wrong" hurts their infantile and distorted feelings. Everything these emotional cripples think and express is consequently a product of that underlying severe psychological distortion.
Now, stop and think about the extent to which fools like these two have jacked up governance and political operations in cities all across America for the past 40 years.
Activists my ass....,
These are extroverted infants desperately craving attention and validation - AND NOTHING WHATSOEVER BEYOND THAT!
Colorbind - cut out the bullshit. You can learn all you want without having to be handheld, spoonfed, and indulged your obsessive-compulsive hair-splitting.
Wrong you idiot. Ain never been nobody like me in positions of power.
The only reason I'm complainin bout yo foolish azz is I cause you slinging shit like a humanzee. Evolve, nigga!
@CNU:
Like you, I abhor B.S. I would never ask to be spoonfed, handheld or indulged. If I read something (here or elsewhere) that I don't know, don't understand, or have reason not to believe, I ask for back-up. I see that as an opportunity to learn. Thanks.
CD, I would love to see more blogs on how you take the ladies to "space mountain." You also said you are a "fan of booty love." Inquiring minds want to know! And yes, I am a woman.....a beautiful one at that :) I'm just saying it wouldn't hurt to mix it up a lilttle,lol.
MB
Ain never been nobody like me in positions of power.
lol, THAT goes without saying staymad.
The problem is that competent, sane adults were constantly having to mollycoddle, pacify, cater too, or otherwise patronize your infantile sensibilities to the point where they just got tired and moved as far away from you as practically possible.
Once having abandoned you to your own devices, you found yourself mired in a world of shit of your own construction, a world you can't fix, a world for which the fount of sympathy and empathy has run completely dry, and a world that is not going to be tolerated in any manner, form, or fashion in the contracting economy.
This leaves you in the unenviable position of having to account for yourself and for those who followed your "lead" and who have now found themselves featured as the poster children for ineducable poverty, crime, disease, and dysfunction. Enjoy this fin d'siecle travesty while you can.
you slinging shit like a humanzee. Evolve, nigga!
lol...,
"Evolve, nigga!"
rotflmbao....,
Fool, I've always been at least one full generation ahead of your time along every dimension of cognitive and technical function you can imagine. You could call me the "ghost of futures past" or the "spook who sat by that signpost up ahead".
Since we both know that the possibility of any further psychological evolution on your part is nil - I don't require an answer from you.
Colorblind,
What is to be learned from posters who spout out nonsense about a Black death squad and engages in contemptible discourse others simply because of the hue of thier skin?
I to resent censorship and all forms of efforts to dictate content etc..
I also respect discord that fosters progressive, alternative, contrarian, counter, content..
Just saying..
I find your "WARN" to be a menace with a implied threat that the boogyman is gonna get you sucka.
You could've come up with so many other good names, but you always relapse into threats, intimidation, and violence.
I never expect much, and I'm never disapointed.
CDV I would strongly recommend getting rid of anonymous comments. I've found that when a blog's comments really start catching on, a huge percent of trollish negativity comes from people who enjoy not taking responsibility for what they say. This very thread is a pretty good example of that.
Good luck!
-ish is a good example of what he is guilty of himself.
Nice name-calling, too.
Sir Chauncey De Vega,
I truly respect your blog. It is a reliable informative resource that I access daily. I have been sharing my elation as well as your content with any and everyone who displays cognitive potential for roughly a year and I also observe, though not as closely, the comments. In response to your inquiry regarding "lurkers"- I'd like to think of myself as a closet academic as well. I had a poor public education amongst other things which led to my pursuit of knowledge. I am not well read but it remains my top priority. In short, I refrain from commenting because I feel I have nothing to offer. Sometimes the comment space feels more combative than it does progressive. Forgive my childish observation of others 'styles' of presenting what they know. I suppose I have always imagined the philosophical battleground riddled more with question than assertion. (though, your responses to Color-Blinds baffling rhetoric never cease to entertain) Even as I write I notice that I am anxiety ridden about my grammar not being on par with yours or other eloquent bloggers. Content is important to me. Therefore, your site is a daily dose of refreshing humility. There is no "Lurking" but rather some good ole' fashioned humble digestion. How about this? What do you recommend for a 26 year old art school undergrad who is aware of his depth of conditioning and aims to escape. I may be a shit writer but I have a decent range of comprehension and am no stranger to ideas surrounding meta-cognition. I just feel extremely behind. My current lover is and accountant and extremely well versed in areas of finance and politics. My experiences through conversation with her have been extremely eye opening. However, it makes me proud knowing that she still needs my translation when approaching a blog entry of yours. I digress. Ultimately, and in the lamest of lamens, to wake up and realize you've been tricked for a long time can be burdensome and daunting. The net is a big place because the world is a big place. I don't want to meander about until I find prime information. As a Black youth, I feel under intellectual attack and the cliche quote "what you don't know can't hurt you", I've learned, is the farthest thing from the truth.
Your opinions are greatly welcomed.
(Feel free to tear me a new asshole on grammatical errors)
@Cnu. I am going to integrate disqus shortly if not when I change some other things too. Good suggestion.
@Ish. I have reluctantly come to understand why many sites do not allow them. As I transition things here, I am going to start policing all anonymous comments. They have become a distraction and do not allow for reasonable conversation.
@Anon. In the spirit of this transition, I will respond to your great example of the type of writing before you think lack of critical reflection mess I want to preempt. WARN is an acronym. Get it?
@UG. Parsimony is your friend.
@Nomad. Those are going to be tough calls. I am all for witty word play, I also don't like racial invective. My rule with Cnu, yourself, and others who have commented for some time is going to be looser than for others. If the scale tips from useful contributions over to just hateful, provocative mess, then I will edit some of those comments.
Cnu is a provocateur who pushes conversations and more often than not provides information on here and on his own site that is of use. He is also a bit of an eccentric so I indulge his ways as such. Cnu is also an adult who does beg and boohoo about things said online. I like that. But, I will keep your points in mind too.
@Mb. I sexually disappoint women in many many ways on a routine basis. It is one of my few talents. Send me a pic and an email I can detail more of these sad exploits to you offline.
I am thinking of doing an advice column in the next iteration of this site. I may let a friend actually write such a column as they have the expertise, but when it starts I will carry the weight. Perhaps, you can share a question or two that I will answer online.
@WARN Virgin. Thanks for chiming in. Read. Read alot. Write. Then write more. Talk to people. Observe.
Most importantly learn how to listen and embrace your ignorance as a challenge to be overcome.
Remember, we are all friends here so do comment whenever you feel the mood or have a question. I am sure you will find many people who would want to constructively engage with you.
@Anonwhowillsoonbeusinganame. You can't come in someone else's house and police them. It doesn't work that way. Again, maybe this is back to home training, I wouldn't go over someone's house as a guest and start rearranging their furniture, commenting on how the place is dusty, and trying to get all up in the kitchen and cook their food. I was invited in by someone extending their hospitality. Now, if the place was not up to my standards of cleanliness, the host's food wasn't very good, and I didn't like being there I would politely demure another invite. If you don't like WARN do your own thing. Heckling, complaining, and trying to "move" the host in your direction is an epic fail.
Did it perhaps occur to you that I am not interested in following the old head activist path? That I believe that model is dead? And that black politics and the politics of mass mobilization are moribund and obsolescent?
As I evolve WARN and bring in some new voices I am rededicating myself to pushing boundaries and going places that others are afraid to. There is real trouble afoot in this country and around the world. As the miner's canaries black and brown folks, and the poor and working class, are the first targets. For example, I don't know if you picked up on this, but when elected officials and opinion leaders of a major political party start using the language of "surplus people," "the productive class," "job creators," and "parasites" we are at a major turning point. That is eliminationist rhetoric that I thought I would not see in American political discourse in my lifetime. Wake up.
I am true to myself. Some of these swings are going to be home runs, others misses. So be it. I hope you stay around and contribute; if not, see ya later.
CD
I have resigned to the notion you would come around but foolish me I am on your turf. I could argue my comments had nothing to do with taking over your house and installing my rules I viewed my insights as dissent and alternative opinions
Perhaps I thought given the immunity and license you gave CNu since my posts were never as anal as is I would be allowed to be a free black man in a black site
Yet I made a fatal error my prose was catching on with other dissenters they unlike CNu , Fred, sabriniabee, et al affirmed me and agreed your content was flawed and suspect of late
In summary I have reluctantly accepted your misguided rules of commentary conduct as a utilitarian I gain more this way .
BTW your analysis of 'old heads' paradigms is do off target and underdeveloped ,... I will save my talking points for another day .
I think I have created enough change already this week for WARN
Peace & Love
I like the idea of getting rid of the anonymous option. I'm afraid that a moniker will not change the actions of a person.
Having a set of rules can be useful to point out why for those that are In violation. I am okay with it.
@UG. Don't be so self-congratulatory. I think that is part of the problem with your posting and writing here. Also, "come around?" Come around to who and what? You are not my guide, now was I in anyway in need of correction.
What advice or guidance would you offer? If you had your own site, your own utopian playpen among the chattering classes, what type of content would you offer? What would be orthodox and politically correct as you understand the concepts relative to the politics of black empowerment?
I mean that sincerely as I believe that we may just be operating off of different first principles.
Tell me how my paradigm is off target or otherwise misspecified. I know a little something about black politics and political mobilization. One of the most obvious points for those who study black political demobilization is how these old school civil right indigeneous black resource mobilizations models need to be innovated upon. Practically, and since you are an "activist," you are intimately familiar with how black and brown central cities were starved of resources in the post 1960s. Chocolate cities are dead. This was no accident. Now they are being gentrified.
In the face of globalization and neoliberalism what can your local activism accomplishment on a macrolevel scale? What does marching, sign carrying, and complaining accomplish? OWS for example was a blip that got little done because the forces they are fighting are anti-democratic. They could care less about citizen activism.
I realize that I am late to the party but will add my two centavos anyway.
I used to frequent Field Negro until a year or so ago, when I finally got fed up with the unfettered bullshit on the comment threads. Interesting and relevant topics but, generally, if your comment was not in the first 40 or 50, it would be lost in the usual cast of characters derailing the conversation with insults, conspiracy theory and irrelevant idiocy. I hope it is different now but wouldn't know because I stopped checking in.
The analogy I favour is that of a neighbourhood bar. The 1st Amendment is all about the government restricting free speech, not your local barman. A good barman throws out a disruptive patron. It's not a matter of being right or wrong, it's a matter of being a dickhead.
That said, I like your seven bullet points. Not that my opinion really matters, but you were asking for input.
@Anon. I appreciate the thoughts. I wanted to be reasonable and fair. I wrote these suggested guidelines because I had to, not because I wanted to. Do chime in more often, pick a name, and share your opinions!
good stuff.
Interesting how you have defined for me my pedigree... BTW I never posted anything about marching, protesting, complaining ...
The decay of cities is nothing new what is important is the inhabitants of said cities.
My final comment on this issue I am sadden that you have frame dissent and alternatives opinions as posters hijacking your site..
Moving on...
UG
@UG. That is dishonest and unfair. When folks threaten, bully, and harangue people I must take action.
I especially will not allow anonymous readers or others to explicitly state that they are going to move WARN, something I created, in the direction they want it to go--with or without me. Going back to the bar or salon analogy I also am not going to let "guests" insult the host with impunity. That is a bad look.
Your complaint is absurd. You have the comment policy, it is broad and fair. If you do not like it create your own project. Not difficult. Alternatively, you can post here in a constructive manner.
anon:
are you 12? i ask because you act like many kids i went to elementary school with.
now go ahead and call that mean and nasty. watch as CD does not delete it. cry.
" If the scale tips from useful contributions over to just hateful, provocative mess, then I will edit some of those comments."
uh huh.
Nomad
My dissent has already been deleted by the new dictator ... I questioned why the selective enforcement including giving immunity for CNU's hateful rants as well as our host's ugly taunts...
Just satin..
UG
@Anon. Please read the comment policy. Consider this your official warning. I don't want to ban you, i.e. block your IP, always delete your comments, and lock you out when we go to disqus, but you are really pushing my limits. Contribute constructively or please move along.
A) getting rid of the "Anonymous" option (while leaving the Pseudonymous option unmolested) will make it *much* easier to follow the conversation; it's just too much to follow when Anon starts flaming Anon and Anon jumps in...
B) I commented for years on the Guardian LitBlogs, before the Totalitarian Decorum moderation policy kicked in, and things could get fairly het up on a given thread... yet, not once did I catch anyone using tribe-specific put-downs like "mick", "harp", "paddy", "paki", "kike" and so on. The anger/animus/passion of the flamewarring was pure and usually sort of rational and the eugenics epithets too puerile/vulgar/message-diluting to stoop to.
I mean: there's something, uh, queer, about a Progressive Black Site where the word "jigaboo" is slopped around so casually. The Zizekian double-bluff ("because it's so obviously about Negro-hating, it can't really be about Negro-hating... can it?") notwithstanding, it seems to lower the tone a few miles. I'm all for access to the total palette of language, but, you know, if I were trying to sell cheese-burgers to middle America, I probably wouldn't use the words "vomit" or "turd" in the commercial.
C) @UG: "My theme will be on how a white jewish mayor in Chicago lack of cultural and racial tool set has him unfit and incapable of playing a significant role in ending the the volume of urban homocides presently in Chicago."
He's just there to oversee the cleanup of all those skeleton-cluttered closets. Also, of course, the Mayor's office is but a stepping stone on the way to the Emanuel/Giffords ticket of 2020.
Here here, Stephen. Or is it hear hear? "there's something, uh, queer, about a Progressive Black Site where the word "jigaboo" is slopped around so casually."
" If the scale tips from useful contributions over to just hateful, provocative mess, then I will edit some of those comments."
The scale tipped to here with the puerile marauder a long time ago.
If someone attacks me verbally I will respond in kind. I like to mix it up evy once in a while. But there is a limit. In the long wrong its a waste.
I wonder if Chauncey realizes how many first time commentors the resident bully jumps on that never return? Sensible people generally don't want to engage in shit fights. By the same token, I wonder if the pitbull shits jiggaboo in his own backyard. Or do he just come over to CDs place to do it? It makes Respectable Negroes...well...less respectable.
I enjoyed your site, CD. I learned a lot; so tanks for dat. The nomad is moving on.
Nomad
M2
UG
@Nomad. I feel your points on scaring off first time posters. I do hope you return. Cnu, nor does anyone other commenter, have carte blanche (sp?). As I said my policy is just a guideline, posters who have a track record get some slack--which would include you--but no commenter is going to be allowed to bully or harangue going forward.
Yeah, I'll probably stick around. If black folks of different stripes can't dialog we might as well thro our hands up in the air; wavem like, uno...
@Nomad. Your point of view and comments are always valued. I do hope you stay around.
Mr. De Vega:
I would suggest that your blog try to get rid of all the trolls. They are truly nonsensical. They generally interrupt any real discussion on the many thought provoking topics you are bringing forth. I enjoy your blog very much, but I think that we can have some real debate here without troll posts.
Thank you for your blog. I find your work to be excellent.
Lila
CD, dunno if you are still reading this thread, but my STRONG suggestions are (1) that you move from Blogger to Wordpress and (2) get rid of anonymous commenting. Wordpress is a much better platform with perfect integration between the commenting and blogge itself (unlike Disqus), outstanding built-in Akismet spam filtering, and much nicer blogge templates. As far as anonymous commenting, it hinders conversation because it makes it very difficult to keep straight who is saying what when you've got numerous anonymous commenters all commenting at the same time.
Peace, bro!
@Comrade. Thanks for the advice. What we learn in hindsight. That is one option I am exploring, we are also looking at a total overhaul in the since of organization. I will make up my mind by the end of the summer.
Anons are more trouble than they are worth. If it is one drive-by comment cool; whole conversations nope.
As you saw here with the poo slinging "activists" troll Detroit basement dwellers it was out of control. But we live and learn and their high jinks forced me to make a decision I should have long ago.
Dude, if you decide to move to Worspress and you want any help with it, let me know. I've been using it for years and know all the ins and outs.
I do not comment because I don't feel like my contributions would add anything already said.
@Comrade. Thanks. Will stay in touch!
@Lhun. We all have something to contribute. Chime in.
I am totally new to this blog. I found your policy eminently sensible. I noticed some of the back and forth about the dozens, etc. That is definitely an area where you just need moderator judgement and can not mechanically state rules to cover all cases. I come from a different culture, the world of ultra orthodox Judaism with its back and forth replete with the rich insult repertoire of Yiddish and biblical allusions in place of direct statement. Moderating in that context there are also subtleties that cannot be legalistically specified but require a moderator's judgment. In moderating comments I occasionally was more tolerant when the talent displayed in the insult was well above the norm
In blogging(inactive for the last year) about sex abuse in the ultra orthodox world I was dealing with all sorts of attitudes which obstruct disclosure of the crimes and its prosecution. I gave a lot of leeway to what I considered silly defenses of the old ways of covering up abuse. I was especially tolerant when those arguments were widespread so that readers could see the rejoinders to those arguments.
I like your reminders to commenters that they can always go out and establish their own blogs and enforce their own rules.
Below is the text I use about my commenting policies:
Rules for Comments
Don’t insult others. Don’t hock away. If you have made your point and someone doesnt agree, don’t dump the same thing ten times. You are just shouting in internet fashion. We don’t bully each other. Don’t call someone an ignoramous. By all means share information and explain why you think it it relevant.
Made up names or your real name are fine. Passing yourself off as another real person is slimy. Don’t do six posts in a row under six different names to make it seem like five people agree with you. That is another form of screaming and monopolizing. It is even worse because it is deceptive.
Please use links rather than pasting in large chunks of material. Follow that with a brief description. This method respects other people’s copyright and allows the comments section to focus on the thoughts of our readers.
I will enforce these rules. At my discretion I will issue warnings, delete individual comments and ban serious or persistant abusers. At my discretion I will explain my decisions. Since I am doing this on my time I will not feel obliged to waste it by arguing about it with bullies who try to get their way by wearing down other people.
I have installed comment moderation because some readers severly abused the above policies. In some instances they even named victims of abuse and gave their addresses out. While I did eventually delete the material, I am no longer willing to accept the problem that it can take several hours or in rare cases days before I discover and correct the problem. I will not disclose the algorithm used to determine which comments are or are not held in a queue. But I believe I have come up with a good compromise between protecting victims and promoting free flow and debate. I am not censoring controversial opionons including some pretty obnoxious ones. I prepare refuting bad arguments to censoring them. However, obnoxious commenters do not get to repeatedly say the same thing to the point that it is hocking rather than arguing.
Yes, I quit posting due to bullying! Comments should never be censored though.
I haven't yet commented here butt(I'm a butt man), I like the site.
I AM a member of Black Planet and have been a token white dude in a few of the groups.
I'm called Travellin_Light there.
I'm a single, white dude originally from Chicago.
Now that I have you bored, I wanna make a comment about commenting.
I'm a guy who hates the "n" word and STRONGLY feel it ought to be banned from this and other sites.
Yeah, I'm a white guy butt, I'm also a hater of all things racist~~and that includes you who hate MY skin.
That said, Imma read some of the other ish in this site.
Peace to ya'll and hope it's all good.
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