Ah, well, had to happen eventually, I suppose. In the past 18 months, I’ve only deleted a comment once. Now that it’s happened again, I find myself following MTGB’s path and thinking about a comments policy. 🙁 Consequently, I now have a moderation policy. It is shorter than Mat’s – but with time, it may become similar, we will see. I don’t particularly like rules and avoid them wherever possible. That isn’t the point of this place, after all.
I’ve been fortunate so far in that discussions have been amicable even when there is vigorous disagreement. Until this week.
Disagree with me by all means. A well thought out argument has been known to change my mind and I have no problem with having my thinking challenged. What I object to, though, is obnoxious comment for the sake of being obnoxious. Do this and I will delete the comment. Keep doing it and I will ban you from commenting.
Before anyone whinges about free speech; websites are private property. On private property we are obliged to observe the wishes of our host. Being asked to leave someone’s house because one has insulted the host is not too unusual, nor is it unreasonable. The same applies here. It’s just a shame that I have to spell it out. :dry:
Longrider,
I have inly once had to delete a comment – a particularly unpleasant racist one – from Infinitives Unsplit.
Needless to say it was anonymous.
Having done so, I added a comment myself giving a cleaned up version – as far as that is possible – of the original to show approx what was in it and why it meritted deletion. This is a useful approach as it squashes the accusation of censorship whilst still demonstrating, clearly, the limits of acceptable behaviour.
Toodle Pip!
PG
Good lbhh
Anyone who knows you Mark knows that you are fair. You and I often don’t agree but there’s always respect for each other even if we are vehement in our opinions on things. If a moderation policy keeps those out who choose to insult rather than effectively communicate then so be it.
Yeah but I was fortunate because Blog-City admin banned this person’s IP address from accessing my blog so that’s something I guess, mind you I was rather more obnoxious then. Say nothing Mark
I’m sayin’ nuffin’ lbhh
Longrider replies: PG – I’ve got broad shoulders, I can live with accusations of censorship. Frankly, the deleted comment did not deserve airing – cleaned up or otherwise as it was a series of ad hominens built upon a strawman; the usual nonsense, phrases taken out of context and twisted to mean something that they clearly didn’t in the original piece when taken as a whole.
I have a low tolerance for fools. I see no reason to give them a platform.
And, when you pay for the server, you call the shots… :devil: