I can understand it on extraordinarily high-traffic blogs and on other special circumstances (like my 5.90 year old's blog - The Youngest Blogger)....but I just don't see why people with dinky little readerships have to *moderate comments*.
Actually, I do.
These sinister folk more often than not want to play *little Nazi censor*.
And/or they are extremely thin-skinned, getting all discombobulated at the slightest criticism.
Once in a while there's the case of genuine ignorance or fear - that as a matter of professional policy they think they need to *manage* what is written on their blog, which no one really reads anyway.
If somebody wants to call me an @hole in my comment thread, they are more than welcome to, as they have been for 5.5 years now. In fact I submit it's darn healthy to get called out once in a while.
FURTHERMORE, it makes for better writing (thinking/behavior/etc.) knowing that one's words won't be tyrannically insulated from criticism.
6 comments:
C,
A lot of people moderating nowadays are doing so because of robo-spammers who will destroy their comment section if they don't.
But yeah, your psychological conspiracy theory rings true as well, to some extent.
Btw, sometimes you remind me of this guy my friend encountered once at a "radical" political-social event. This guy was this tinfoil wearing kook and blabbed all this crazy nonsense for a half hour. Then, he started telling everyone about this genius idea he had for a website where people could put their own videos up.
"You mean, like YouTube?" someone asked.
"What's YouTube?" The guy had no clue. Somehow he was on the internet but hadn't heard of YouTube and then thought he came up with the idea himself.
You're like that guy, with your wingnut theory that completely misses the obvious reality. HA!
I agree with you. Though I don't really care if others moderate their comments, I don't. I have two spam-catchers (Akismet is awesome) and have never had any spam comments get onto my blog.
As far as if anyone wants to take me to task - because I am so controversial :) - as you say, I need to be a big girl (as in a grown-up; in terms of body size I am what you would call "petite").
I've read lots of (big-time) bloggers talk about this and they all say the same thing: some of the best feedback they have gotten was from critics. And not even people who had reasonable criticism but even from those who are just jerks. Usually their readers will come to their defense and it can even drive more traffic their way.
The one thing they say not to put up with is when a "troll" starts slamming other's commenting on their blog.
Taylor,
I could list names and sites - starting with Mankiw (since killed his comments altogether) and Ritholtz. And a dozen more - some on the homeschooling front.
Apparently there's even been some *moderating* over at Mish's libertarian blog - even beyond how he doesn't allow *anonymous* comments.
Anne,
No one defends me. My mother didn't, nor did my father.
And now my wife doesn't either. Just the other day she told me, in a situation where I asked her to be *peacemaker*, she told me she didn't want to get involved....and to tell the other person off!
I've always been fiercely independent, but there's also something about me that must discourage *assistance*.
Maybe people want to see me fail???
Mish moderated out some of the religious BS. However, I am sure he would do the same if people were going on about, say, football as well.
GETA is widely read and Mish does not hesitate to attack sacred cows like public unions. Contrast that with the milquetoast "Calculated Risk". Calculated indeed.
If Mish didn't ban anon comments, he'd be overrun with garbage from public union advocates.
Unfortunately, if this blog attracted similar quantity/quality of traffic, you too would have to ban anon comments.
Anon,
My first sentence covers the sympathy for high-traffic blogs like GETA - as you call it.
But when you ban *union trolls* you also suffer other *unseen* losses of freedom.
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