Dear friends,
I have decided to take the opportunity of a lull in my Sunday afternoon to seek your advice as to what to do about my comments policy.
After quite a few years of relative obscurity, this blog has seen a sudden and massive explosion in readership. For years I was getting about 1000 visitors per week, now it regularly gets over 20’000 visitors per day from literally all over the world. With that influx of visitors, a lot of weird, sick and outright deranged also showed up – that is normal, even 1% of 20’000 is still 200 and my sense is that the freaks are even much less than that – possibly 20 or about 0.1%. That really ain’t much, but that is enough to be a real pain in the ass, pardon my French. These freaks fall into several categories.
1) Your typical garden variety trolls
2) Obsessive compulsive racists
3) Monothematic delusional folks completely fixated on Jews
4) Nazis
5) Plain old idiots who simply cannot make sense
In the past, when my blog had few visitors I had a 100% freedom policy. Except for commercial spam, I would literally allow anything no matter who stupid or insulting. Then a little over a month ago I got really fed up with some exceptionally dumb Nazis so I decided to kick them out. Or rather then banning them, I began sending any moronically racist or Nazi post to the trash. When I asked for your inputs only one person got angry at me. Everybody else told me that they fully supported that decision and that I had waited enough. This new policy definitely helped and some of the worst offenders packed and left.
And yet I still get way, waaaaaaay to much comments about Jews and while I do not get many Nazis any more, I still get some world class idiots posting their nonsense. So I am not sure what to do next.
One thing I could do is drop my normal policy of “there is no such thing as off-topic on this blog” and require comments to remain generally pertinent to the topic at hand. But that would also mean losing the opportunity of having some very interesting off-topic comments posted. Or I could use my discretion and decide that off-topic comments I find worthwhile publishing and which not.
I could try to set up some pretty sophisticated and detailed posting guidelines, but that would be very time consuming and still probably leave loopholes.
Or I can ask you to trust my judgment and basically toss out anything I would find too offensive or too stupid. What I do not like about this option is that it sort of implies that every comment that I would allow would then get my implicit endorsement but that would be completely wrong. If, say, somebody posts a comment saying that Russia should try to vaporize the USA in a preemptive surprise nuclear strike I would categorically disagree with that, but I cannot say that this is not a legitimate comment in a threat discussing Russian options to stop US aggression. But if I do let such a comment through, would that not look like an implicit endorsement?
Bottom line – I need some advice from you all. I consider this blog as much yours as it is mine, and I want it to meet your expectations. I do not want to allow freaks and morons to pollute it, but I don’t want to censor it either. So, please, post your suggestions here or email me.
Many thanks and kind regards,
The Saker
Saker. I have been reading about DIF and KIIS today both research outfits funded by USAID and Soros, Just wondered if you had any concerns given their mission statements in support of Euro/Atlantic integration and membership of Nato. Many articles in our press here in UK are quoting from their polls suggesting that pro russian elements within east and south ukraine are not as popular as one might suspect. Also appears as though these NGO organisations are fifth columnists in that they have raised the issue of corruption to such a degree that it may have led to widespread public opposition and who knows what else they have been manipulating.
Appreciate any comments you might have about how neutral they might or might not be.
having a blog comes with responsibility. it depends on how much time you want to devote to doing the articles, verses policing the comments section. ultimately you have to figure out what works best for you.. good luck with this and thanks for your posts. – james
The term “censorship” is overused these days; its best use is limited to referring to government actions.
So while “I consider this blog as much yours as it is mine” is appreciated, it is your blog, and you have every right to manage it however you wish.
My suggestion:
(1) Post simple guidelines for comments (i.e. I wouldn’t belabor this)
(2) Without any deliberation, toss whatever comments that strike you as not contributing positively to the discussion
I’d very much hate to see your posts suffer because you need to spend too much time policing the rubbish from such a tiny percentage of visitors.
The term “censorship” is overused these days; its best use is limited to referring to government actions.
So while “I consider this blog as much yours as it is mine” is appreciated, it is your blog, and you have every right to manage it however you wish.
My suggestion:
(1) Post simple guidelines for comments (i.e. I wouldn’t belabor this)
(2) Without any deliberation, toss whatever comments that strike you as not contributing positively to the discussion
I’d very much hate to see your posts suffer because you need to spend too much time policing the rubbish from such a tiny percentage of visitors.
I agree totally with John 97205. It would be refreshing, in fact, to not have to wade through a bunch of hatred and idiocy. Also, to not have to expect that any comment *I* make will be attacked by some obvious troll!
– Ann Pettus
PS when I pressed “preview” then “publish,” I got an error message from that darn captcha, so I don’t know whether it posted or not and will try again. Just a heads up that you’re likely to get lots of duplicates.
I’m glad your insights are reaching more people than ever, but I guess it becomes harder to manage a widely visited website. I suggest you trash any comment if the poster can’t use common courtesy.
As a general rule, “if you wouldn’t say it to someone’s face don’t post it on the internet.” any comment that doesn’t follow that rule can be deleted.
Also, if it seems the comment is intended to sow dissension rather than informative debate., you can delete that too.
Otherwise, anyone making a point ***politely*** no matter how stupid should get posted.
Just my thoughts but I’ve never run a blog so FWIW.
For Off topics just use your judgement or occasionally put up an open thread.
I value your analysis and writing, and I hope that you spend the majority of your time here being productive and enjoying your creation, and not having to chase the ugly racist trolls
Please do what is most convenient for you.
You can add a flagging system like a flag button for each comment available to people. And if say more than 10 people flag a comment, then automatically hide it.
“(2) Without any deliberation, toss whatever comments that strike you as not contributing positively to the discussion”
This.
If your gut is telling you this is trash, trash it.
This blog is an information lifeline that might actually save lives if it influences the Western consensus. The people who want to be disruptive will find somewhere else.
Lives vs disruptive comments, not a hard call.
Like John 97205 wrote, I hope policing the comments wont cut into the time you need for writing articles. I don’t think people will think comments you allow through represent your views. But maybe a disclaimer such as:
Comments represent the views of the comment writers. Vineyard of the Saker doesn’t necessarily endorse the views expressed in the comment sections. Comments that express opposing views to the blog are welcome, and encouraged, but comments the blog finds offensive or disruptive will not be posted.
Then perhaps a short list of what you feel shouldn’t be posted.
вот так
My advice just use your discretion as best you can Saker — basically what John97205 said. Delete enough of the comments from the hardcore trolls and ALL CAPS SCREAMERS and they’ll go away.
As your site approaches a certain threshold, you are going to get crucified or have comments about ‘AngloZionists’ attributed to you anyway, but you do it for yourself and the benefit of your readers from all over the world, not the paid/unpaid trolls or neocons. If people want to spew Nazi garbage or blame EVERYTHING on ‘the Jews’ they have Stormfront for that.
Up/votes down votes might also partially take care of the trolling of the ‘you’re all Putin worshipping Commie traitors’ variety. God bless you for saying Christ, whose God bearing Mother was a Jewess, and who lived His earthly life as a Jew among nearly entirely Jews as the Son of David, rose for the trolls and true anti-Semites too!
Some years ago there was a practise among UNIX admonistrator’s (a mispelling which I shall let stand) of directing useless data to /dev/null. Perhaps insincere posts could be filed to a “free speech zone” which could mitigate charges of censorship while also showcasing the weakness of the Western media’s narrative.
When we read your blog that doesn’t imply that we agree with your comments. Nor does a comment left on your blog imply that you agree with it. It’s an exchange of information and opinion, not an endorsement either way.
That said, don’t hesitate to delete the garbage.
Davidius
Cut out all the crap. I don’t want to wade my way through shit loads of comments that have no connection with that we are discussing and that is of no interest to me.
I just don’t understand why people with a twisted mind bother to read this blogg, they have their own bloggs. Of topics that are not offensive and add to the actual discussion, can be useful thou.
as one of your readers since 2007, i would say: filter the comments and filter them as you want. just refuse to publish any comments that you deem to be racist or trolling. and just put a brief comment policy on the blog; it doesn’t need to be long or detailed.
I agree with John 97205 and with Lysander. I am not much of a writer and I like your blog,so do with it as you see fit. Rex Pete
What about seeing if a few readers would be willing to moderate comments for you, so you could focus on the articles?
Hello, Mr. Saker.
You are kind to request our input on how best to manage comments. I’m in accord with the suggestions above. Here, FWIW, are my own:
• Implement a Like/Dislike rating tool, so that the task of evaluating offensive, obsessive and whacked-out comments is shared among the readership community. I think (hope) that a sense of fairness & decency will prevail. We leave it to you to decide at what level of Dislike a comment warrants deletion.
• Set a minimum standard for all to see. For example, trolling & personal attacks will be deleted, period.
• Too many contributors hide behind an “Anonymous” nom-de-plume. Require a handle so that we can recognize contributors as individuals.
• Clicking the comments link at the bottom of a post should take you to the top of a thread, not to the “Leave your comment” input box. Better to encourage reading the comments of others before posting one’s own!
Dear Saker,
It is definitely imporatant to keep up the common courtesy level if you want the readers come back to your blog.
There are thousands and thousands blogs full of hatred in these days, unfortunately. Do we need this hatred to spread and fuel more hatred?
Another point is do we want to be closed in the box and read what we would like to see and hear around us and ignore another people harnessing the hatred? They were probably raised in the hatred, they were brainwashed.
This blog shouldn’t be use to teach the readers that the hatred is going nowhere and it is just a waste of the energy, but at the same time you should post the oposit opinion too, like another comenter suggested.
“For Off topics just use your judgement or occasionally put up an open thread.”and let the flagging show to the person who posted hatred if he is invited into your professional analysis site.
You definitely don’t need to polute yoyr blog, but at the same time it would be interesting to hear from the opposition.
Yes, I have to confirm I had a problem also with the darn captcha.
Saker, I read your blog because I have come to trust your judgement. I will trust your judgement equally in choosing comments to print. End of that story!
As to off-topic comments, again I trust your judgement. The purpose of your type of blog is to stimulate ideas, to broaden one’s perspective not only on the topic at hand but others as well. Cogent off-topic comments further that goal.
Print that which you deem worthy of printing. Chuck the rest. I cannot speak for others but I am quite satisfied with that option.
I agree with lynsander.
There is also the option to disabling comments all together, and havine one open thread linked in into the side bar of the blog that acts like a forum. All comments will then be centralised to one thread and easy to manage, rather than managing multiple conversations on different posts.
I admire your correspondence initiative- thank you for all your hard work!
Dear Saker. Certainly it is your blog and people come here because they trust your judgement and seek information to help in understanding the world. Stupid, offensive or incomprehensible comments waste other’s valuable time and energy. I advise you just use your (speedy) judgment and delete those you see as useless. I for one trust you to not delete comments JUST because you disagree with them or they are off-topic. If we didn’t trust you we wouldn’t be here now. There are plenty of sources of opinion, propaganda and information available and a misguided attachment to other’s ‘rights’ can quickly become silly as it destroys the original intent. Free speech means they can start their own blog, not make yours unworkable.
Camillus O’Byrne
saker, Use your discretion as it is your and your blog only .
you have enough wisdom to discard what you think is too offensive or not to the point.
good wishes for your succeful and useful blog.
Not being a blogger, I am not aware of all the tools Blogger affords for policing comments. I do read a number of blogs though, so I note that some descend into catfights and others hum along reasonably civilly.
The first line of defense…
– Comments should have a simple set of rules which are ruthlessly enforced. A “If it isn’t forbidden, it is permitted” policy can then be followed economically. Nuanced rules are simply unworkable when commenters may have varying command of English, as any international blog will have.
– Registration of a username. No need of any personal information.
I assume the registration is tied to a specific computer or IP address and so can easily be banned for egregious conduct.
A 3-strikes-and-you’re-out policy is common.
This has the further advantage that readers “know” who’s writing and can exercise their own censorship by skipping uninteresting / offensive posters as well as making following any interchange between commenters much easier.
Anyhow, my 2 cents worth.
Erebus
Saker, you don’t want to add to your own workload and devising all sorts of moderation rules just gives you more work to do. I’d be inclined to delete the nasty stuff if it becomes overwhelming but ignore it otherwise. I suspect most people visit this blog because of your excellent analyses and not because of the comments – people understand blogs attract all sorts and will ignore the obvious lunatics.
I agree with what seems to be the emerging consensus. Use your discretion, but not too much. Some of the offensive comments maywell be from intelligence types trying to de legitimize the blog. I mean make it seem anti-Semitic etc., so you should trash those, and the others you think offensive, to preserve the integrity of the board. Those posts take time and energy away from the serious analysis and comment that most of us would prefer to engage in. I usually skip those comments that start out a little wacky anyway so you would just be saving me the trouble. Legitimate posters who had their comments removed will have to rethink and repost in a more responsible manner. That can’t be a bad thing.
John and Lysander are correct.
Saker, while you probably receive a lot of comments that are garbage, to ban all discussion on the not insignificant role of the Jews in both World Wars, the ongoing decline of Western culture and throughout history prior to modern times, not to mention their over-representation in the highest echelons of power amongst the Western Elites, while labeling all posters who wish to discuss the details (good and bad) of Hitler’s National Socialist government who rose to power in response to the impoverishment of the German people by subversive Jewish banking interests in the country as “Nazis”, then you are walking the same road as the modern PC “thought Police” that make it illegal to question the Holocaust in Germany today.
The same can be said if you eliminate anyone who comments that groups of African Negros, Muslims, Jews, Asians and European peoples have differences in their behavior, cultures and customs.
You and your readers may not enjoy hearing certain topics and it is certainly your prerogative to decide what gets posted, but to blanket censor all reasonable comments on subjects you don’t enjoy is to censor the truth and present a lop-sided version of history and current events.
Incidentily, I’ve found Mike King’s tireless work on http://tomatobubble.com/id424.html an excellent coverage on alternative world history (since 1763 anyway) and I think his timeline on the rise of Hitler is a fair one. I do not think the author Mike is overly “antisemitic”, but he also pulls no punches when the Jews deserve it either.
The point is that Jews, Hitler and race all matter and are all part of the overall picture. While stupid and hateful comments that are not well thought out are one thing, if you blanket censor any one of these topics you are presenting a lop-sided and distorted view of things as the Western mass media does.
Hi Saker,
Came here b’cus of Pepe from Asia Times Online. This is my third postings, enjoys reading your views and many others. Not that I agree everything but different prospective. Besides comments and views, also interested in real News.
A strong believer in freedom of speech and expression, you should allow maximum viewpoints unless the poster becomes a pain in the arse. This is real democracy and hopes everyone who believes it will not shut out anyone who disagrees with you marginally or totally.
JC
Greetings from Singapore:
There is nothing wrong in keeping lunatics, imbeciles and agent provocateurs out of this forum. Saker, surely, will manage in filtering them properly.
Saker, trust your own judgement, please.
All the best, from a fellow “Resident Alien”.
Saker, It is your blog I have to trust your judgement. If I find the comments becoming uniform and a lack of dissenting opinions, I go elsewhere. This is how the internet works. (and why I am not at something like dkos ever)
Saker, I agree that this is a dilemma, and that if you begin censoring then the remaining comments will now be viewed as being approved by you. You should find a solution that minimizes this effect.
I think you should use your judgement and censor whatever you feel like, but you should have a section of your site (maybe in a sidebar) where all these censored comments get posted, with a note saying which thread they came from originally. Sort of a “comments ghetto”, but this way people can see exactly what you don’t let through. Or, have a text document somewhere off-site that’s updated with them.
Maybe make a post every so often with a link to the latest censored posts (though that might be giving them too much attention).
I’m not sure about the mechanics, but… something like that.
I appreciate the nature of the problem. You have a very good blog. Whether one agrees or disagrees with you, if the comment doesn’t advance the depth and quality of the discussion, or enlighten something in a new way, dispense with it. And don’t be shy or reticent. You are responsible for the quality of the dialogue.
What John 97205 said is fine with me. Use your discretion.
Congratulations on your readership
Dan Smith
Your inclination toward 100% freedom is enough of a guarantee that you won’t actually censor, so go ahead and just throw out the trash. If a red flag goes up for you despite your natural tendency to accept all viewpoints, then I would use the old rule of thumb: “When in doubt, leave it out.” That will keep you from wasting time agonizing over marginal comments.
I’m not crazy about automatically deleting things that get a certain number of flags because that can be abused intentionally or just inadvertently eliminate stuff that messes with people’s social conditioning too much even though it’s a worhtwhile comment.
Before I delve into the comments here I’d like to say that I admire your preference for no censorship, and I see waaaaay too often on various blogs that things get censored because the moderators don’t like them. But having said that, I think important discussions should be reserved for adults who are capable of more or less rational discourse. When there is excess hatefulness, or constant harping on one theme with no real response to objections or commentary by others, it derails the discussion. Even things which are repetitively annoying detract from the business at hand, which is to learn and inform ourselves and one another.
I don’t think that off topic comments have been a big problem, so you should probably keep that as is. What you want is sincerity, but people who are jerks don’t belong and should not be allowed to waste everyone’s time.
Your list is missing #6, people (if you can call them that) who are paid to spend their day attacking truth and/or promoting western propaganda. Personally, I think as much as you would like to share the joy this is YOUR blog and you can keep or delete whatever suits your logic. If trolls are posting stupid crap here then they are posting stupid crap elsewhere too – if you delete it here we’ll see it elsewhere.
An alternative to deletion would be to corral all the stupid comments in one place, as E also said, so your visitors can go there to read the comments or not. I don’t know how blogs and web pages work, that might not be possible. Maybe put them all together at the end of the day or week in a Stupid Comments post.
That said, I have a problem wasting my time with vicious and stupid people. Life is so fleeting and there is too much for which we will never have time that I think you should just quickly delete the stupid comments and go read poetry or watch birds. My deepest heartfelt thanks for the phenomenal amount of time you spend providing us with your wonderful blog.
Bless you for this, Saker. I really can’t think of too many comments here I’ve considered inappropriate, which to me means primarily ad hominem attacks on other commenters or obvious attempts to derail discussion. So, though I too am awfully sick of All Jews All The Time, I’ve no real objections to your current approach and certainly trust your judgment going forward on what and when to delete.
I’m not sure I like the “like” function though; it seems to lend itself to the creation of a hive-mind and there are too many valuable viewpoints here, I’d hate to see them rank-ordered. I really can’t add much else other than seconding вот так’s idea of a disclaimer and Emily CD Sabino’s suggestion of moderators. But mostly I just want to requote anonymous 22:58,
“I value your analysis and writing, and I hope that you spend the majority of your time here being productive and enjoying your creation, and not having to chase the ugly racist trolls. Please do what is most convenient for you.”
Also, I suspect cognitive infiltration is used not only to discredit people like you but also to waste your time by bombarding you or sidetracking you.
Now that I have read all the commentary, I am against using a system of thumbs up and thumbs down by the readers. This can result in mob rule and lead to homogenous commentary. If someone can argue their points, it should stay even if the majority find it odious.
I’d rather trust your judgment, which I do trust.
Most comprehend outlier/extremist comments upon reading. Your blog your choice on which comments to include. Couple ideas: You may identify a comment to your readers as one you consider outlier/extreme or include a comment section for views you consider as such.
Use your judgement, and be ruthless with the hate speech mongrels.
I read a number of blogs and the number of idiots is remarkably low if there is no tolerance for them. Give them an inch and they take the whole bloody highway.
Rules only give room for argument so keep them very simple. No idiotic stuff is simple enough.
Great Blog by the way.
Your house, your rules. I would much rather have you speed scroll down the new message list culling at will without angst or too much thought. Your time is way more valuable writing what you do.
If your greatest offense is deleting something that looked like crap on at first scan but had merit under greater scrutiny hey I’m more than happy to call it an error and leave it at that.
Saker,
I plead for the continued right of the Anonymii to comment. As I have pointed out before it offers no protection from the Gestapo. Google would give us up in a New York second. The virtual Guy Fawkes mask gives us a bit of a shield from each other. It’s just easier to pick on somebody with a name.
There is a lot of money being paid for provocateurs to disrupt blogs like this. You have brought a lot on yourself, but that is a price of success. My recommendation is, you are the man with the axe, don’t be afraid to use it as you please. If a topic brings in too many crazies, just turn the comments off. It’s your blog, I say treat it like it’s your lawn, don’t let the bad boys tear it up.
The trouble with allowing volunteer moderators is that none will entirely share your judgement of what should be chopped and that leads to acrimony. Ask me how I know.
Greetings from Singapore.
There is no drama here. This is a private blog and comments are ‘let in’ by invitation of the owner.
Whoever is unhappy, is free to go.
Dear Saker,the west is full of thought police nowadays,even blogs like Moon of Alabama have been constricted by the very aggressive tone of the “exceptionnalists”to ban intelligent people from adding lots of foresight and good analysis because they had a tone of terrible frustration about the impunity of zionists in this world.So please don’t follow the road of shunning the ones who have had enough of the power that certain jewish elite are exerting by labeling them anti-Semite .I am semite being arab and I can’t take it anymore to have to deal with an iron wall every time one speaks about the crimes of zionism.After all what is happening in the arab world of methodical destruction of the different national states is done in the name of what the zionism regime desire,the fracture of all its neighbors in ethnic,confessional mini entities so as to justify the recognition of “Israel” as a jewish state.Beloved and Martyred Syria is the most dramatic example.This is the official policy of Netanyahu and his criminal settler state.Finally they are the ones who define themselves as being jewish and they are sustained in this criminal enterprise by the whole West.And you don’t want us to despise them?
A person of jewish faith is a human thus a brother in humanity (Though John in his Gospel condemn them ,8.43 to 47 )but their collective silence is deafening thus the underlying accusations that they are partners in crime with of course very courageous exceptions ,to name one author Alfred Lilienthal (What price Israel).
Whatever you do, please find a solution to the duplicate post problem. Also, please continue to allow anonymous postings. And finally, can you make the captcha less difficult to read?
Hi Saker:
I suggest that you post a few simple rules that will clear up the Nazi, Jewish, and troll problem and then use your best judgement. Your blog is way too valuable to have it waste your time on comments that are not appropriate. Just my thoughts. Good luck on whatever you decide to do.
Greetings Saker. Firstly thank you for your continuing excellent analysis of the Ukraine fiasco and other pertinent topics..
While agree with most of the comments on you having the discretion to delete ‘rubbish’
comments I however could’nt agree more with Anonymous @ 0100 whose statement opened with the following …
” Anonymous said…
Saker, while you probably receive a lot of comments that are garbage, to ban all discussion on the not insignificant role of the Jews in both World Wars, the ongoing decline of Western culture and throughout history prior to modern times, not to mention their over-representation in the highest echelons of power amongst the Western Elites, while labelling all posters who wish to discuss the details (good and bad) of Hitler’s National Socialist government who rose to power in response to the impoverishment of the German people by subversive Jewish banking interests in the country as “Nazis”, then you are walking the same road as the modern PC “thought Police” that make it illegal to question the Holocaust in Germany today. “
Blessings BG
This is your _personal_ blog, isn’t it? You are not a company, and this is not an “official” site, a community site, or anything similar.
In my opinion, you have every right to do as you please. I’d just do that if it would be _my_ blog.
That said, I am in opposition of a few things you said. Would that allow me to be mean or insult you? Or to post anything inappropriate like racism or similar? Definitely not. Does that stop me from reading and appreciating your blog? Again, definitely not.
We might disagree on some topics which is totally fine with me. In fact, wouldn’t it be a bad thing if we all had the same opinion on everything?
Bottomline: keep it civilized and do as you please with _your_ blog
Anti-semites, Russophobes and other similarly offensive types are not welcome. Genuine analysis and relevant comment of any of these or any other group must be allowed.
The Zionist-anglo elite is ALWAYS fair target for comment.
A major target must be the paid trolls who have been frequenting the blog since the readership increased.
It is a certainty the US secret government and its paid shills post comments on blogs such as this.
Use common sense – if t looks like a duck and walks like a duck, its probably a government shill/troll.
Saker: your good judgement is the only moderation needed, use your own discrimination to weed out out the crazies. ’nuff said.
It’s a conundrum for you. But I you need to be ruthless if you are not to waste ever more time weeding out crap. Whilst the blog has many good commentators its real value is in your analysis. Those those genuinely supportive of it will both accept and abide by whatever policy you adopt.
I would set out a clear simple policy with minimal rules which,IMHO, should exclude pure ‘anonymous’ since it offers very little more protection from the authorities than the soft anonymity of a handle, but removes the need for pre-post moderation and makes identifying/excluding persistent policy-offenders that much easier. The current ‘anonymous’ policy also makes it difficult to discuss particular comments – its like trying to talk to one of many people in a room wearing the same mask that keep moving about – very frustrating and plays ito the hands of pure trolls.
The two most important rules – IMO:
1. Stay on-topic
2. NO ad-hominems
FWIW
It is after all your blog. If it is trash then put it where it belongs. Best wishes from the UK
You keep saying you have 20,000 readers a day. I find this rather hard to believe, actually. Is there some ranking machine somewhere which will confirm it?
Allow relevant comments only. This is your property, Saker. I didn’t get why are even asking others for advise on how to handle undesirable comments.
Hello Saker,
I was part of a successful blog at one stage that got shut down through gov interference. Regarding the comments, it’s wise to moderate them, as there will be people with a hidden agenda, those with course language, but mostly trolls that will deliberately try and get the post off topic. Sadly, some that comment tend to get drawn away through this method, and it then becomes a pie-fight in the comments section. In my personal opinion, get a few trusted members together, and give them authority to moderate, else it becomes too big a task for one person. I am a new reader, but congrats to see the blog has taken off. A word of advice: learn to grow a THICK skin, as the trolls are expert at exploiting any weakness.
Saker, I think its not blasphemious to say that you are not required to throw pearls before swines. This is not a psychatric ward. At the end oft the day you have more responsibility for the energy level of this blog than for any individual.
Best
Christoph
Dear Saker,
First, as a Frenchman, your French is pardonned.
Then, a way to defuse off-topic comments would be to follow a similar pattern as Moon of Alabama, on which b creates from time to time an “Open thread”, most likely exclusing the topic of the latest article. It is slightly us-aesthetic, but you could at least maintain some safe perimeters in you main topics.
As from the general bullshit you can get from comments… Is it possible on Blogger to add a small bot that would report you any post containing sensible words, which you would then specifically check and remove if needed ? I know for instance that WordPress removes any trackback comment that occur when your articles are quoted in order to clean the comment section of said article. There should be a way.
Dear The Saker,
At the end of the day – it is your blog and you should be free to choose what is publised in the comments. I agree with your quote:
I think doing the above is best as quoted by you – it makes it better to read and keeps the flow of the conversation just right.
Rgds,
Veritas
p.s don’t think the italics will work to highlight your words so have put in speech marks…….
One of the most stimulating blogs I follow (thearchdruidreport) has the format of one post a week, on-topic moderated comments only, and a collated reply by the blogger to the comments of each day through the week. The result reads more like a seminar than a newspaper letters page.
Perhaps that plus comment-disabled updates would allow the discussion to be kept within useful bounds. For the antijews, there’s always 4chan’s /pol/, which could always do with fresh content.
I would add my vote for your common sense rather then setting up rules. The objective of this blog (and I hope I am not wrong) is to inform and as such, one would expect that comments contribute to the quality of the information provided either by expanding it or offering a contrasting opinion (that is, challenging it with facts and credible information). In other words, the comment (regardless of being positive or negative) should maintain or increase the quality of the information you provide.
Your followers read you because you established your authority on the subjects you cover by providing unique insights and credible analysis of the events we are living. I am sure they would trust you enough to eliminate the comments which do not contribute to the content they are reading.
The analysis that you provide here is, truthfully, exceptional.
However, if you continue to allow comments, I add my vote for minimal censorship.
As some others have noted, filtering, or ‘moderation’, presents a dilemma.
For my 2 cents, I think everyone can live with comments from trolls, racists, or whatever. They may be a high nuisance factor, but this is the internet; filtering should be the province of individuals.
Additionally, I think it is quite instructive to hear what others have to say, even the dull and the ignorant.
DM
Up/down voting by the readers.
Moderator gets all the worst comments in one list.
Quick and easy to delete (the decision is a human judgment; the automation streamlines the process).
You can’t do it all alone. Leverage the community.
The Trolls will give up and go elsewhere.
Saker:
what wikispooks says is perfect
I wouldn’t block anonymous posters
some anons offer very good comments
no one is really anonymous on line anyway
that said specific individuals may have valid reasons for using anon
same as you or I using pseudonyms
This is what I have at my place
“TROLLS & SPAM WILL BE DELETED WITHOUT HESITATION
KEEP IT RELEVANT. NO PERSONAL ATTACKS”
And yes, I use all capitals for it- not for yelling, but for emphasis. So that the basics are abundantly clear
Anything that does not comply with commenting rules is gone. It’s so basic that it allows for off topic but still relevant topics
You have got a good bunch of participants I don’t think you will have much of a problem with anyone adhering to some basics
what is the problem? You are the owner of this “house” and we are all just guests
Comments that contain “Why did you delete my comment?” should get the boot. There is no appeal of the delete decision.
“One thing I could do is drop my normal policy of “there is no such thing as off-topic on this blog” and require comments to remain generally pertinent to the topic at hand. But that would also mean losing the opportunity of having some very interesting off-topic comments posted. Or I could use my discretion and decide that off-topic comments I find worthwhile publishing and which not.”
^ this would be my recommendation.
I have a slightly different suggestion.
Set up a separate, linked “forum” style web-site for posters to leave comments and stop having comments on the main blog altogether.
This would have the following advantages:
1. comments would be organized by topic and easier to follow a thread. Right now, interesting discussions are hard to follow, split between comments to separate posts.
2. if you find a trusted volunteer, you could delegate comment moderation altogether, saving you time to work on the main blog.
3. after the initial setup the forum would be more or less self (or user) maintained.
The only downside is that it would a little time consuming to set up initially, but would save you scads of time in the long run.
Just a thought.
“.. and I want it to meet your expectations.”
Factually not possible to do, as you can plainly see that ‘we’ have opinions and expectations all over the place, many times contrary to each other.
In case you want the comments to be as open as possible, but without disruptive ‘denial-of-service effect’, i think you’ve already reached your goal. My feedback is that i have no problem skipping over things i don’t want to read easily. The only obvious spammer not adding anything is the one who wants to nuke england over and over. But these, even in case there would be a few more of them, would be easy to ignore.
“I do not want to allow freaks and morons to pollute it ..”
Here, you are approaching the territory of your subjective judgement on what’s moronic and so on.
“.. , but I don’t want to censor it either.”
which filtering out content based on subjective or objective ‘pollution factor’ would be.
My opinion: Moderation (with moderation) is the key. And this is what you are already doing well.
-yt
P.S And ya, these captchas are sometimes impossible to read, i mean these where the text is inverted to white over black blobs.
Dear The Saker,
At the end of the day – it is your blog and you should be free to choose what is publised in the comments. I agree with your quote:
“One thing I could do is drop my normal policy of “there is no such thing as off-topic on this blog” and require comments to remain generally pertinent to the topic at hand. But that would also mean losing the opportunity of having some very interesting off-topic comments posted. Or I could use my discretion and decide that off-topic comments I find worthwhile publishing and which not.”
I think doing the above is best as quoted by you – it makes it better to read and keeps the flow of the conversation just right.
Rgds,
Veritas
p.s. reposting as my earlier post had your quote missing. Whoops – sorry.
How about voting mechanism? At youtube, for example, the backend automatically hides posts that have received too many negative votes. You can still see the comments if you want, but they’re hidden by default.
Ha, ha, I thought you’d banned me! But since you haven’t I shall persist with the question I raised earlier in this thread: you have claimed several times, my dear fellow, that you have 20,000 readers per day. That means you outperform Rense.com, for example. But the professionals say that if you have that many daily visitors, you can expect your site to consume several hundred gigabytes monthly on the servers. This is too much for any shared packages, and if you go over 100 GB/m, most web hosts will ask you to leave their shared hosting package. This limit obviously changes from company to company, but it is really very hard if not impossible to find yourself a shared hosting page which endures your site that consumes much more than that. So on this awful blogger.com platform, you wouldn’t stand a chance.
It’s your blog and I trust your judgement. If you decide to publish my comments, I view it more as a privilige.
On a persoanl note I will try to be shorter in my comments, since I do ramble at times. :)