Town Hall in a storm 4/1/2011Yes I'm a passionate defender of the First Amendment, but if you actually read that precious declaration it only applies to government censorship--not private policing.
So what does that mean? Over four years I have published (or I should say readers have published) over 15,000 comments. In that time I have only deleted maybe a dozen and I'm tempted to fall back on the Supreme Court Justice who once said of porn, "I don't know how to describe it but I know it when I see it."
Occasionally along the way I would remind readers that I only delete spam, accidental double posting, libelous rants, and any use of the C-word or N-word. I open up comments (and that will continue) to anonymous postings because I honestly believe--especially now after watching the bullying Catherine Sanderson received over the past couple years--that there is an inherent risk in speaking truth to power; and many people, understandably, do now wish to lose their jobs, have their children shunned or risk the wrath of their neighbors.
Crude comments--foul language, personal attacks, lousy attempts at satire/sarcasm will, most likely, no longer be tolerated. If, however, you push the envelope with a comment and sign your name it will increase the odds for publication.
And no, just because I allow a comment to appear does not mean that I even remotely agree with it.
Yes, maybe that will decrease somewhat the interest in coming here--hopefully among trolls--but it's not like I'm getting paid by the hit. I watched very carefully (being the open transparent person she is, Ms. Sanderson has an "open" sitemeter) what happened on her School Committee blog last year when she enabled comment moderation:
A decrease of about 20% in overall traffic in the first month or two, but then it seemed to return to "normal".
My journalism ethics/law professor (and she is W-A-Y smarter and more experienced than I) believes that enabling comments actually makes me more vulnerable to litigation, not less; because if something legally actionable does get published, obviously I approved it to appear.
Bring 'em on!
23 comments:
Almost got me.
Good for you Larry, it is your blog after all. I will continue to read, and it will be more enjoyable without the junk. Im sure this will be one of the places people come to argue their point now that Catherine is through. Good luck.
So much for lively debate.
I'm glad you'll be moderating comments. I too don't like it when people post spam on my blog! Keep up the good and interesting work.
Thanks Adam.
I may start using my twitter account in the near future as well (my handle there is amherstac).
Anon 10:06
Reread the headline.
Oh please, cut the shit with about Sanderson being bullied. She's the bully who didn't count on people standing up to her.
My, my how surprising it always is when someone stands up to the bully.
Kind of like the emperor discovering he's naked.
I wonder if people would have lashed out at Sanderson if she wasn't a bully to begin with.
Larry, I don't understand your reasoning. The blog comments are now going to be more like "the letters to the editor" of newspaper? The big problems with the newspaper are: lack of space, slow turnaround, uncertainty if your comments will see the light of day. This is a serious question, not a rhetorical one.
On the other hand, this is your blog and your choice, so a suggestion/request: please keep the pipeline as open and as fast as possible, and then this experiment will be a success. The proof is in the pudding; I and many others will continue reading if there's plenty to good content and interesting commentary.
@Anon 10:35AM - too quick to judgment, IMO.
And I really wonder if people would have stood up to Ms. Sanderson if she were a man (especially in person, face-to-face)
Of course they would have stood up to her/him. A bully is a bully. Steve Rivkin will be the next bully to be voted out of office.
Yeah, said the guy who does not have the, err, kahoonies to leave his name.
I don't think the problems of the school committee can be laid at all on someone's gender or reaction to gender. This is a red herring. People complained about Sanderson, not because she was too aggressive "for a woman," just that she was too aggressive, period.
Actually it's "Cowardly-Anon-Nitwit."
And now that I've enabled comment moderation, I'm hoping to do it a lot less often (Nitwit).
The reason Catherine Sanderson was opposed isn't for tone, bullying or anything else but the fact that what she stands for is abhorrent to her opponents.
Tone, and charges of bullying or elitism, were simply the political tactics used to discredit her and distract from the substance of her calls for improvement. "Canards," as Rich Morse accurately describes. Yet these worked well enough to hound her out of the SC.
Oh well. The work remains to be done, and now we've lost a scapegoat. Hecklers, handwringers and hilltowners, dazzle us with your results now that Catherine no longer stands in your way.
Oh, I'm sure they will just find another convenient scapegoat.
"Monsters from the Id!"
"And I really wonder if people would have stood up to Ms. Sanderson if she were a man (especially in person, face-to-face)."
Wonder all you want.
Have you ever seen anyone stand up to a man at town meeting? Me thinks you have.
Me also thinks you're still in the cave if you're wondering if we'll stand up to a man.
Are we supposed to shudder with fear at the thought of a man facing us down?
Has anyone told you it's the 21st century?
As a matter of fact, NO--at least not to my face.
No, Steve Rivkin doesn't have the stones he was born with. Here's 50 bucks that says he quits his school committee post before his term is up.
Steve is clearly a guy who will take his ball and go home if he isn't winning.
Not sure what excuse he''l use, if he'll go for the same, oh my family tripe that Sanderson used or something even more lame.
Uh, actually, Tom, it was her tone and tactics. Have you somehow developed a talent for reading people's minds. I am one of those who became increasingly disillusioned and then fed up with her tone and tactics.
It was also her idea that only she knows the way to improvement and if the schools aren't doing it her way then they're it's just not being done.
3:02:
As for tone and tactics, her critics worked with the benefit of a double standard.
I guess you disagree that the schools need to, can and should be be improved, and that conducting evidence-based evaluation is a more useful approach than is making ungrounded assertions about the effectiveness of entrenched programs that are producing mediocre results.
"It was also her idea that only she knows the way to improvement, and if it isn't being done her way, then it isn't being done at all." I never heard her say this - Are you a mind-reader? Let's assume you are. The 'improvement" field is clear now. It won't be done her way, and we'll see if it's done at all.
Who are you, again?
Tom Porter,
You're wrong to speak for others. And, in this instance, you're wrong in how you speak for others. I didn't have much of a problem with many of C. S.'s policies, but I had a big problem with the alienating way she went about trying to achieve them.
That is a shame. It's hard to imagine that her manner made those policies not worth advancing. Which ones did you agree with, but were alienated from supporting?
And will you support them now?
"personal attacks, lousy attempts at satire/sarcasm will, most likely, no longer be tolerated."
Sounds like a good policy for you to adhere to for yourself.
Once the trolls leave, for sure.
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