Moderating Comments

As some of you might have noticed, I've decided to moderate the comments on this site. It's not a decision I came to overnight, but one I've wrestled with for the last several days since all the Pandagonistas showed up.

If any of you went back to my first few posts, you will find that I was kicked off Echidne of the Snake's blog because one of her regular posters went batshit crazy during a comment thread on the Michael J. Fox stem cell research ads. I was completely astonished at the time that someone would go nuts on a blog and instead of castigating the crazy person, the webmaster would boot me instead. All because I brought a different point of view.

But the experience of the last few days has caused me to rethink that opinion. While I certainly meant no harm to either Echidne or her crazy commenter, having lived through a troll invasion has changed my mind, at least somewhat.

I've always loved argument and debate and when I started a blog, I wanted to have the same sorts of conversations. When the Pandagonistas swarmed in, I was thrilled, thinking I would have the sorts of interesting discussions I was hoping for.

For the most part, I would say that has happened. Some of the views expressed have been thought-provoking and made me rethink some of my ideas. For example, the arguments about homosexual parents as married couples has made me think more closely about how that new twist affects the traditional purpose of marriage (I may post on that later).

But unfortunately, I've seen a tendency for posts to become both less substantive and more personal. I understand that if you don't think an unborn child is a baby, then you have no problem with killing it because you're just discarding tissue or whatever. Arguing over and over that the embryo/fetus/whatever isn't a baby isn't going to change anything. I got tired of seeing these arguments in every other post.

But the second thing I noticed (the personal nature of the arguments) is what pushed me to moderate comments. When I am spending my time having to explain why not wanting to expand government programs isn't "actively (not) want(ing) women to have the choice not to have an abortion out of economic necessity," then it means I'm not doing the things on this blog that I created it for: namely, to write about ideas and issues I'm interested in. So, I decided to start moderating the comments

Does this mean I won't add your comments? Absolutely not. But if your comment is longer than the original post, I probably won't add it. Try to be more concise. And if you are saying roughly the same thing you've said in four other posts, I probably won't post that, either. Or if you think name-calling is appropriate.

So feel free to submit comments. I may decide to stop moderating later. But right now, it seems to be the best way of handling things.