Pickled Politics’ comment policy
Comments policy on blogs is a difficult issue and an ongoing struggle. Pickled Politics has somewhat of an ad hoc policy, deleting comments where appropriate and occasionally banning people if it is felt that there is no other option. What do you think should be the policy? Are we too soft at the moment, or too harsh, or about right? Is there any way to bring in a crystal-clear policy, or does each comment/commentator have to be judged on their own merits?
Personally, I am in favour of virtually zero censorship. One of the blogosphere’s great strengths is that one site can bring together all different shades of opinions together, someone which does not really happen very much elsewhere. People can test and refine their opinions against others’, which has always struck me as being the whole point of debate. We do need contrary people on this site, otherwise who would everybody argue with?
For example, take a hypothetical discussion over Gitmo and extraordinary rendition. Most people on this site would be (rightly) opposed to detention without trial for years, and shipping people off to be tortured. However, the discussion would only really come to life if somebody turned up and defended Gitmo and torture. Then we could all have a nice argument.
I suppose that comments may occasionally need to be deleted, but we, as a site, lose out if we narrow the range of opinions available.
What do you think?
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I think we’ve been here before…
True Leon, but I think that it is worth discussing now and then to clarify things.
Maybe, seems to me it’s only worth discussing when it becomes a real issue (typically when we get a troll). Is there an issue at stake here?
Moderation discussion should be need based, relative to experience and housed in practical application imho.
Rumbold,
We all say things in the heat of the moment. Me included. To me, the logical way to address this is:
verbal warning – the author of the piece calls the commentator out,
temporary exclusion – the commentator is told to chill out for a week or more and not to post, this step can be repeated ad infinitum if you want, with longer exclusions,
ban – failing all of the above.
In other words a process of increasingly severe penalties.
If the commentator moderates their behaviour, then that’s an end to it. If they continue to post beyond the pale, delete their comment and replace it with a statement of why the comment was deleted, and the level of penalty. Only in the most severe cases should a complete ban ever be invoked. This has the virtue of being transparent to other commentators. Which would be an entirely good thing.
Obvious hit and run trolls are a different matter.
I agree with you that the lighter the censorship the better.
However, there are certain ways of posting that actually destroy debate, or at the very least severely divert or personalise it. Perhaps some folk over-react to that, mea culpa, but I do think we have a right, perhaps even a responsibility, to defend ourselves against gratuitous behaviour.
To a large extent I think this site already gets it just about right, and it is important that reasonable folk are not put off commenting simply in order to assuage misused freedoms.
I don’t agree with a word of this!! (note- joke!)
Just out of curiosity, has this post been ‘inspired’ by a spat on another thread on here?
I think you have to take each contributor on their merits. My blog isn’t snowed under with comments, but I do regularly delete spam or ad hominem attacks. As for racists and fascists, again it’s on a case by case basis. I’m ok debating them if their content isn’t too inflammatory, but if they want to troll they get the heave ho.
I agree with you Rumbold.
And i would say in general, it depends on what people think the purpose is of people congregating on the net. I think moderation isn’t needed – i would ask people to say why they think moderation is needed? this is really the wider interesting question. as it reveals a lot of about our assumptions/expectations. as long as everyone knows its a free forum where any weirdo can say anything, what’s the problem? if you want to take on such people, good. if not, ignore them. Why do people want to pretend some views don’t exist? because they’re not palatable? because they don’t like to be reminded of such things? ( well you’d hardly hang out on the net then) because they worry someone will think ‘oh you own this site and you’re condoning such views’? So the question is what kind of environment are you interested in – a ‘controlled’ top-down one? or one where everyone is free to say what they want, relevant or not relevant? All depends on what people expect. As far as i can see, most people still have a very territorial “its my site” feeling, if i dont like you, you can bog off. Which is fine, if that’s what you want. But then there’s not much point to discussion, really, its no different to real-life, so we aren’t really learning anything new.
for me, the net has always been about experimentalism, about searching out all the different things you can find, and about completely unstructured interaction, which can take you into places you wouldn’t otherwise go.
so i’m not in favour of any kind of moderation really, if there is someone saying nasty things, well, leave it there, it only makes them look sillier. As for trolls – i don’t believe in such a thing – that we can all agree who is a troll and who isn’t. depending on your point of view, you may find someone trollish who others don’t. I am sure many people would consider me a troll.
Again, it depends on the purpose. As far as I am aware, PP is a place where people come to discuss things. If you have a thread, where everyone’s life hangs on – within an hour – reaching some momentous decision – then it could be said, you don’t want people distracting you from your discussion. So i would liken that to an RL meeting – you wouldn’t just go into a meeting with a set agenda, and talk about some random stuff. It wouldn’t make sense, if you are all wanting to get to the conclusion. However, if you’re at the pub, having a chat, the situation is very different.
i regard PP as some kind of virtual pub. So the less moderation the better, the more interesting it is. A boring virtual pub would be a well-policed well regulated place.
Perhaps people want to take it somewhere else – somethiing more political and getting membeship for parties, who knows. Till then, i can’t see why or how a troll/”off-thread” comments are so problematic.
of course i go ‘off-thread’ all the time – that’s where i think the real interesting discussions happen. Otherwise, it usually falls flat. Anyone who has spent much time on the NEt knows this.
I think that’s a bit of a pipe dream to say moderation isn’t needed.
Using your example, you’re in a pub with a group of mates have a chat, one random person pulls up a seat and joins the conversation, things go fine so you just enjoy the chat and continue. Another one or two seeing this and think ‘this is a friendly bunch; think I’ll chime in too’ and join. Another one joins and starts being rude, hurling abuse, shouting down people etc.
Now, do you tell him to fuck off (and call the landlord if he doesn’t) or do you sit there and ‘respect’ his free speech?
Is the reputation and experience of the group being a friendly bunch that enjoys a good natter more or less important than some turd acting like a two year old and spoiling everyone’s fun?
In my opinion too much moderation is as ruinous as too little. Both extremes do not work.
It’s the nature of the net that idiots aren’t easily ignored, someone will always respond and things can snowball very quickly (especially on flashpoint subject like say Israel and Palestine). If you let people run riot a riot is what you’ll get. And all the interesting viewpoints will disappear pretty damn quickly.
In reality people don’t play nice in some anarchist utopian ideal way, that’s just a fact. Further more, should we let people post libellous things which could in all seriousness cause Sunny to get sued? A no moderation stance will allow for this also.
Even anarchist forums have to ban people from time to time…
well thats your opinion, Leon, that it’s a pipe dream, again, it depends on what YOU want.
Re: your pub example – why do you assume we would all do the same thing? I would probably not say fuck off.
But most people would probably, it depends on what they want.
Are you there for an open discussion or are you there to talk to your mates. So it will depend on that. But make one thing clear – if it is a closed discussion, let’s not pretend it is open. Or let’s set it out, what it is we want.
not all of us want, or can handle the same thing. that is my point. I don’t know why you automatically assume strangers ‘butting in’ is unwelcome, or that people don’t want off-thread comments. Maybe they do, but perhaps that’s what we’ll find out in this thread of Rumbold’s.
Incidentally, yes I tend to like talking to random people and enjoying random discussions, perhaps because its precisely when things are not ‘being controlled’ that i can observe human nature. But -hey, that’s me.
I do come to the net to find random discussions – otherwise if people don’t want random people to ‘interrupt’ (which suggests that there are some wanted people and unwanted people) – then that’s fine – but don’t go around inviting people to join in discussion, without making it clear you have a set agenda you want people to follow. Or invite anyone.
Frankly, if PP had started out with a strict comments policy, it would never have achieved the same popularity it has done today. But again, it depends on whoever feels they control PP, to decide what measure of success they are using.
I don’t feel like saying anything on Liberal conspiracy because the comments policy puts me off quite seriously. if there was similar draconian attitude on PP, why would i bother hanging around?
and of course Leon – back to the point – this is a textual medium, i can say something simultaneously to you, and both of our comments appear, instead of in RL where one of us would have to let the other speak. So by me speaking, I am NOT doing YOU out of turn.
And again – if people dont like someone’s comments, say so, say why you don’t like it, or ignore it. Why should we let it get to us so much?
Well Leon you’ve made it quite clear what your vision for net participation is, perhaps if others share that view on PP that’s what you should go for. But ask yourself the question – why are people engaging with people who ’say silly things’? Hmm? And what is your ultimate goal – to explore the riot that is human interaction? or to impose some kind of order, to some end goal. if it is the latter, then yes, you probably do want some control. Also if you only want certain views expressed, and certain kinds of people present in a forum.
And you probably don’t want people like me around encouraging people to get off topic, and encouraging trollish behaviour.
again to make it clear : in the social science qualitative inquiry world, i am all about finding out what people think, not saying ‘restrict your opinions to the question i have posed’ – because you learn more that way. Of course, that assumes that one wants to find out something. If you have a set agenda, which Sunny clearly has, and you want to ‘direct’ people, then yes, possibly a different approach is necessary.
Unmoderated blogs tend to slide into chaos and lose all value. Anyone remember what happened when Sunny sloped off to Paris two years ago?
http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/94
(The worst stuff was deleted)
I agree that only the most obvious trouble-makers should be up for banning, but with the direction Sunny’s thumb being influenced by the baying mob, ie us. (Did that make sense).
However, I seem to recall a suggestion that in some cases (particularly I/P) commentors who were becoming over-excited and de-railing a thread by going over the same old points or engaging personal score-settling, could be asked to move to a discrete thread and carry on there.
That’s quite a big assumption…
That’s quite a big assumption…
Not really. Yourself and Sunny have clearly outlined your Stalinist approach to blog monitoring and clearly have a set agenda to push.
Anyone who doesn’t tow the line (or comprehensively de-bunks your arguments) is banned.
It is a sad indictment of liberalism.
Sorry leon i should have made myself clear, i was referring to this:
my assumption from that was you are setting out that you dont want a riot.
yes we all make big assumptions.
whereas, I – if i were going to have a blog such as this one, (which I assumed – (probably incorrectly now) was all about the discussions) would want a riot. so that’s the difference.
and can i just point out, for myself, if it weren’t for all the various people didn’t come and comment on the various threads, there would be really nothing particularly different about PP, it would be just another place I visit, with some amount of interesting writing/journalism/etc. I am drawn here by the commentators, not the writers of articles. so for me , PP is made significant by the people who write comments, and argue it out on the threads, not by Sunny or anyone else. I am grateful that Sunny started it off, keeps it going, looks after it with the help of many other people, increasingly Rumbold I notice while Sunny is no doubt off to Liberal Conspiracy land, however, if all the commenters disappeared, and the same quality of writing stayed, it wouldn’t really be worth spending much time here.
oops, i meant of course..if it weren’t for all the people who come and comment….
Jesus, me and Sunny are Stalinists now?! My word, I never knew banning all of three people a year (racists BNP trolls aside) means we’re power mad dictators imposing our will on the web!
Wahishi, I’m assuming your incredible claim is backed up by a consistent, objectively studied and forensic dossier of evidence?
Care to publish it here and now to see how these charges against us standard up in the court of PP public opinion?
I’m prepared to go, Saddam like, to the gallows if you can prove your point.
My views are often contrary to the majority on here, but I never feel I have to pull my punches or tone anything down to avoid censorship – I’m confident that as long as I can manfully resist the urge to resort to abuse or idiocy nobody has a problem with my presence, even if they may disagree with what I’m drivelling on about.
So I’d say the moderation team here has the balance about right.
I fuck goats
I fuck goats
Prove it. I bet you’re all talk and no goats.
They have credit card protection schemes for scams like yours.
Justforfun
Rumbold, I think you are wrong in conflating moderation with censorship. If this blog was not moderated, then you would have several people just writing personal attacks, obscenes insults, and so forth. And this would alienate a lot of us. I think the moderators do a pretty good job, as I have never seen anyone censored for having the opposite point of view.
I think it’s too arbitary. I also sense — and I could be wrong — an anti militant Indian bias.
What ever happened to disenvowelling?
Good point Ravi about the distinction. However I think Morgoth and Muzumdar have been curtailed for thought crimes. In Muzumdar’s case I just don’t know what else he has been saying elsewhere so it may be more involved and personal.
In the IP threads it is just renlentless badgering and where there are anonymous and non anonymous posters, it is difficult line to judge. All I have to lose is my ‘Justforfun’ brand. I can always start another ‘Justforfun Ultra — for those whiter that whites’ if needs be. For others its more personal.
Justforfun
However I think Morgoth and Muzumdar have been curtailed for thought crimes.
And that is what I meant by Stalinist.
I don’t know what the full story is with Mazumdar either, so I’m staying neutral on that one.
However, Morgoth has just been vicious and gratuitously disruptive, so perhaps his censorship is more warranted. Not necessarily in the sense of banning him outright — I think that several regulars here on PP could deal with him quite effectively — but his more deliberately malicious remarks should be removed, as they cross the line from “jousting” to calculated insensitive gameplaying and attempts to derail discussions.
I don’t know what the full story is with Mazumdar either
Perhaps Sunny or Leon could enlighten us all?
Wahishi — you sound like Mazumdar
El Cid
I think you mean I read like Muzumdar. Considering you have never heard he or I speak.
Jai – every post by Morgoth does not need a reply. I admit I don’t not read them carefully.
I know you make a point of trying to correct every post where you conscience dictates and that is admirable, but there are times when you just have to bite your tongue so to speak and just let peoples ‘jousts’ go unchallenged. This is a virtual world afterall.
Has his posts changed your view on anything? I’m sure the answer is no, so what has he acheived? We can’t change others, only ourselves.
Muzamder’s posts were more informative and his Khalistani politics were novel,refreshing and lanced many boils in the open air. Made me think and reflect on my experiences back in the 80’s. I would have liked to joust in his ‘post-colonial’ tournament but it was not to be – he perhaps knew he had balsa wood lance maybe.
Justforfun
Wahishi – your shoes are beginning to show
I stand corrected. I’ll be careful to be more exact next time.
i think what annoys me slightly is that people here agonise about the moderation policy and free speech and all that when frankly, it would be far easier if people were just more civil with each other instead of telling each other to feck off and indulging in (admittedly sometimes amusing) ad hominem slanging matches. i mean, it’s neither Big nor Clever. why don’t you just have a “politeness” policy and try not to swear and insult each other quite so much? it’d remove the need for much of this debate. on ha’aretz’s website they have a policy that you’re not allowed to call someone a nazi, because of that law that rumbold mentioned a few threads ago and because of all the buttons that presses when it occurs on an israeli website.
b’shalom
bananabrain
He was sent to the gulag; we’ve been playing non stop Spice Girls songs to re-educate him so he can re-join us as a model citizen pure in thought and deed.
sorry, i forgot to say, perhaps we should have a rule like that here about calling people racist or stalinist every five seconds. the words come to lose all their meaning.
b’shalom
bananabrain
jff –
you are a funny one.
i think on many occasions, morgoth and muzumdar were rapped on the knuckles for being morgoth and muzumdar.
good point Bananabrain.
I seldom read Muzumdar’s posts because I didn’t feel qualified to have an opinion on the topic, but Morgoth often made worthwhile points, when he wasn’t being gratuitously rude or embarrassingly jejune.
I do hope he hasn’t actually been banned, as I’m sure it was just a phase he is going through. I confess I went through a comparable phase myself, of believing that Casteneda and the quantum quackery of Zukav et al provided insights that the mundane majority could not grasp. I’m sure I was a pain in the arse at the time, but it passed (oddly enough round about the time I found a girl-friend. Who insisted I choose between halucinogenic fungi and sex).
By all means delete the drive-by spittle-spraying hate junkies, but the eccentric, the misinformed, the disturbed/disturbing, and the plain wierd should be given a fair go in the hope that hanging with the PP community (are we a community yet?) will have a beneficial and civilising effect. Also, they are often fun.
I think the balance is more or less right, but we need to keep transparency. If somone is being banned or sanctioned we need to know why and have the opportunity of arguing for or against. So I agree with those arguing for a yellow card/ sin-bin system.
I agree with Sonia on the point of a blog. However, I realise that many of you (Douglas, Ravi, etc.) like a bit more moderation, so I doubt whether there will ever be a consensus on this.
Sunny deserves more credit then he sometimes gets, given the amount of work that he puts into running Pickled Politics. I think that everybody appreciates it, but we just don’t say it enough, so let us give him a round of applause.
I believe that Pickled Politics is the best blog on the web because of the strength of the commentators. If nobody ever commented it would still be a good blog, but our real ‘greatness’ lies in the fact that commentators are able to have an informed and open discussion about pretty much anything. You just do not get that to the same extent on other blogs, even on one’s like Iain Dale’s.
Leon:
Not really. Sorry, I forgot to thank you for providing the link to the previous discussion.
El Cid and Wahishi:
Figuring out who is Muzumdar is a game played by a number of people on Pickled Politics. El Cid spotted him very early this time, so Wahishi/Muzumdar, you could at least admit when you have been caught.
very gracefully done rumbold *claps and blows a kiss*
and a round of applause for sunny..
(hmm i must be getting soft in my old age!)
heh just seen don’s point there about getting ‘battles’ to move to a discrete thread. what a good idea! this could be real fun. we’d have anas back and amir and morgoth and muzumdar and it’d be a right show! i bet that’s where everyone would go hang out for ringside seats.
yes that thread was very revealing
Rumbold,
An admirable summing up. Sunny does indeed put the effort in, which is not always appreciated. And I’m glad to see someone else saying what I’ve thought for a long time, this is a genuinely superb site. Maybe even Dons’ virtual community?
Should we submit it for a prize?
Probably not.
Heh, erm thanks for the appreciation.
Firstly, it’s precisely because I have a moderation policy that we’ve developed a culture of having good discussion here. We have had plenty of derailings in the past with trolls. Anyone remember Amir? Every writer on PP was annoyed with him for constantly derailing every thread with massive rants. It destroys the atmosphere.
The second point about moderation, which is hardly ever brought up, is that moderation may actually bring out people to comment who don’t want to be subjected to personal attacks for doing so. In other words, moderation actually brings out a range of opinion that would otherwise be silenced because non-moderation simply leads to a slagging match between the loudest (or most dedicated).
Arif and I used to have huge debates about this in the past when I used to run another forum. Eventually he came around to my view that you need moderation to foster a good atmosphere otherwise it leads to chaos.
I know the anarchists hate it (here’s looking at you Sonia
) but it works.
I don’t see commenters having more value than the post starter, neither do I see the post starter having more value than commenters.
The beauty and power of blogging is the relationship between the two, one without the other is meaningless imo.
Leon,
That is because you are of the true faith
.
There are many folk that think they blog that don’t allow comments at all. We call them vain. There are folk that blog and don’t reply to comments, we call them journalists. And then there are those who get down and dirty. We call them righteous.
I’d do a roll call, but it just gets me into trouble.
I’m down for some degree of moderation. Not so much over ideas, but insults which at times are directed at female bloggers. I haven’t seen this on PP, but I do know that female bloggers get some of the most brutish remarks which make me want to ban their asses for good. It’s one thing to poke at someone’s opinion, logic, argument, etc. It’s another thing to be demeaning, insulting, and sexist just because the blogger lacks a protruding member.
But someone who is being a bit unruly…I wouldn’t necessarily ban/moderate that. I’ve behaved atrociously on some people’s blogs (taking issue with people’s views, saying a post is ’stupid’, etc) but they have been very gracious to keep letting me post comments
Heh. Righteous. I like that.
I’m not sure that this applies to PP or LC, but there are few things less likely to make me read a post and its comments than a hundred one-line comments that make no argument.
I don’t think anything should be taken down for being critical, strongly-worded, controversial etc., and nor do I think it would be. Things that clog up the debate by attracting counter-flames and so on are probably candidates for deletion.
The criteria for moderation should become more stringent as a post becomes longer.
And as the saying goes… don’t feed the trolls.
xD.
It is a sad indictment of liberalism.
Indeed. The prime example is the “We need our own space” post over at LC by an occasional commenter here – an insecure and delicate little flower of a liberal so pathetic that she can’t stand any disagreement at all. If she wants a liberal echo chamber much like the BBC. But heh, that’s liberals for you.
I do hope he hasn’t actually been banned, as I’m sure it was just a phase he is going through.
Don’t worry old bean, I am what is known in the trade as “having a life” at the moment, and besides there’s little of interest to me on both HP and PP at this precise moment in time.
Thank you Sonia:
And you Douglas:
I like an argument but compliments are welcome too.
…what is known in the trade as …
…at this precise moment in time.
Morgoth, I don’t object to your opinions, but could you do something about the prolixity? It’s starting to grate. Thanks.
Don:
It would be fair to say, taking all things into consideration, that, if one may be so bold as to submit an opinion at this particular point, Morgoth’s supposed prediliction for proxility is not that grating if one takes into account the various strands surrounding his notable writing patterns.
Proxility at its finest, by the great Mr Amitabh Bachchan (time: 20 seconds to 30 seconds):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKjC_5oIU7s&feature=related
Morgoth, I don’t object to your opinions, but could you do something about the prolixity? It’s starting to grate. Thanks.
Why use big words when dimuitive ones will do?