One of things that has always distinguished HA from most other blogs is the unmoderated, no holds barred nature of the comment threads, and the nasty, brutish and often profane political bloodsport that they produce. No stranger to vitriol and foul language, I never felt it my place to impose more solemn standards on the HA community.
But really, enough is enough. It is one thing to abuse me personally, but it is entirely another to abuse the whole HA community by hijacking threads with intentionally off-topic comments. I have no obligation, ethical or otherwise, to continue to tolerate this deliberate trolling, and the deliberate disruption of legitimate debate on important issues of the day, especially in the face of the constant and baseless accusations that I have been blocking comments. (TIP: I don’t have the time to read most of my comments, let alone censor them.)
So as of this moment I am imposing new policies regarding comment thread moderation. The following type of comments will no longer be tolerated:
- Deliberately off-topic comments (except in “open threads”), as well as pointless comments on these comments.
- Deliberately repetitive comments, particularly those intended to repeat and a reinforce slander that has already been sufficiently debunked.
- Large chunks of cut-and-paste from copyrighted works or other blogs and comment threads.
- Blatant sock puppetry.
Each of my co-bloggers are now free to delete comments on their own posts based on their own arbitrary interpretation of these standards, while Darryl and I have global moderation privileges. Repeat offenders will be banned. And don’t be surprised to see these standards imposed sporadically and selectively. This is my blog. Life isn’t fair.
My advice to the rest of you is please don’t feed the trolls. Ignore the off-topic comments and the abusers who post them. When you comment on this garbage, you only encourage them. Comments on deleted comments will likely be deleted too, so as not to disrupt the flow of the thread. And if you absolutely feel the need to discuss some off-topic issue, or announce some sort of breaking news, please save it for an “Open Thread,” which will now be graciously provided on a daily or more frequent basis.
You forgot to include the smug, arrogant, condescending, personal attacks by the pseudo intellectuals who equate disagreement with their politics with being “stupid”, “uneducated”, “dimwitted”, etc.
#1 offender – Rogger Rabbit
Bravo
Let us not forget the people that write in all caps. Rude.
I’ll believe it when I see it Goldy.
Bout time.
Point of clarification: Can we still inform certain persons who post here that is there moral obligation to pay their gambling debts? Or should we just wait for those certain persons to be banned (which, considering how they enjoy hijacking comment threads, is a virtual certainty)?
I agree with you, Goldy, but I’ll miss the target practice. One needs to stay sharp, ya’ know.
@1: That would eliminate just about all the wingnut commenters here, but maybe that’s for the best.
Yeah, the time has come for a little evolution.
@ 6
All gambling debt reminders should be made in open threads.
I guess that means that most of our resident right wing trolls will have nothing to say here then. Since all they can do is post off-topic garbage that they copy from the likes of Newscrapz.
Good Idea.
I suspect Ol’ Fuzzy will be able to adapt to the new rules just fine once he knows about them. The resident trolls . . . I’m not so sure. They don’t seem to learn very fast.
I’ll give you this, though. If the trolls can manage to stay on topic and post original thoughts, we could have some interesting debate around here.
While troll-bashing feels good, and even seems therapeutic at times, I suppose that not everything that feels good is actually good for us. Picking at the carcasses of the brain dead is probably only healthy for scavengers.
I want to make clear that my goal is not to squash dissent, or even mean spirited, vitriolic debate. It is to clamp down on the deliberate (and sometimes professional) trolling that intends to destroy debate.
Some of my posts are mere flame throwing. But there are other times when I spend hours crafting a careful policy discussion, only to have the comment thread immediately overwhelmed with off-topic garbage. I’m simply not going to tolerate that anymore.
Thank God. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read a fascinating post, then went to the comments hoping to see some debate on the topic, only to see loads of off-topic sludge. I wouldn’t have minded if it were on-topic, but the first few comments usually have NOTHING to do with the post they are attached to. I’m not sure why you tolerated it for so long. Free speech is one thing, deliberate efforts to make the blog unreadable are quite another. For too long, the comments on this blog have been completely unreadable.
MEA CULPA ON A FEW OF GOLDY’S POINTS.
NEVERTHELESS I SUPPORT THIS POLICY 100 PERCENT!
I SHALL SIN NO MORE. (THAT’S SPEAKING FIGURATIVELY PUDDY).
You gonna take your caps lock off?
17 – HMMM. THAT’S A TOUGHIE… ALL I CAN SAY AT THIS POINT IS WAIT AND SEE.
Good for you Goldy. From one person that has always stayed on topic, but quickly lost interest because of the trolls….I will be much more eager to wade through content and actually read stuff before responding.
It’s a day to rejoice in restoring signal where there was troll noise!
Thank you, Goldy.
While I have enjoyed HA for a few years, it has become increasingly difficult to try to follow anything here for more than about 2 or 3 comments before it degenerated into yet another repetitive troll-fest. I feared that, with the elections coming up next year, the professionals would be here, stalking every thread in a shark-like manner and trying to inject UNsound political tollery.
Thanks!
Does that mean the fearless leader Roger Rodent will be banned? He may ponder suicide if he can’t sit around in his bathrobe all day obsessively on this site not working,not paying taxes, collecting gov’t cheese checks, etc. Poor lil bunny, I know he’ll take it hard. There are suicide hotlines you can call though bunny-boy. Not to worry.
Glad to see it. I can’t count the number of times I’ve wanted to comment on a post, only to see that the slog threads were already full of racist, misogynistic, homophobic idiots posting nothing but ad hominem attacks and utter non sequitors. It’s annoying and unhelpful, and no one will read through 99 postings of “Kennedy sucks!” or whatever the local trollfucks are spamming you with in order to read the few substantive comments.
Let the 101st Chairborne Commandos go find somewhere else to infest from their mother’s basement WebTV.
When are you going to make good on that long-ago promise to go to a registration system like Scoop or Soapblox?
At this point, I don’t care whether I get a low UID or not.
Goldy…’Bout fuckin’ time, man!
All you worried about Roger…trust me, he’ll be fine as he can actually THINK and WRITE with CONTENT and COGENT ANALYSIS.
I WON’T miss the misguided moronic meaningless meanderings of:
Klake (WHAT a fucking DUMBSHIT!!!)
Puddy (See above)
Mark The (dyspeptic, welshing) Redneck
…and others too numerous and odious to mention (you too “Janet”)
Via con Dios, assholes.
Mark1 @ 21
It applies to everyone, lefties and righties.
Bravo, Goldy. I wish we had similar standards over at Slog. I have no problem with dissent, but when people start commenting anonymously on my posts–posts attached to my actual name–starting scurrilous rumors, or calling me and my colleagues names, or posting links to parking tickets I got back in the early 2000s (on posts that have nothing to do with parking tickets) I think it’s completely appropriate to yank the comment.
This one is easy:
“It’s my blog, and I reserve the right to pull any comment at any time.”
@26: You were cited for parking violations? How can you live with yourself?
OK, but heck!
I comment on Iraq (especially) and/or the President/Gonzales/etc. because I am a political junkie and I spend a lot of time on the national issues. But I promise: I’ll really, really, try to stay on topic.
Way over due. I’ll start reading the posts again knowing that I don’t have to wade through wingnut this and libtard that. Every thread does not have to lead to a debate on Iraq.
Daddy Love @ 29
“I comment on Iraq (especially) and/or the President/Gonzales/etc. because I am a political junkie and I spend a lot of time on the national issues. But I promise: I’ll really, really, try to stay on topic.”
We’ll keep you fed with open threads (and some topical threads) to vent/debate/troll-smack on these issues.
Oh puhlease.. the sanctimony is gagging.
Name calling? You leftys need to take a trip through the archives. Or do you only recognize it when you are the object?
Ditto: foul language
Ditto: hijacking
Ditto: personal attacks
Ditto: threats
Blah, blah, blah, blah…
We all know the gutless wonder will only ban off-topic comments when it is on by someone with whom he does not agree, otherwise he would have to delete 99% of what roger rabbit posts.
The gutless wonder is doing his semi-yearly penis wagging, but NOTHING WILL CHANGE in regulars to the 12 regular lefty loons that post and hijack.
The dirty little secret that the penis wagging gutless wonder does not want to reveal is that it is the DISSENTERS that makes for the entertainment that lures you lefty morons here. Without the DISSENTERS, you would be little more than great big circle jerk squirting all over each other singing your version (the God-hating one) of the Halleluiah Chorus.
So has anyone started a pool yet on who’ll be first to be banned?
Yes, about time.
I do have one request however.
Rather than deleting the posts forever, can they be moved to a “bit bucket” thread for the amusement of the rest of us, or does WordPress not allow for that?
Darcy(etc. etc.):
If this blog turns into a place where everyone agrees with each other and gives each other high-fives about how smart we all are, it will be boring, and I will stop visiting.
The issue is the level of poo-flinging here is so high that it makes it hard to have a worthwhile conversation.
Disagree. Hell, be disagreeable! But spare us the “ZOMG! Liburuls are t3h st00pid!” and “Hillary’s a bitch and Michael Moore is fat!” comments. It’s boring, repetetive, and frankly makes conservatives look bad as a group.
34
I take an annual trip to Montana (more if I can) to fish with my Republican fishing buddy. He has no truck with the social conservative wing of the party, so we don’t have to get into abortion and stem cell research and such nonsense. As a former surgeon, he has some clue about empiricism. But, as a doctor who served many years in the Army Reserves, he’ll defend any militaristic whatever until he’s blue in the face. Half the fun of our trips is to engage after a few beers in a little debate. Last year, he couldn’t go, and I went with my brother. We pretty much agree on everything, so finding something to disagree about took a few days. Finally, I found it–he’s a bigtime defender of anything Israel does (having boinked a Zionist for a long time). I have some questions about some of the things the Israeli government does from time to time. After a few beers, we lit it up. And, that felt right. Disagreement, even among those who mostly agree, can be a very entertaining thing.
This is not about a sudden need for purity by the gutless wonder.
This, thinly veiled and oh so laughable, is about JetBlu, DailyKos, KIRO and the greed-fear combination of a gutless wonder
What a hoot!
Sure jsa… first get your liberal buddies to put their poo back in their diapers
Yea right.
Bush, Nazi, Cheney, Killer, Dave, hairdo, Christian, bigots
liars, fascists…. any of that ring a bell with you?
Thank you! I come here and read the posts daily, but had pretty much given up on the comment threads. Actually, I have given up on the comment threads of many of the blogs I read because they degenerate into ad hominem attacks. Except for the site where they are so closely moderated as to be uninteresting.
Bless You Goldy and all the other Co-bloggers at HA!!!!
This blog USED to be so interesting. The past few days I’ve been stuck at home (babysitting Sister’s grandkids while the kids watch awful movies) and bored to tears here.
Occasionally one understands when people get off topic, but I think (like someone said above) it gets to the point that it becomes deliberate to sink a blog. Promise that I won’t Feed the Trolls, hope I haven’t done that too much already!
Good move. I have always felt that it was out of control here. And the point was really driven home when the trolls followed you over to FireDogLake last week. I’ll be more likely to look at comments now.
40
I look at the threads quite a bit, but there didn’t seem to be any good reason to participate in many of them. After the trolls had hijacked them and the trollstompers had jumped into the fray, there didn’t seem to be any real point to joining the food fight unless I wanted to feed the trolls too. Most of their trollskrit seemed to be just automatic regurgitation of talking points, or the moral equivalent of flinging poo.
I will admit to enjoying watching Roger take apart yet another cut-n-paste wingnut, for instance, but I think I’m sufficiently mature to confine my enjoyment to the open threads.
MISTAKE
Hey Darcy,
Pot, Kettle, Black!
I don’t believe that I have addressed you previously because, quite frankly, you just aren’t worth my time. But this post affords me the opportunity to speak out about your posts.
Hate filled rants, with almost mo point, no thought and no end are all you seem to post here. I am sure I have not seen one post with any original thought. (I admit I skip over the vast majority of your posts. I had learned early on that you said nothing and thought even less).
You refusal to accept reality, your ability to paint all “libruls” with a singular brush and your continual want to prove your complete lack of intelligence.
That said, fuck you.
I am glad Goldy is going to finally get a handle on controlling the direction of the threads. Censoring is not the goal, keeping the posts meaningful (on topic) is.
Oh I got it now.
When the Koolaid morons mimic Gore, Soros and Moore, they are expounding on a good idea and virtually exploding with original thought. {snicker}
When we take a conservative thought into fruition, that is nothing more than cut, paste and FAUX originality.
You fuckers are the master race alright.
Master hypocrites.
Master double dealers.
Masters at duplicity.
Something about the mote in anothers eye and the log in yours… Or, to make it easy for an miserable old fucker like you: pot:kettle.
As my old dead Daddy used to say: Son, you are so full of shit the birds are following you.
This sudden bout of post purity is CYA by the gutless wonder.
Until such time that he puts the brakes on rabbit and his 12 other resident lemmings for {boo hoo} thread stealing FUCK HIM AND YOU. It is censorship pure and simple. And the reason is that someone over at KIRO and/or the local democrap HQ said: hey gutless wonder, the crap you encourage is making us look bad… just like Jetblu said to the KosKids.
The gutless wonder is afraid to lose his free beer fund.
And newflash for you.. even the Koolaid kids are losing interest in the gutless wonder.
From this post up, the gutless wonder has generated a total of exactly 60 comments on 4 different threads…. and I account 10% of those… that is pathetic.
Good post Goldy.
What you are saying is common on many internet sites where people can speak their mind.
I don’t understand why posters resort to name calling and cussing to get their point across. Does not make them look good. No matter what political stripe a person claims.
Sounds a lot more
confe—professional!It would be great of this could keep some of the face-in-your face juvenile charm while allowing serious debate too. Possible?
I’m sorry the comments weren’t self-policing, so I totally understand the need.
That said, I hope the “And don’t be surprised to see these standards imposed sporadically and selectively” statement doesn’t mean this blog will turn into the left/liberal/progressive version of the echo chamber that is Sound Politics.
SeattleJew
“It would be great of this could keep some of the face-in-your face juvenile charm while allowing serious debate too. Possible?”
Yep…there will be more frequent open threads, where the usual chest-thumping contests and gnashing of teeth will continue.
31st District Voter,
“I hope the “And don’t be surprised to see these standards imposed sporadically and selectivelyâ€? statement doesn’t mean this blog will turn into the left/liberal/progressive version of the echo chamber that is Sound Politics.”
No chance of that. The idea isn’t to suppress debate. We will not be deleting on-topic posts over content that we disagree with. Rather, the idea is to encourage debate by keeping the threads on the topic and free of disruptive comments.
Whiner @ 44
“This sudden bout of post purity is CYA by the gutless wonder.”
That’s an interesting, albeit nonsensical, claim. Whose ass was being covered for what purpose?
“Until such time that he puts the brakes on rabbit and his 12 other resident lemmings for {boo hoo} thread stealing FUCK HIM AND YOU.”
Roger Rabbit will not be hijacking threads. A long time ago, Goldy asked people to keep on topic except during open threads. RR was compliant.
“It is censorship pure and simple.”
You are mistaken. This blog is private property. You are permitted to comment here only because Goldy allows it. Commenting here is similar to being a guest in Goldy’s house—if you don’t follow the house rules you don’t get to comment anymore.
It’s very simple, really.
I miss Roger Rabbit,
He’s a HOOT! Do you suppose he’s on vacation or the troll’s chomped him down.
Good call, Goldy. Thanks for the use of the site, and I’ll try to keep my colors inside the lines.
FricknFrack,
I vaguely recall Roger Rabbit mentioning he was going away on vacation. I’m sure he will be back with gusto.
It always seems the other side is the worse when you are talking from your heart .
Goldstein says some of the most bigoted comments out there in regards to the negative human nature of those who disagree with him .
Somehow this sounds like a reaction , not a response . So liberal of him .
Know how you could make a good idea a great one?
Am I the only one who remembers FuckedCompany.com? When his comment section, called the “Happy Fun Slander Corner” got completely out of control (makes HA look the PI Soundoff by comparison), he put in a “crap filter” whereby one could choose “with crap” or “without crap.”
Howzabout it?
Yeah, I remember fuckedcompany. I actually showed up there once as an aggregate statistic (the dot-com I worked for started outsourcing to India, lucky us). I’m in favor of a crap filter, but unless such a thing already exists as a WordPress addin it sounds like you’re nominating Goldy, Darryl or some other poor slob to do a bunch of work.
I have my own crap filter based solely on user name, but it’s geeky enough that I wouldn’t expect anyone but me to be able to use it. (For one thing, it’s written in a computer language that doesn’t come with any version of Windows. For another, it’s run from a command line instead of by pointing and clicking. Many people probably aren’t aware that Windows still HAS a command line.)
@57
Ah, C’mon. Windows doesn’t even have a SUGGESTION line :>
WATCH WHAT YOU SAY! (Don’t remember if Ari Fleisher said that, or Scott McClellan, but I’m still hearing the reverb of progressive horror at the implied censorship of patriotic dissent. So is anyone surprised that Puffy Moonface McGoldstein has no tolerance for dissent or debate?)
Suggestion: Let’s go over to the excellent soundpolitics, where good people have better things to do than mutually reinforcing their own smelly orthodoxies and bigotries.
58
Actually the Windows command line is “You WILL go where WE want you to go today!”
As opposed to the Mac, which for years didn’t even have a command line (not one that normal users could access, anyway) and even now it’s more like, “Eh. Whatever.”
Troll @59.
Funny. That’s like O’Reilly accusing Daily Kos of “hate talk.”
(u)SP has long deleted comments and banned unwanted commenters. Yet still with this bullshit about me suppressing dissent.
Hey thanks Darryl @ 54,
I posted later in the #2 troll bait thread, then came to read here. Good to know ol’ wabbit should be back. Love that the trolls tattle like school sandbox tarts and hate him so much! He just makes me laugh! hehehe
Sharks rule, Mr. Goldstein, but if you say that (Not-U)SP whacks back, it must be true. Still, SP’s where I met Headless Lucy, whose every inanity was (apparently) dutifully posted. Met many other contrarians there who, despite some grumbling about feeding trolls, were apparently allowed to keep on trollin’.
As for you, what does “Yet still with this bullshit about me suppressing dissent” mean? I think it means you suppress dissent … but, hey, like you say, this is your sandbox. If you want to stifle inconvenient truths (even when inconveniently expressed) by kicking sand, then kick sand and pound sand.
My allusions elsewhere on HA to brown shirts and gulags should be filtered thru a Goldy prism. You told us that Chinese Communists are not communists. They’re totalitarians. That’s all I meant to say about the nice people at HA. You’re not Nazi neo-Stalinsts.
@2 I’ve never posted anything off-topic. This blog has only one topic, and all of my comments are germane to that topic:
REPUBLICANS SUCK!
So, how can I be off-topic?