Gonna Make a Few Changes 'Round Here

Hey folks, I have made a few changes to commenting, and I will probably make some more. The biggest difference is that the e-mail address field must be filled in to submit your comment. (This doesn't actually limit anonymity since you can put anything there you like. Shhh, don't tell.) Also, there are new and improved guidlines on the comment form. Please read them.

Also, I am going to experiment with just editing or deleting the text from problem posts instead of the whole thing. I will continue to e-mail the author whenever possible (hint, hint). You'll see an editor's message, like "[DELETED:OFF-TOPIC]," instead of the post. I hope not to have to do this often.

I invite anyone who feels this restricts what they have to say to get your own blog. Blogging is fun! But this site is taking up much more of my time than it should this week.

Comments

Well, I certainly won't be posting anything I'm not willing to attach MY name to!

Melanie

We are all proud of you, but we are not with you.

Silence Dogood

Caelia Shortface and Martha Careful

Busy Body

Anthony Afterwit

Alice Addertongue

Richard Saunders

Benevolus

Polly Baker

So you See, Melanie, there are many folks out there with the courage to give voice to their thoughts. So long as they don't have to show their faces.

Well, of course it's OK to send people who won't play nice to a corner. I've seen plenty of disparate opinions here (and I just discovered this site today) and clearly it isn't IDEOLOGY that gets one yanked. Once upon a time there were such things as "civil discourse" and "manners" and those who didn't behave were ostracized. Now, that had it's downsides, to be sure, when idividuals were ostracized for not conforming to society's expectations (IE-because they were gay, female and out-spoken, etc.) BUT the basic idea of speaking civiliy so that discourse CAN HAPPEN is a wonderful idea! "My esteemed colleague from __________(fill in your favorite opposition...)"

Melanie

Yes, but isn't anonymity something that greatly encourages (and even rewards) incivility? Does anyone believe that verified identification of the authors of postings would not dramatically reduce the incivility found hereabouts from time to time? Or is that part of the price we must pay to permit the participation of those who - whatever their reasons - wnat to conceal their identities? Whaddaya think, Rah?

#1 Todd the Blog is a RINO...pro-gay wrongs & pro-abortion

#2 The FREE SPEECH advocates in the local ACLU are the first to CENSOR the truth about themselves

#3 FREE SPEECH for thee but not for me?

#4 If Mikey Nelson can post a hate symbol in town hall..

why can't I post truth on this site?

#5 How about an openly-Christian for mayor?

[DELETED:IMPERSONATION]

Damion, you have stepped over the line in impersonating an other person ("DVM") on this website. Your nonsense will not be permitted here. In the future, any posts that even resemble your style will be removed immediately to protect the safety and sanity of our online community. My apologies in advance to anyone who may be erroneously deleted in the future as a result of your foolishness. Thanks for playing.

Huzzah! I am more than pleased with the moderating influence of your, um, moderation. Thank you.

Try using the Trollbridge plugin ( http://dotclue.org/archives/000094.html ) It lets you garbelize the post publicly, while preserving the comment text privately. That way, if you need to produce evidence to a service provider to get someone's service suspended, you've got it.

Been there, done that. Works great! :)

Thanks for the suggestion, I've also seen a plug-in called "disenvowel" that does this.

Interestingly, I just found this article online that points out the fallacy of the idea that it's wrong to ostracize certain elements from human groups: http://www.smartmobs.com/archives/002217.html

I have mixed feelings about your policy on anonymity. It will scare off individuals who delight in throwing rhetorical grenades and running away. Can't argue with that! At the same time, on some topics, there are very good reasons to remain anonymous.

Education is such a topic. If you have a child in the CHCCS system, you are playing with fire to comment publicly on education issues. In the past 12 months, parents and even children have suffered from McCarthyite attacks from the school administration for speaking candidly about problems in the system. Also, parent complaints have been used as excuses to beat on the teachers when the complaints addressed things not even under a teacher's control.

Another issue is that leaving an e-mail address can generate unsolicited e-mail from strangers (not to mention strange e-mails).

Is it possible to submit valid e-mail addresses for Ruby's benefit (to communicate with or otherwise nail offending posters) but suppress them on the board?

Thanks for making this site better and better all the time.

[DELETED:OFF-TOPIC & invalid author e-mail]

Ruby, these seem like very wise and appropriate changes. A big thank-you from me for this site, and for the time you put into it!!

Ruby

Good move to delete the junk posts. I think you where getting overun by noise, and could have lost many readers from keeping the junk posts in place.

For those who object, I challenge you to try and get your rants posted in the local newspapers. It will not happen either.

Congrats to Ruby for creating such an interactive forum. There are bloggers with 1,000 times this amount of traffic, who do not get feedback comments at all.

ToddtheBlog

http://hippyhillnews.blogs.com/

 

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