The idea is for all comments to go into moderation. I'll regard the comments submitted to moderation as private messages to me, and I'll only publish comments I think readers would generally enjoy reading — comments that are interesting, original, well-written, and responsive to the post.
I don't write anything in the posts that I don't think is new and worth reading. Sometimes I "front-page" comments that seem especially valuable, so this new approach to comments would be much more like front-paging, with lesser comments simply not published at all. I would still read the comments, but I wouldn't impose them on readers.
Why am I thinking of doing this?
1. There are many excellent comments, but they can get buried amongst lesser comments. With fewer comments and a guarantee that these are all chosen comments, the reader experience in the comments will be far superior. Right now, I know there are many readers who won't even look at the comments because the overall quality is too low. So, first, I want a better reader experience. You won't have to go searching for what's good.
2. When there are already a lot of comments, you might not want to take the trouble to write a comment that might actually be excellent. Who will read you? This hesitation will be especially strong where there are a lot of lesser comments or a high concentration of low-quality comments. I imagine that some of the best stuff is never written at all. In the new comments experience, you might show up hours after the post has gone up and see maybe a line of 10 really good comments. You might feel strongly motivated to contribute. What you write will be read.
3. Of course, I might not choose your comment for publication at all, but you'll know you're competing to hit my standard and that I'll at least read it. You'll see what does get published, so you'll have a chance to learn what it takes. I'm optimistic that the quality of comments will improve as commenters see what I'm saying is good. There are lots of ways to be good, and I'll be continually showing you examples.
4. It might make me better. If it doesn't, I can change back any time I want.
You might wonder what will happen to the cafés. What I can do, with the limited options Blogger gives me, is turn moderation off at the end of the day when I put up the café, and then you can write and interact spontaneously. That will also end the moderation for the other posts of that day, but I'll simply go through those posts the next morning and use deletion to get the effect I'd worked on for the day.
Doesn't this sound like a lot of trouble for me (and Meade)? We already spend a great deal of time reading comments. The idea is to use our comments-reading time to better effect. We love reading the comments. I have a way of reading and writing that flows very well for me, and I would really miss having comments. But I want better comments!
The new commenting experience has not yet begun. This is a post where you can talk about it and see your comments immediately. Feel free to try to talk me out of this. But aren't you interested in seeing what would happen?
IN THE COMMENTS: mccullough said...
I’m ready for my close-up.traditionalguy said...
Going to bring my A-game.
Do it! We have a long way to go to reach Althousehood,but we have to start somewhere. And we might surprise you.CJinPA said...
Will snarky baseball comments still make the grade?
More than most bloggers, you sometimes encourage readers to consider specific ideas before commenting on certain posts. It’s clear the quality of discussion generated by your writing means a lot to you. I make a conscious effort to post an original idea when I comment. I’m not always successful. This should be a worthwhile experiment. The big question: How many will stick around if their comments are never published, and what will that say about their (our) motivation for coming here?stevew said...
Sounds like a lot of work for you and Meade, but also that you are ready, willing, and able to do that work.Kent said...
I think is sounds like a fine idea, and would significantly improve the quality of the comments here. I'm one of those that doesn't come as often to the comment section lately as I once did; partly because of volume and partly because too many comments have been in the category of personal attacks.
Not sure if any of my comments will rise to level of fitting through your new filter - often I'm coming to the party after it is well underway and so don't have much to offer other than agreement with ideas already expressed - but it would be fun to try to win you over. I expect that I would spend more time thinking and composing, rather than just dashing off whatever comes into my head.
Try it for a while, you can see if it works and if you are really interested in doing the moderation work.
Brilliant! think it has great potential, less for limiting the dross (which is more easily done just by not reading comments) as for enhancing the gold; improving on something you've said or adding perspective you find useful. Does it carry the danger of enhancing an echo chamber? Of course. But every blog author does that by deciding what questions to tackle or how to frame them. The best antidotes are rival blogs but nothing you do with comments will limit that. Moreover, as you pointed out, it also gives commenters more incentive to add something you might find worthwhile and more assurance they won't be trolled.Ignorance is Bliss said...
Will it be possible to come to some sort of arrangement with Meade to get our comment in, maybe as a recruited athlete?Baelzar said...
You seem like you'd be a fair moderator. Give it a try.Lyle Sanford, RMT said...
1) - A huge thank you for managing to write this post not using the - beaten lifeless through overuse - word "curate".MayBee said...
2) - I feel I should read all the comments before making one of my own, so sometimes I just move on when there are a lot.
3) - Whatever you do, the effort you put into making this blog so special makes me feel better about the world.
I have low self esteem and always assume ideas like this are intended to keep me from babbling so much. So we'll see what I dare to do. I felt the same way about caller id....maybe nobody would ever answer my phone calls if they know its me? But after a few years, I got used to it.The Last Dragon Slayer said...
I think there is a risk of you being accused of censorship and favoritism. Althouse is already unfairly accused of things. However, the person who perceives that they are being unfairly censored will never have the chance to air their grievance publicly. They might go away in a huff, I suppose, but if they are the ones who are so likely to be accusatory of Althouse and her motives, maybe that is just fine.Phil 3:14 said...
I disagree with Althouse on a number of points, but I find her to be quite fair in addressing issues and letting people speak and disagree. She only asks that you back it up. I totally back that approach, so I have little fear that the comments will begin to slant only toward her point of view. I think Althouse knows that the value in the blog is the debate, and censorship would kill the goose. I expect she even finds us right-wing commenters interesting, if nothing else.
Banning people is very hard to do. I've had several "personas" on this blog it is is very easy to create a new one every day if I wanted. How can she ban someone determined to be a pest?
I don't like up-voting. To be honest, I trust Althouse to be more balanced than the general audience (not saying that any given member is less honest.) Thus, with up-voting, we will get more censorship in a way since contrary views my get down-voted based on point of view rather than quality. I think Althouse will filter for quality and relevance, not point of view.
I do hope she will let the tangentials through. The old Spatula was very entertaining even if not right on topic. There have been other colorful commenters that might not always advance a debate, but they were fun to read. But then, I think this is a reaction more toward to personal attack and back and forth bickering than it is for anything else, so I still see it as low risk to the quality of the commentary.
Is it possible to create a parallel comment section for those who don't make the grade so that we can wallow in our mediocrity, pettiness and name calling.Meade said...
I mean, without that, is life even worth living?...
Just know that as I disappear beyond the boundary of acceptable comments I will be standing outside, face pressed against the glass shivering and hungry but somehow still warmed by the wit and humor of my bettors.
(PS, are these better comments? .....oh please, please, PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME GO!! I'LL DO BETTER, I KNOW I CAN DO BETTER.)
Phil, you have a typo on "bettors."
Posts
480 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 400 of 480 Newer› Newest»But out there with these natives, it must be a temptation to be god, because there's a conflict in every human heart, between the rational and the irrational, between good and evil, and good does not always triumph.
Call for a higher class of insult. Every insult must be by implication, for a start.
Connotation rules!
If it at all can be done, I would prefer a different captcha system.
Ignore the captcha system. It doesn't matter.
Gregg said...
If I make an idiotic comment, let the Commentariat slap me down. Part of this is letting fellow Commentors correct each other.
Some commenters appear to like getting slapped. No amount of pushback from other commenters has changed their behavior. No reason to think it ever will.
Like heyboom I tend to read toward the end of the day and usually enjoy reading the comments, even when there are a lot of them. If a back and forth argument between a couple of posters gets boring, I can just skip it. Rather than choosing which comments to post, why don't you continue to post all of them, but add a rating system to highlight the comments you like. If readers could filter comments, some readers might choose only the "Althouse Likes" comments, and others would prefer to read all comments. I don't know if that's possible with your hosting serving, but I'd prefer that to restricting posts. I might get a laugh or a new insight out of a short quick comment that you wouldn't deem worthy of posting.
"I guess it comes down to what sort of comments you would delete."
I wouldn't delete any. I would read comments as if they were private messages to me and I will choose good ones to share. It's not like deletion because I'm not saying you did something wrong. Getting published will be like getting front-paged.
"Would it be just the blatantly bad ones or would you accept only the cream of the crop to curate a more cultured blog?"
I'll see what works as I do the experiment. I hope to present a readable mix. I love comments. I just want them to be better and more readable.
"In any event, it's your blog and we're all guests here, so no one has a right to complain if you decide to make a change."
I hope to improve the situation so I would expect people to say positive things. You can also complain. It's not a matter of rights. But there are so many places to express yourself on line. I don't think I need to give myself over to being a general platform. There's a tragedy of the commons problem, and I'm not the commons. I'm special.
Limit everyone to 4 comments per thread. I don't know if that is possible, but 4 comments should be plenty for relevant comments and avoid the delay and hurt feeling review would introduce. Could raise the limit for overnight threads or the rare 500 comment topic.
what if the post is initially off-putting?
we posted disgusting things last night re:
"wax my ass, scrub my balls"/ Psychedelic Warlord/Cult of the Dead Cow
material, which at first glance would be prime for shit-canning--
but it surfaced the next day in 2 threads by Althouse.
I agree with Krumhorn @ 5:01 and andy karas @ 5:16. Just scroll past the trolls and morons and enjoy the current back-and-forth.
ALEX
Your comment is not pissy. Coyne really has banned such suggestions as to what he should blog or how. Such banning is pissy. I an saying Ann's inner piss ant, not deeply buried anyway, will likely come to the fore.
How old is your computer LDS? I only get the picture routine when I post on my old laptop which still runs on XP.
Opps -- does that count as one of my allotted two or three comments?
Angle-Dyne, Samurai Buzzard said...
" Excellent idea. Make us put as much thought into comments as you put into your posts. Exigez le meilleur! Make us be better than nothing! "
___________________________________
Didja forget? Althouse always says nothing is a high standard.
Confession: I do a lot more lurking, than commenting around here. Moderation won't change that.
And Rabel @ 6:04: great Apocalypse Now pull...
It’s your blog. Carry on.
Rather than choosing which comments to post, why don't you continue to post all of them, but add a rating system to highlight the comments you like
That's an interesting proposal, it would be interesting to see how it worked in practice.
"Why would anybody respond to that seriously. Standing alone, it marks the insulter as an idiot. Don't spoil the effect by spreading it out to yourself. You might mock it if it can be done cleverly"
Sounds like a great idea, in practice it has failed over 1000 times to address the problem. Ignoring the trolls has never worked.
What HAS worked is counter-trolling and dialing up the noise until the host can longer ignore that the trolls are abusing her guests under her own roof.
I don't mind being the bad guy, I suspect the others here who have been counter-trolling feel the same. And I am not sympathetic to those who woild ignore online abuse to avoid dramam. They remind me of the teacher who does nothing when a kid s bullied all semester, only to intervene when the kid finally unches back. Its the commotion and drama she hates, not the abuse itself.
I'm special.
You're not. You're really, really not.
It might be your blog -- on Google's Blogger platform which they offer for free -- and you can do whatever the hell you want within that limited fiefdom, including rejecting the concept of a marketplace of ideas, but special you ain't.
This isn't law school and commenters aren't your students.
How this may work; I posted one comment on this page so far. My comment was, “I love this idea. Totally love it.”
My comment was quickly taken down.
I have so longed for better moderation, and an end to the repetitive personal attacks. This new format would have that effect. But whereas I think Althouse has a lawyer’s mind and a sensibility for stern argument, I wonder if Meade will operate on petty personal prejudices.
My comments are now routinely taken down; I expect this one will be too.
Ironic, since I’ve been the most vocal about the lack of any moderation of personal attacks, having been the leading subject of personal attacks.
I would read comments as if they were private messages to me and I will choose good ones to share.
That won't work at all.
You've got a huge blog thanks to Zipf's law - the top few sites take all the traffic and the enormous rest take the leavings, because everybody goes where everybody else will see them. It's not from world class editorial capablility, in particular. It's okay, but not the cause. The traffic was a chance thing. I think Instapundit started you, and a free speech policy on comments kept the people who came, and they made the blog worth visiting by being there.
Lose the everybody else and you lose everything.
I read the head post as an analysis of something from a woman's point of view. It will of course require a correction, and the comments are off. The comments should reflect the comedy of sexual difference. This works even better when the women's side lacks critical self-awareness, as usually happens.
Moderation will not help that.
“Call for a higher class of insult. Every insult must be by implication, for a start.” — rhhardin
A surprisingly shrewd suggestion.
(See what I did there?)
Oh and I thought I was merely gaming the system.
Now I know the system was gaming me.
"Ironic, since I’ve been the most vocal about the lack of any moderation of personal attacks, having been the leading subject of personal attacks."
Actually, given your broad strokes personal attacks against whole categories of actual conservatives/republicans, one would be correct to describe you as the leading purveyor of personal attacks.
With a certain someone else a close second.
What you really object to is that at some point in the not too distant past, others began holding you accountable for what you wrote and giving you as good as you've dished out.
Needless to say, you wilted immediately under your own rules. Big surprise.
You lost your "freebie attack" environment, whereupon you immediately crawled up Althouse's skirt asking for protection.
You want the ability to attack others...while being protected.
Althouse and Meade have declined to treat you in that way. Nor should they.
So your tears flow like an endless stream and your self-pity is as thick as peanut butter......or pea soup...depending upon what mood Yukon Cornelius happens to be in at that moment.
Some commenters appear to like getting slapped. No amount of pushback from other commenters has changed their behavior. No reason to think it ever will.
Exactly. They're called "Trolls" and they love attention. And you can say "Don't feed the Trolls" and it NEVER works. The "Troll enablers" NEVER Stop.
Its Internet 101.
"If you're going to go to all that trouble, why not just delete the ones that aren't up to your standard - which surely would include the name-calling pissing contests."
We already do that, but this will be different from that kind of negative reinforcement (which doesn't change what people do very much). This will be positive reinforcement. Not getting published shouldn't be regarded as rejection, just not getting chosen to be featured on the blog.
"Thing is I'm sure that I'm not the only one that finds frequent nuggets even in the "lower quality" posts. All in all, I'd say you will deleteriously affect the vibrant quality of the commentary. From long experience, I can tell you that moderators invariably damage good conversation. Again, take it easy on yourself and delete the ones you don't like and then let everyone decide whom to read and whom to ignore, just like they do now."
I'm hoping the comments will be more vibrant and also that it will be easier for us and a more positive experience for me and Meade, for the comment writers, and for the comment readers.
I have been scanning the Althouse blog for a few years, but only posting recently. It is her blog and she can do with it what she wishes. From my view - putting all comments into moderation first, and only the ones that meet some criteria will get shared smacks of what it is - censorship.
Either run the blog with comments and leave it as it is, with the provision that really hateful krap gets removed, or just turn off comments all together.
If the blog becomes another moderated echo chamber, its value disappears and I will most likley stop reading it.
As it currently is, it is pretty simple to just ignore certain folks who have thin skins and lots of vitriol for others.
But as I said, it is Althouse's blog, and she can do with it what she wishes.
The back and forth.
The rhythm of scrolling.
The process of self-discovery.
It's actually very theraputic, meditative.
You come to the Althouse comments and you are scrolling through hundreds and hundreds of comments and then BINGO, you find that one comment that ties everything together.
It's like when you are at the sale racks at Loehmann's (Wannamaker's Basement) sifting through dozens and dozens of garments until, lo and behold, ECSTASY---you find that one perfect item.
Why do you want to deny your Readers the joy of self-discovery ????
"because everybody goes where everybody else will see them"
OTOH - "No one goes there anymore, its too crowded' - Yogi Berra.
Althouse: "Not getting published shouldn't be regarded as rejection, just not getting chosen to be featured on the blog."
There will be no way possible for any writer to discern one vs the other.
Not saying you shouldn't do it, but your distinction will be irrelevant.
Anthony Jezelnik somewhere has a joke about San Francisco women. He met a woman in a bar and asked what she did.
I'm a brain surgeon, she said.
Jezelnik hopes it's not sexist or misogynist or anything to say he was impressed.
Most women can't do sarcasm.
Be Best!
cruel,...but neutral.
Now that I've read through the comments...
I think there is a risk of you being accused of censorship and favoritism. Althouse is already unfairly accused of things. However, the person who perceives that they are being unfairly censored will never have the chance to air their grievance publicly. They might go away in a huff, I suppose, but if they are the ones who are so likely to be accusatory of Althouse and her motives, maybe that is just fine.
I disagree with Althouse on a number of points, but I find her to be quite fair in addressing issues and letting people speak and disagree. She only asks that you back it up. I totally back that approach, so I have little fear that the comments will begin to slant only toward her point of view. I think Althouse knows that the value in the blog is the debate, and censorship would kill the goose. I expect she even finds us right-wing commenters interesting, if nothing else.
Banning people is very hard to do. I've had several "personas" on this blog it is is very easy to create a new one every day if I wanted. How can she ban someone determined to be a pest?
I don't like up-voting. To be honest, I trust Althouse to be more balanced than the general audience (not saying that any given member is less honest.) Thus, with up-voting, we will get more censorship in a way since contrary views my get down-voted based on point of view rather than quality. I think Althouse will filter for quality and relevance, not point of view.
I do hope she will let the tangentials through. The old Spatula was very entertaining even if not right on topic. There have been other colorful commenters that might not always advance a debate, but they were fun to read. But then, I think this is a reaction more toward to personal attack and back and forth bickering than it is for anything else, so I still see it as low risk to the quality of the commentary.
"Lose the everybody else and you lose everything."
Except at the start she had no one. And later - was it 6 years ago? - she lost "everyone else" and still kept on trucking.
Comments *supplement* the blog. Nobody watches a movie because supporting actors are great. They come for the stars.
The new proposal reminds me of this (Kudos to Nat King Cole):
"The party's over
It's time to call it a day
They've burst your pretty balloon
And taken the moon away
It's time to wind up the masquerade
Just make your mind up the piper must be paid
The party's over
The candles flicker and dim
You danced and dreamed through the night
It seemed to be right just being with him
Now you must wake up, all dreams must end
Take off your makeup, the party's over
It's all over, my friend"
Oh well.
We're all just rats in an Althousian Skinner box.
Last comment. What it really gets down to, is certain people want to come a comment section and USE the blogger's popularity for their own ends. They want to troll, or engage in "battles" with other commentators, or whatever.
If "Chuck" and "Inga" and all their friends were so fascinating, they'd have their own blogs. Certainly, no one is keeping them - and their fans - from going off on their own and "battling" and playing "Crossfire" somewhere else. So, why don't they do it?
We all know the answer.
I suspect this will end up as another 400 comment thread.
At Chicagoboyz the topics are usually not politics, per se. There is a much smaller group of commenters but almost none of the insults and nastiness seen here. I have posted a few comments about personal history here that were taken up for mockery by nasty trolls. That is just not seen at the other blogs I read. I expected something like that in my comment about my daughter but Ritmo seems to be off today. Still I did get a nasty crack about "elderly father" after another one.
One especially obnoxious and disruptive paractice is to go back years in the commenting threads and copy and paste repeated quotes from other commenters which have absolutely NOTHING to do with do with the blog’s subject matter. This seems to be a way to completely destroy the thread because there are commenters participating that this person doesn’t approve of. Then this same person deletes his multiple quotes from others, leaving behind the targets comments, which then make no sense.
Exactly ! That (sociopath) person really chaffs my hide. Always has to butt in and copy and paste some stupidity from the past. For what? Just to emphasize a current commenters errant behavior?
And, for some sick reason, always bullies the same three superstars of the comment section.
That;s not funny!
Lem's place, if worse comes to worse. Ancient althouse commenters.
https://comonocreerendios-lem.blogspot.com/
It is cheering to see that the rats are still around—the ship is not sinking.
(Eric Hoffer)
This blog’s comment section is kind of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly of free speech, in microcosm.
We’re already watching Faceberg, Twitter, Patreon and the tech space in general fail miserably at deciding who gets front-paged and who gets ash-canned. Sounds easy but ...
Yes, please! I am a longtime reader who almost never comments precisely because there are often so many comments that I can’t possibly get through. And I don’t want to make a point that’s already been hashed through. I also rarely read the comments. I’d be much more likely to if most posts had somewhere in the 20-30 range, with maybe the most popular posts in the 50-60 range. I would also appreciate the filtering out of the off topic and name calling comments. It’s too bad Blogger doesn’t give the option to turn off moderation for certain posts. Seems like a feature that would be useful...
would a comment containing the word 'garner' ever make it?
Great new policy! I assume it means sudden death to all the comments that are pure ad hominem and tu quoque. I suggest that you hold for revision all comments that contain spelling errors and bad grammar as well as hackneyed and trite expressions such as "absolutely," "awesome," solecisms like "where it's at," "chance for rain," "forbid you from...," "the problem is is that...(Obamaspeak)," and the singular "they," and anything that comes from the mouth or pen of Donald Trump.
You would do Amerikan "education" a great service and help keep all those infelicitous expressions from taking over N-gram.
I like reading what unrestricted people say even if it's stupid; and I know who / what is pointless; and what to skim past. And I think some people like to get into useful or interesting back-and-forths which would be limited they had to wait for you to get back from biking or whatever. But try whatever you want, it's your blog and even it changes, that's your right.
Worth a try, if Mead and Ann are up to it. But to me, it sounds a bit too much like a J O B.
I would read comments as if they were private messages to me and I will choose good ones to share.
Must we then address our comments to Althouse, rather than to one another?
"would a comment containing the word 'garner' ever make it?"
Already has. See "Be," above.
"Must we then address our comments to Althouse, rather than to one another?"
No. Address anyone you like, tcrosse.
it's like Hockey-- we've said it before.
You come for the brilliant play, but the fights spice things up.
I like the blog as currently administrated. I find the comments in a range of high quality thought to entertainly inane. Having the good fortune of living with and working with very smart people it is illuminating to read what passes for thinking from very dim people. I tend to forget they are legion. Important to know they are among us.
Part of discussion is timely response. Under moderation if Hardin asserts 5=3 and I respond it takes a long time before he notices, deigns to respond, and explains to me I am wrong because 4=2 so therefore 4+1 = 2+1, and asks if I misunderstand addition. It could take days.
"I think you should consider switching to a better blog hosting service that allows your readers to upvote and downvote comments. You could also highlight the comments you like best. This would outsource some of the work plus it would be interesting to see how the upvotes compare to your highlights. You could easily post to two blogs at once while you test it out."
First, to switch services would be to undisplay 15 years of comments (many of which are written by me). I'm not doing that.
Second, I don't like out of order comments. They're a mess. It's a second-rate solution to the problem I think I have a better solution for.
Third, it would depend on readers reading the comments, and that's what isn't happening enough. People are avoiding the comments.
Fourth, the earliest comments that collect a few votes are read the most and collect the most votes. It's not a very good way to get the most material.
Fifth, there are a lot of comments I want undisplayed. Even if these comments get no votes, they will be at the level of any new comments, including good new comments, so the GOOD new comments won't get read and won't be upvoted.
In short, it's not anything I want at all.
Oh no. Will the breezy, random freedom of getting to comment here over the years be gone now? Shoot.
i see the problem, and wish you excellent success.
Make me sad, though, because the truth is I choke when my brain tells me I am in a "performance"; I see I will be too self-conscious to test our cruelly-neutral professor's curation.
{but, you see, that right there may be exactly the kind of trimming we might hope for, right? haha, sigh. oh well, i will always have twitter. oh wait}
What I’ve noticed over the years is that there are some commenters here who have sense of ownership of the blog, as if THEY own it. They would get seriously angry that anyone not of the conservative viewpoint had the temerity to comment. Then they would go out of their way to insult the “interloper” and it would set the tone for the rest of the thread, which of course would then get bogged down.
Also since there are so few liberal commenters that the few that do comment regularly get inundated by responses, questions or insults. If one responds to even half of those who have addressed them it pumps up the number of comments they make in the thread. Then when one does not respond one is subject to taunts of all sorts of things, including outright lies. It’s toxic and I’d be happy to avoid those sorts of commenters.
"Sometimes, posts are so far out that they provoke some comments very critical of the moderator. And sometimes that seems justified. How will such comments be handled?"
I really have no problem at all with people disagreeing with me. I will welcome such comments.
If people just insult me though, they'll be low-quality comments. You have to give reasons or be funny or eloquent or something. Be interesting and readable.
I have a completely thick skin about being criticized. I have a low tolerance for being bored.
Cafés will probably be unmoderated so you can have all the back and forth you like. That should give all the lonely hearts a nightly place to go woo Inga. Until we roll out of bed in the morning and delete like there's no tomorrow. :)
Chuck: "I’ve been the most vocal about the lack of any moderation of personal attacks, having been the leading subject of personal attacks."
I'm going to respond here as if I thought you were posting here in good faith.
The reason you are subjected to so much ridicule and scorn here is because you come of as a Moby, pretending to be on the Right while throwing it under the bus to get extra attention. And then when called on it you play this Eddie Haskel routine of "Golly Mrs Cleaver I don't how my baseball wound up here surrounded by glass from your broken window". People are tired of it.
But worse for you, the GOP is at a point where many in the base have discovered actual traitors in our ranks, like the cucks over at The Bulwark and NRO. Problem is, we can't touch them, we can't even vent, they are protected and out of reach from us "rubes".
But you are not. So when you play your little game, you become a proxy for every GOP Cuck and NeverTrumper that we would like to throat punch.
But I think you know this. If you want to be treated fairly, I suggest you stop prancing around in front of construction crews in a bikini so that you can whine about all the crude remarks thrown your way.
This is enormously entertaining. Censorship dressed up as quality control.
This will never work. You are both far too lazy to do this on a consistent basis.
You have always resented the comments and disliked most of the commenters.
Goodl luck in the new echo chamber.
Just delete the ad hominem attacks, the venemous comments, and the obviously irrelevant comments, and you will have solved most of the problem. There are obviously too many ad hominem attacks. This effects the tone of the entire comment section.
Titus is fab!
Interesting, the mob reaction against Chuck's and Inga's postings.
Hated that story about the kids stuck on an island.
Unless it's a monetary issue (which is of course a valid point for most of us!) I don't see why this blog would have to come down if Althouse moved to a new platform. Just have a top post directing to the new site and lock comments on the old posts. All the posts and comments here would still be up and linkable..
I disbelieve your claim you have a thick skin. You said something once that revealed a deep ignorance of evolutionary theory. I pointed it out, acerbically. You had a snit and demanded an apology. That is not a thick skin. Hardin regularly provokes you. You can be quite touchy on certain hot button subjects. (Take a poll here if you doubt me.) Openness is a good thing. Openly zap offenders with a 3 day suspension, and see what happens.
Hardin is actually right this time.
"There's a tragedy of the commons problem, and I'm not the commons. I'm special."
This is a true statement. For those who disagree with the new idea: a LOT more people read the blog then comment on the blog. The commenters are a small percentage of the consumers of the blog. The new idea may produce a superior reading experience.
The blog is primarily a reading experience, not a commenting experience.
“Cafés will probably be unmoderated so you can have all the back and forth you like. That should give all the lonely hearts a nightly place to go woo Inga. Until we roll out of bed in the morning and delete like there's no tomorrow. :)”
Now Meade, you know that if people are nice to me, I’ll be nice back.
At The Bar Fight Cafe
Opens every night at 10 pm.
Why not show us. Take a recent post and make an example of what would go and what would stay. Give us 24 hours to review so we can see your deletions. Or use word to show the edits.
"Those who already are spamming the comment section will continue on....some even maliciously, creating a great deal of work for the moderators. Some might do this on purpose."
These people will be much LESS work because I will be able to see the whole list of names and delete them without seeing their comments at all. Without the ability to jump in and post and be seen before I can catch and delete them, they may just not bother. If they do bother, I'll have an automatic way to get past them much more quickly.
One of the things about retiring from teaching is there is no necessity to read all those papers, but as others have point out it sounds like you are taking on even more grading with this suggestion. Still I understand how this might eliminate the back and forth name calling, and keep the discussion more focused, but I hope it won’t eliminate the occasional Trump like trolls.
//A good start would be to not call others who have opposing opinions “trolls”. I never got the impression that Althouse wanted an echo chamber.//
It is possible to have an opposing opinion and still be a troll. :)
"Blogger The Last Dragon Slayer said...
"If it at all can be done, I would prefer a different captcha system. Sometimes I am dissuaded from participating because of how much captcha it can take to get posted."
Dude, just ignore the captcha. Don't check I'm not a robot. Just click on Publish Your Comment.
wwww said...
"There's a tragedy of the commons problem, and I'm not the commons. I'm special."
This is a true statement. For those who disagree with the new idea: a LOT more people read the blog then comment on the blog. The commenters are a small percentage of the consumers of the blog. The new idea may produce a superior reading experience.
The blog is primarily a reading experience, not a commenting experience.
This is so accurate that I'm almost suspicious wwww had some sort of listening device trained on us, surveilling us as we walked around town and talked this morning.
"When the comment section gets too long, I just ignore it feeling that anything worthy of being said has already occurred and the rest is just back and forth yada yada."
Which supports the new system. There will be fewer comments but they'll all be worth reading, and someone who can write a good comment on a post that's been up for hours will have reason to take the trouble to write, because they won't think nobody's reading way down here.
Censorship.
Funny but we had a problem like this with 2 archers in our shooting. They kept finding new ways to cheat that weren't expressly forbidden by the rules.
They we very creative, so it became a game of leadership wasting time and energy crafting rules that would prevent 2 people from cheating while not imposing an undue burden on everyone else.
If you ever wondered why we need so many rules, its because of people like that.
Our leadership finally learned that no ruleset could confine people acting in bad faith, so they simply kicked them out.
"Perhaps as others have said an upvote/downvote system might be helpful in regaining control. That and the ability to ban those who are determined to be disruptive."
I don't have software to do either of those things, and I am not going to get it. Plus, as noted above, I don't like the voting system. It doesn't work to prioritize the best and most interesting writing.
Curating responses has value, though it will require work on your part. What would be really interesting is if you could collapse responses you think are noise, but they'd still be accessible to those who want to read them. I don't know if blogger has that capability.
"I too like the upvote/downvote idea — also, threaded replies with indents."
If there's one thing I REALLY hate, it's threaded comments.
Threaded comments allow people to get their comments higher up and more likely to be read simply by purporting to reply to whoever's at the top. It's a mess. So disordered. People game that system. It looks awful and it rewards the wrong substance.
I think the idea of "4 comments and you are done" has merits.
Can the system be set up to do that automatically?
"Althouse, I think you are severely underestimating the amount of work it would be (both in terms time as well as mental strain) to review every single comment that gets submitted to your blog."
You are underestimating the amount of time Meade and I currently spend reading comments, both in terms of time as well as mental strain.
It my be helpful to understand what problem Althouse is trying to solve. Is it boring comments? Incivility/personal attacks? Off-topic comments? What is driving the change? Althouse has explained the mechanics and the benefits and drawbacks but it would be helpful to know the why and why now.
"a LOT more people read the blog then comment on the blog. The commenters are a small percentage of the consumers of the blog."
This repeats a similar made back when comments were closed - lurkers aren't just coming here to read Ann. They are coming here to read Hayden and Farmer and many others.
So the commenters arent just consumers of the blog they are producers of the blog. Like it or not.
I don't come here to read Althouse, I come here to read how others are reacting to the discussion she has set up.
"My vote (if I had one, and obviously don’t) would be to, for example, just delete the name calling, and maybe then everything that the name callers say. I typically don’t like the sort of moderating that you are proposing. For one thing I think that it would kill the spontaneity, the back and forth. A lot of it seems to happen in the middle of the night (when I am between my two sleeps of the night), several hours before you are up and blogging."
Look at it from my point of view. In the current system, I have to look for what's bad so I can delete it. In the new system, I'll be looking for what's good. I want my experience to be positive! I don't want to be on cleanup duty all the time. I don't think that's the right thing to do to me.
Ann if you want to see a threaded comments blog done right, go to the wayback machine and look up the old Neptunus Lex blog run by an erudite ret. Naval Capt aviator (who was unfortunately killed in a training crash while a civilian contractor flying "opposition" fighters for the Navy.) VERY well worth your while. (tho he used Word Press and wrote his own master code..)
"a LOT more people read the blog then comment on the blog. The commenters are a small percentage of the consumers of the blog."
This repeats a similar mistake made back when comments were closed - lurkers aren't just coming here to read Ann. They are coming here to read Hayden and Farmer and many others.
So the commenters arent just consumers of the blog they are producers of the blog. Like it or not.
I don't come here to read Althouse, I come here to read how others are reacting to the discussion she has set up.
//A good start would be to not call others who have opposing opinions “trolls”. I never got the impression that Althouse wanted an echo chamber.//
It is possible to have an opposing opinion and still be a troll. :)
when does the "clock strike 12" ?
12?
"I don't come here to read Althouse"
Exactly. So why then should she come here to read you?
Assuming I'm one of the more boring commenters could you please periodically grade my less than A grade comments (preferably with a red pen) so that I can do better next time. I really, really want to get into one of the premier comment sections.
Upvoting will kill commenting as far as I'm concerned.
Upvoting is nothing but enforced groupthink. On Powerline and other blogs, people upvote comments not for their quality but just whether they agree with the position taken. Very few if any people ever upvote a post for being well-reasoned and well-supported if they disagree with the conclusion.
For example, who supports Trump will upvote every pro-Trump post, no matter how trashy. And then those folks will upvote his posts, on and on.
Groupthink.
I much prefer blogs where there isn't an in-crowd group upvoting themselves.
So why then should she come here to read you?
That doesn't make sense if she is moderating. Are you the only moderator, Meade?
"Now comes the part that might cause me to be seen with disfavor by our noble blogress. The blog entries are often interesting. Ann is very bright, fairly eclectic, and well read. But after we get over the oohing and ahwing about Ann’s brilliance, what comes next? I view Ann’s posts as beginnings of discussions, and not ends. I am constantly amazed at how smart, well read, and experienced the commentariat are here. And I learn the most when a lively discussion spontaneously erupts involving a subject, often only peripherally related to Ann’s original post, that several of the commenters here know quite a bit about."
I do too, and if only it could be like that most of the time, I'd be happy to support that. But too often the earliest comments drag in some old bugaboo that isn't responsive to the post and about which everyone has already spoken, and it just undercuts my work trying to set up something new and interesting.
"And, again, kill the spontaneity, by interrupting the time flow through moderation, and you kill the discussion."
So often other people kill my discussion.
"It’s the mental spoolup time. You really get into something, put out some comments, then wait a couple hours until you get a response that you can reply to."
That's the biggest problem, but I hope to be approving comments really quickly. It won't be hours but just minutes during the active times of day.
"By then, your mind is on something else. If your comment got posted in the first place, which isn’t guaranteed here. Did it get booted because Ann (or Meade) is still mad at you for something you said sometime in the past? Or did they go out for dinner and got behind in their moderating?"
Yes, there will be some mysteries. Life goes on. I'm not a computer.
"This is so accurate that I'm almost suspicious wwww had some sort of listening device trained on us, surveilling us as we walked around town and talked this morning."
LOL! I love reading, so I get it.
Too often the comments section becomes a kind of middle or low brow chatty space that slowly eradicates superior writing. Low or middle bow convo is all well and good in the right space, but that activity is done by and for the commenters. It's not aimed at the reading public.
Is it possible to create a parallel comment section for those who don't make the grade so that we can wallow in our mediocrity, pettiness and name calling.
I mean, without that , is life even worth living?
I’m looking forward to this survival of the fittest contest.
Maybe we can get a Fantasy Althouse League going. Who will get the most comments posted in a week, month season.
I think that would be just fine.
couldnt you just do a "penalty box" thing (like Hockey)??
There’s only room for a few at the top.
This will be like Hockey. No scrubs in the NHL
ya' know.....one of the reasons I comment here, and no where else, is free speech.
Just know that as I disappear beyond the boundary of acceptable comments I will be standing outside, face pressed against the glass shivering and hungry but somehow still warmed by the wit and humor of my bettors.
(PS, are these better comments? .....oh please, please, PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME GO!! I'LL DO BETTER, I KNOW I CAN DO BETTER.)
I wonder if now would be a good time to mischeviously suggest that this newfound sense of blog moderation "urgency" coincides with broad deplatforming of everyday conservative voices on Facebook, Google, Twitter, Instagram, GoFundMe and all the rest?
Further, also coinciding with renewed LLR/Democrat Billionaire funded campaigns to destroy Fox evening commentators.
How can we be sure our Althouse has not fallen victim to nefarious behind the scenes left-wing/LLR pressure campaigns?
Gird your loins Meade! Fight back!
Phil, you have a typo on "bettors."
Eliminate the ad hominem comments as well as the clearly venemous comments and you will have solved most of your problems.
The main problems are caused by the ad hominem attacks which drag down the tone of the comments section.
Another perspective is the effect of the second law of thermodynamics (entropy). That is the moderated comments may devolve as well.
The major distinction that has always been a big concern of mine is the difference (a big one in my view) between criticism of politicians, policies, public statements and public acts all on one hand (i.e., my criticism of Trump) all on the one hand, and the personal attacks on other commenters (“LLR”, liberals, etc.).
Althouse is — rightly — blogging about public figures, public statements, etc. She is almost never blogging about commenters. Which is the fundamental rule that commenters should follow.
Althouse’s new policy would have the effect of furthering that, I expect. It would be up to her if she were ever to brook any criticism or dissenting views of public figures whom she, uh, seems to favor.
I will miss Meade’s comments.
It is your blog, do what you want.
Thanks for the hospitality over the years.
If you make no other changes, maybe you could require everyone to have a picture of some sort?
I don't have one and probably should, so people who want to skip my comments can easily do so, just see the picture and skip, no reading of words necessary! If I were tech savvy I would already have a picture, I am thinking something like William Demarest or some guy from the copyright-free silent film days who looks like him, or a picture of me, but William Demarest is a lot easier to look at than I am, so I would go for that option, instead of a picture of me.
Hugh Hefner ruined my hopes of posing next to a Pookah because he has a picture of himself next to a Pookah. And I therefore will never pose for such a picture.
On Steve Sailer's blog there are features where you can see how many comments someone has posted (if the comments are in the tens of thousands they are usually not good) and you can literally press a button and have all those comments erased from the comment threads you read. He makes his commenters either go through some weird registration process or post as anonymous. So basically you skip all the frequent flyer haters and most of the anonymous commenters, it is not that hard of a reading experience. It seems to work fairly well, although being on Unz.com - which provides a home to lots of alternative viewpoints that are not so much alternative as delusional - he gets even more of the lunatic fringe than one would imagine he would, just reading his (Sailer's) posts. I have muted most of the crazy haters on that blog, but if there were pictures I would just skip past the pictures.
Anyway, before deciding what to do, maybe you could literally pick up the phone and give Steve Sailer, or Ron Unz, a call. Or if you want to talk to a liberal instead of a West Coast libertarian (Unz) give the Slate Star Codex or the Shtetl optimized guy from Texas a call. I think they would appreciate talking to a fellow pro at this "blogs with thousands of comments a day" business. Not sure they own telephones, though.
Meade "That should give all the lonely hearts a nightly place to go woo Inga."
See what I mean? She's the primary reason the comment section is a gutter, the instigator of it, and Meade fluffs her up.
So I predict you guys are getting played. She will be put center stage, promoted and encouraged to sling her shit for clicks. The censorship wi not be used to reign in her trolling, it will be used to shield her so she can troll more.
The paranoia algorithm is not working yet.
"...and the personal attacks on other commenters (“LLR”, liberals, etc.). "
LOL
You "forgot" to include "Trump supporters" in that list of groups attacked.
Unexpectedly.
Which is strange given your very own years long personal attacks on that very group in the most vulgar of ways.
Try to be more complete in your future Mobying.
"I will miss Meade’s comments."
LOL!
(note to AA: this needs to be front-paged.)
mccullough: "I will miss Meade’s comments."
Things I wish I had written.
"I think it's a bad idea. The least insightful comments are sometimes the most representative...."
Yeah, somebody mentioned Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap. What's your theory that we should read the 90% crap because it's representative.
Reading isn't about finding out what most people would say. That would be boring and uninformative. We don't read masses of text as some sort of polling process. That's totally inefficient, and who cares what most people might say? I want my reading time spent in good stuff.
Althouse, watch the pendulum. Back, and forth. Back, and forth. You are getting very sleepy. Verrrrrrrry sleepy. You can barely keep your eyes open. When your eyes close, you will sleep. When you sleep, you will dream. In your dream, this will be a wonderful comment, the sort of comment you have always longed to publish. Witty yet deep. On topic, yet creative. It has none of the extra linefeeds that trouble you so. It has only a tasteful, passing knee in the nards for Chuck, and only a single, whimsical misspelled reference to that bat-shit crazy HellSow troll Igna. You will love this comment, so very, very much. When you awake, you will publish this comment.
"Things I wish I had written."
Worth saying once, worth saying more than once.
Bad idea, Althouse. I'm full grown and perfectly capable of skipping the comments of those I know to be windbags and halfwits (oh Hell, Chuck and Inga). Start censoring and you're attacking the integrity of your own blog. And, as interesting as your blog is, I really show up to read the comments of Laslo, J. Farmer, Cookie, and the rest of the rabble. Your blog is valuable because it's one of the more intelligent and open discussion groups on the Internet. Resist the temptation to schoolmarm it and embrace a little chaos.
"What if everyone is limited to say five comments per the topic? I suspect the thing Ann is most frustrated about is people having repetitive arguments that repeat the same thing over and over again across many comments and topics. If people faced that restriction, much of the repetition would disappear."
I have no way to impose that restriction (other than what I'm proposing). I can't tell people to behave or follow these rules. I've tried to advise people, and I suppose many people listen to me and try to do what I've asked, but a lot of people don't want to help and some people don't really know how to do a good job or feel dedicated to what they see as higher values (like stopping abortion or opposing homosexuality).
It sounds like a whole lot of comment reading unless you have developed an efficient scanning technique to assure that comments are pertinent before the grading. But I suppose that professors have a natural skill in this area.
I suppose that comments will drift away from one line zingers to more detailed compositions which would bring changes in your readers and commenters as well. I know that we all will miss the work from home ads and personal attacks against certain loyal commenters (NOT!).
Althouse may become the inventor of a new and improved comment section - but I hope that comment rejection will not burn too many egos, On the other hand , I will always be proud to have been kicked off Little Green Footballs for disagreeing with Charles "Don't call me Chuck" Johnson many,many years ago.
“And I really look like a hallucination. Note my silhouette in the moonlight."
The cat got into the shaft of moonlight and wanted to add something else,
but upon being asked to keep silent, replied:
"Very well, very well, I'm prepared to be silent. I'll be a silent hallucination."
Look at it from my point of view. In the current system, I have to look for what's bad so I can delete it. In the new system, I'll be looking for what's good. I want my experience to be positive! I don't want to be on cleanup duty all the time. I don't think that's the right thing to do to me.
Shall we explain now how your suggested system may be gamed to death, or since you don't listen, shall we just do it once you act? I think there is far more downside than upside in the scheme you propose.
Althouse: "We don't read masses of text as some sort of polling process."
Havent spent much time over in the "Classics" dept lately, have we?
I give you the thoroughly fake and debunked and laughably moronic "I Rigoberta".
"Worth saying once, worth saying more than once."
Things I wish I had written.
Wait. This just got very Mobius-strip-y.
Successful or not, I believe it will be a terrific experiment!
Publish this comment, or we'll shoot this dog!
"Great new policy! I assume it means sudden death to all the comments that are pure ad hominem and tu quoque. I suggest that you hold for revision all comments that contain spelling errors and bad grammar as well as hackneyed and trite expressions such as "absolutely," "awesome," solecisms like "
See there, If I just knew what "tu quoque" meant I could be on the in crowd.
And to break one of my rules (regarding food and trolls) Mr. Peel you are ever reliable and of course insulting to the hand that feeds you (or at least give you a space to spout off).
also it took on three comments after "you know who" commented for "the other you know who" to come back at the comment. Symbiosis is a wonderful thing.
The comments here of the asskissers are quite classic. Sort of like a college admissions process. Perhaps you can charge for postings that don’t quite measure up to standards a la the current scandal. No need for Amazon.
"What if everyone is limited to say five comments per the topic? "
Or five sentences per topic. Short sentences.
Funny how the response has gotten increasingly hostile.
Sorry but one last question:
Will math be required?
Gadfly: "On the other hand , I will always be proud to have been kicked off Little Green Footballs for disagreeing with Charles "Don't call me Chuck" Johnson many,many years ago."
Hey, you just became interesting.
Why were you kicked off?
Did LGF's implement a new moderation system that was guaranteed to improve the "quality" of the LGF commenting section?
"This is a great idea. Seriously."
- L. M.
If the nurse shows up - There will be blood. Irish blood.
Moderation now. Moderation tomorrow. Moderation FOREVUH!!
"Will math be required?"
No. That's one of the beauties of the new commenting experience. No math, no arithmetic, hell, you won't even need to count! Comment as much as you like. Whenever you like. Be free. Express yourself. It's just you, Althouse, and Google. Well, and the FBI.
And a few other agencies.
So Althouse will be like our imaginary friend?
But, Daddy, I talk to her all the time!
"If the nurse shows up - There will be blood. Irish blood."
Haha. No really, take it to Lem's. Share the wealth.
Let me suggest that the problem with the new policy is perfectly illustrated by your additions to the post.
will we be required to change our username?
"Express yourself. It's just you, Althouse, and Google. Well, and the FBI. "
But if I never show up in the comment section am I that tree in the forest?
Suddenly I feel like Bruce Willis in "The Sixth Sense".
That's totally inefficient, and who cares what most people might say?
Somebody who believes in, and values, free speech and discussion?
This has happened before. The posts that explained what happened then have been disappeared. Just like the commenters who they want to eliminate will be in the new state.
Fen is entirely right in his analysis as he had gone through that process before.
Althouse has always despised the commenters. She should be honest and just eliminate them. Trying to tame and micromanage them will never work.
Don’t worry. This is just a passing fancy. They will not stick to it.
I read a few blogs regularly, and none of them have a commentariat that comes close to the one at Althouse. Love the Instapundit, read it a couple of times a day, never found a worthwhile comment there, so I stopped looking.
You have the formula for Coca Cola and you want to invent New Coke? Why mess with success?
On the one hand, I do agree that competition spurs quality improvements. On the other hand, as others have pointed out, the flow of the comment conversation will be affected in a negative way. Plus, it's a lot of work for you.
I comment very rarely, but I do enjoy reading them as they are, even if some comments are tedious at times. I would look for a less drastic solution.
The market test will be if the usage of the Amazon portal goes up or down after the change is implemented. Even if you succeed in improving the quality of the comments, I suspect that many of your readers will have a lowered sense of engagement, and might forget to use it. Will you share that metric with us?
So often other people kill my discussion.
Disagreement sucks huh? Hopefully you'll eventually get bored with the sycophants and return to free speech.
Althouse has always despised the commenters.
Well at least the ones who disagree with her.
I just hope we don't lose traditionalguy's communiques from his Command Bunker on the outskirts of Area 51.
I suppose I could start a new blog titled Shitpost Comments Flushed.
"I support this. The disqus approach doesn't work. I used to make it a goal, if I could post early enough, to be the most upvoted comment on Instapundit and many times would win (if I was one of the first 15 comments), by coming up with snarkiest/cleverest comment, but that's distorting, encourages snark, exaggerates importance of earliest comments and doesn't lead to good debate. If I am late seeing a post of Ann's and have something (I think is) great to add, but there are already 182 comments, I will probably not post. OTOH, I love the back and forth that occurs on some posts and have learned a lot from those. Suggestion - try this on every third post - Call each an "Experiment X" post, and see how it works out."
I have to have moderation either on or off. My only other power is to have it on only for posts more that a day old (or more than X number of days old). I wish I could selectively put it on and off, because it would allow me to keep the cafés.
Further, also coinciding with renewed LLR/Democrat Billionaire funded campaigns to destroy Fox evening commentators.
Yeah, Pirro and Carlson are the only two people I ever watch on Fox.
"Disagreement sucks huh? Hopefully you'll eventually get bored with the sycophants and return to free speech."
Oooh that makes me so mad I just want to... to... DELETE IT!
I’m looking forward to seeing less response to my every utterance.
I suppose I could start a new blog titled Shitpost Comments Flushed.
Rejected New Yorker Cartoons compilation was a hit
Never fix what is not broken.
Geez. Already as predicted: Althouse has front-paged feedback and it's all overwhelmingly positive!
Althome: "Wonderful idea! I think I - uhm you would be the most fair and unbiased thought influencer evah!"
BrothyMeade: "And the Amazon portal is SO simple to use! Try it, it changed my life!"
NotAnne: "About time. Althouse for President!"
... could ya at least one comment exoressing concerns people have bothered to post for you? Or do you want them to feel like marks right out the gate?
Publish this comment, or we'll shoot this dog!
Sometimes I wish we could post pictures. You know...teeny pictures that wouldn't mess up a thread. I laugh everytime I see that old Nat Lampoon cover.
It seems like an unfavorable effort/benefit ratio, if you ask me.
I wonder if it would increase the number of duplicate or near-duplicate ideas in submitted comments, since contributors won't know what has already been said; they'll only know what has already survived the winnowing.
I do get tired of the back and forth between Inga, Chuck and their antagonists, but I sure wouldn't want to spend the time doing the filtering. But if that's how you want to spend your time, go for it.
But a comment will only be chosen if it is interesting *to Althouse or Meade*. Some (or many) comments that other participants would find interesting and worthy of response will not be chosen because they do not strike the interest of A and M. This will inevitably make the threads less rich: they will reflect the interests of A & M, but not necessarily the interests--at least some of the interests of others.
I thought about that, too. Althouse thinks Michael Jackson and Bob Dylan are fascinating, for instance. That's fine--it's her blog, after all. But I hope the really interesting commenters here will continue to comment even if the professor doesn't find their comments interesting. I'd miss them terribly.
Sounds like the decision is made, but you could start a second "law" focused blog and carry your "law" tagged posts over there for intelligent, moderated comment on a much more limited group of posts.
This would give you a doable task as the moderator compared with the prospects of controlling the whole circus, would allow for the type of discussion you seek, and would keep this little party here going on for social issues which would be hardest to moderate well anyway.
As comment threads go, this is a very long one. Fitting somehow that it is about commenting. I'll throw my vote in as well: It's Althouse's blog, and while I understand that it's nice she in interested in our experience, it is after all about HER experience in the end. If she doesn't like the foolishness-fest that the comments often devolve into, then she will be less likely at all levels to put her time into this effort. I enjoy her postings and while I infrequently contribute in a meaningful way to the comments, I'm glad to have the chance.
PLUS, we are now about a year or so out from national elections. The paid trolls and their lickspittle lackeys will be descending upon this (and many other) comment threads like the locusts upon Egypt biblically. Lets support the idea and the attempt to ensure that this can be an island of relative sanity in the endless ocean of low quality input.
And an Ann Althouse moderated blog on legal issues would be a Hell of a Thing!
You front page the comment you'd be fair, and wouldn’t favor flatterers, but none of those expressing skepticism about that. Ironic huh?
When did the word "lickspittle" become popular?
You could add JAC as a co-blogger and eventually pass it on to him. Less work for you. You would have a built in audience with links to that blog from here.
It's Gold, Jerry! Gold!
"It won't be hours but just minutes during the active times of day."
You see the problem?
"So often other people kill my discussion"
It's your blog, and I can see why don't people to kill "your discussion," and of course the blog is about you. But as Rick Warren said, it's also not about you. I invite you and everyone to think deeply about that. Starting point for the purpose-driven blog.
"some people don't really know how to do a good job or feel dedicated to what they see as higher values (like stopping abortion or opposing homosexuality)"
Speaking for myself, I am very reluctantly and limitedly pro-choice and I wouldn't know what it means to "oppose homosexuality." But I have repeatedly called BS on BS arguments about abortion and gay rights. I appreciate having had a forum. Calling BS for me is part of a larger effort to counteract the lefty narrative in the culture at large. Since at times Althouse propagates a version of that narrative, and I view Althouse as a key part of the middle of the electorate, I have called her out as well, even when it was my discussion, not her discussion. For me, the anti-progressive-BS strand in the commentariat, on a range of topics, from Farmer to Hayden to DBQ to buwaya to Angle to YoungHegelian etc. etc., is one of its most valuable features. I'd hate to see that part of the conversation, continuing across a range of topics, get lost in favor of (only) "my discussion."
Just give the a**holes the Mary treatment for a while, and you're set.
"I visit your blog primarily for the comments. Sometimes your chosen subjects interest me, often they do not, however, regardless, the commentators always make the visit worthwhile. Your plan to arbitrate the comments will, in my opinion, lead to a loss of readership."
You know what? I don't care. I have been blogging for 15 years, and I'm no longer interested in seeing the numbers go higher. I have plenty of readers, and I'm interested in my own writing and the quality of the reading experience, including my own reading of the comments and anybody else's reading of the comments.
"We know, generally, what your opinion is from the introduction you write to each selection."
I question whether you are much of a reader of this blog. That's just not an accurate description of the blog. I don't even write an "introduction... to each selection"!
"Your occasional comments in response to a commentator further amplify your positions. Censorship, essentially what you are proposing, serves no purpose but to stifle discourse. The very few trolls that visit your site, again in my opinion, do not detract, rather they add spice to the dialogs which ensue. Hope you choose wisely."
Eh. Just doesn't sound like you read this blog or its comments.
"Maybe, just a thought here, alongside the cafe, you can set up a poo-flinging thread where those who want to vent their bile can do so to their wizened, dried out, blackened hearts' content."
The people who want to behave like that don't go where you tell them to go.
"I favor warnings (3 strikes or so), a 30-day ban on commenting, and ultimately expulsion (banned) from the comments for egregious violations of civil discourse."
I have no way to impose a regime like that. I can't even ban people.
somehow, it seems "Nearer, My God, To Thee" should be playing in the background
As I post, there are 364 earlier comments. That's kind of daunting. The post that inspire the most comments are the ones I'm least likely to read. Yogi Berrathing. Maybe this will alter that.....I do like the spontaneity of the comments. Somtimes the insults are witty. A lot of the commenters have a gift for invective. That's their muse. I enjoy shouting Thomas, but my guess is that some of his comments we'll never see......The blog would be better if more of my comments were highlighted. I've been frequently disappointed to see how people don't accept my correct analysis of a situation or moral issue as the final word on the matter. Instead they keep right on chattering away as if I hadn't resolved the issue completely. I hope with proper moderating this problem changes.......Good luck, but I fear that some of the weirder and more idiosyncratic comments will die stillborn. n.n. hardest hit.
"The whole idea of moderating good stuff in rather than moderating bad stuff out strikes me as unAlthousian. There are many commenters here who have shown that they can be trusted with the keys. If technologically possible, whitelist them. They will keep the conversation going to entertain the rest of us while you are out doing this and that."
I wish I could but I can't.
"what will happen when Althouse and Meade go on one of their road trips?"
I always post when I'm on trips. Comment moderation will be easy to do from a car... easier than when I'm out on my walks or bike rides.
Bravo
'have no way to impose a regime like that. I can't even ban people."
Geez. Wish you would have said that in the 100 or so times I asked why you simply didn't ban people. That silence left me little choice but to assume you were acting in bad faith.
I know you are unfairly attacked, but some of it you bring on yourself.
"I've never met a liberal who wasn't gung-ho to manipulate or change other's behavior. Laissez faire - try it sometimes."
I've tried it for 15 years.
Another thought. The proposed system sounds like more of a conversation WITH than a conversation ABOUT or AROUND. And to the shitheads who lack understanding, this is Althouse's blog, and she writes it for her not us. I'm just happy that I have some daily entertainment provided essentially free, and available at my convenience. I prefer that Althouse does whatever it is she would like to do to keep this free content coming our way. It's the height of rudeness for commenters to bitch about the metaphorical free ice cream, complaining that they want a different flavor. BTW, I like vanilla. It really is the best.
I don't have a strong opinion on this issue one way or the other.
It is Althouse's blog, and I believe she sees it as an artistic whole, and as such she is being true to herself in wanting the whole to better reflect her aesthetics.
In that aesthetic line of thinking, I believe the comments sections -- like the internet itself -- have become more Twitter-like: quick to reactions, quick to the barricades. I can get Twitter at Twitter.
As mentioned by several above, I am interested in what happens when something might hit an Althouse sensitive nerve. A recent example would be the wind power comments kerfuffle: it would be interesting to see how that would've played out -- to see what was considered wheat and what was seen as chaff. Or chafing.
However, I could also see such situations seeing a benefit: perhaps a pause for breath might enable all parties - host and commenters alike -- to forego a 'first-draft' response that might be achieved better after a brief perusal.
I have been a follower and commenter of Althouse for a fair stretch of time now; I have been 'front-paged' and deleted, both more than once. I have seen a considerable arc of the blog -- and have experienced a significant arc in my own responses to it, both in my own comments and any relevant intellectual attachment.
As Freddy Nietzche once wrote: “Lightning and thunder require time, the light of the stars requires time, deeds require time even after they are done, before they can be seen and heard.”
A fancy way of saying we'll see how it shakes out.
I'll be the Overman standing in the corner smoking two cigarettes.
I am Laslo
"BTW, I like vanilla. It really is the best."
Chocolate. But I'm going to let that one go. This time.
So if eight people come to a post with all comments still in moderation and all eight post "First!"; how will you determine which is the more quality post?
Sorry, Leland, I already promised Phil there would be no math.
The idea is for all comments to go into moderation.
An electronic border wall? With clearly designated and monitored entry points? That let in what you want and keep out the rest?
Trump calls this "law and order".
Althouse probably prefers "quality comments matter!"
Ann, one thought here. Would it be feasible for your blog to link to a mirror site? That is, a copy of this blog which would be an unmoderated wild west of idiocy. My uninformed guess is that the trouble wouldn't be worth it, and it would add no value to your life. I'm not sure what the upside of that might be for you; for the life of me I can't see one but then one never knows.
Just make sure rhhardin's comments go up. They are always interesting.
Bad idea.
Just delete comments at your whim.
It's your Blog, do what you wish.
But I come here to read the comments and the different points they make.
THEOLDMAN
Sometimes threads go by the boards often when the same memes are employed on the right as well as the left I think there was some interesting ground at the tail end of the Chelsea thread. Re religion as well as politics.
Meade sez: "Chocolate. But I'm going to let that one go. This time."
De gustibus non est disputandum comes to me. I'm not really sure what that means. Honestly, its all Greek to me.
This is probably the internet site I have followed the longest that doesn't involve copious nudity.
Intellectual intercourse doesn't always have to be missionary-style.
I am Laslo.
I may never see my own comments again!
However, I am fully on board with justification #2.
I love the insight of many commenters, but am not crazy about the pissing matches. It’s your punch bowl and I will respect whatever turd remediation system you devise.
This can work as * bubble sorted * for comments of value and interest.
To retain/restore the previous flavor of the comments section, just pile them up at the bottom when moderation is off ... Mark them previously held back, send to the back of the line. Catch and release in action.
Will time stamping frustrate that?
"I favor warnings (3 strikes or so), a 30-day ban on commenting, and ultimately expulsion (banned) from the comments for egregious violations of civil discourse."
I have no way to impose a regime like that. I can't even ban people.
--
Give a warning..and if not taken to heart, delete their posts. Seems like a lot less work than approving every other acceptable comment..assuming the intention isn't a wholesale re-sculpting to your liking.
Ann Althouse said...
This will be positive reinforcement. Not getting published shouldn't be regarded as rejection, just not getting chosen to be featured on the blog.
Good luck.
I come here for the comments.
Everyone has their comfort zone.
Ann's comfort zone is lefties saying stupid shit and the deplorables shutting up and taking it.
Ann doesn't like her bubble getting pricked. She says she is "cruelly neutral."
The people you really have to watch out for are the ones that say they aren't biased.
I like this experiment. My only concern is that we still be permitted (so longer as we're witty) to hijack a post and and steer the passengers in direction of a more interesting (but related) topic.
Ann Althouse said...
This will be positive reinforcement. Not getting published shouldn't be regarded as rejection, just not getting chosen to be featured on the blog.
Good luck.
I come here for the comments.
Everyone has their comfort zone.
Ann's comfort zone is lefties saying stupid shit and the deplorables shutting up and taking it.
Ann doesn't like her bubble getting pricked. She says she is "cruelly neutral."
The people you really have to watch out for are the ones that say they aren't biased.
Never mind.
The censorship has already started.
We are now serfs on Ann's land.
Since I'm quite addicted to my daily reading of cruel neutrality, the addiction must submit to the novus ordo.
Since less is more -- especially the mindless personal sniping -- quite willingly.
Congratulations on the change.
Heh, since this may be last chance to post something off-topic and not additive to the conversion -- Is there an easy way to include hyper-links in comments? I know the complicated way where you type a bunch of weird characters before and around the url, but cannot believe in 2019 that there is not a simpler way. I feel like there has to be a button or setting somewhere in Blogger (as there is in word or outlook) that will auto-convert urls within posts to clickable links. Am I the only one that doesn't know the shortcut?
Dude, just ignore the captcha. Don't check I'm not a robot. Just click on Publish Your Comment.
Egads, a novice error. I was too focused on the big teeth while the tail comes around and brains me.
Thanks, Jupiter.
"I feel like there has to be a button or setting somewhere in Blogger (as there is in word or outlook) that will auto-convert urls within posts to clickable links. Am I the only one that doesn't know the shortcut?"
No. Blogger is shit and Althouse is a Luddite for sticking with it.
An excellent idea. I rarely bother to comment and even less often actually read the comments because of the plethora of people shouting "first!" and similar useless drivel. I probably miss out on a few things that are worthwhile, but I save my sanity.
I pity you reading all the tripe, though...
I enjoy the varied comments; everyone’s favorites and least favorites are undoubtedly not the same. I’ll miss the variety. I enjoy and learn from your thoughts Ann but also those of many of the commentors. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.
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