It's working out great from my perspective.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's where I hammered it out last night. I gave 4 reasons for the change, and I am already seeing 4 corresponding aspects of improvement. Thanks for adapting, and I hope you enjoy the benefits and accept the slight lag time.
There's new text above the comment composition window that explains — in case you don't already know — that all comments go through moderation now.
১৮ মার্চ, ২০১৯
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This is all about me, isn't it? I understand that some people object to profanity, and constant references to visiting Starbucks for an Extra Foamy Latte. I will try to be better. I just think that a comments section is a gift, and very old-school. Ok, that's me (I'm in the drive-through at Starbucks right now). "Yes. Extra foam. Wut. No, that's my regular order." Dang it.
We are feeling our way around to see what we can get away with.
Meade: Another comment from Begley.
Althouse: Approve it unless he is going off again about the Jesuits or Creighton.
So far it seems to be superior.
One suggestion, and I don't mind if this doesn't make it to the published comment section. Your choice.
If you and Meade are planning to be absent for some time, you don't need to tell us why...not our business....But perhaps an out of office type of message, like you get when you send an email to someone, would be nice. IF such a thing is even possible. I don't know.
After all, you can't be expected to be glued to the computer all the time :-)
If you are happy, I am happy.
Just please don't burn yourself out. For a retired person, you sure do work a lot.
BOSS: CJ, your productivity seems to have slipped.
CJ: Did you see the new comment policy on Althouse?
BOSS: Well, I don't think that --
CJ: Shhh...this comment needs a lot more work.
First
For some, just like going through a (notorious) Peoples Republic of China re-education camp!
China legalizes Xinjiang 're-education camps' after denying they exist
https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/10/asia/xinjiang-china-reeducation-camps-intl/index.html
I'm actually reading comments now before posting. Usually, when the thread got to about 100 comments or more; I'd just give my own opinion and drop out. With under 50 comments, I read a bit more and then comment.
Althouse's new comment policy is essentially the Rod Dreher model of comment curation, wherein rather than being spontaneous random reactions to the author's writings, the comments become instead accessories carefully chosen to holistically optimize an Internet presentation, like a house being staged by a realtor.
The reposting of comments as front page content is another interesting wrinkle in that I don't think the copyright ownership under the DMCA of comments by anyone other than the blog owner has ever been adjudicated.
Of course, it's more than flattering to have a blog owner reprint one's comments as front page content, and Mr. Dreher for one has been able to pad out his very well paid blog production with entire posts which are no more than repurposed reader comments.
I think it's a massive step backwards to make Meadehouse even more tied to fussing w/ this blog.
Sheesh.
Do real stuff. This blog is on the opposite end of the spectrum re, say, curing cancer.
Houses can be money pits, and the tubes can be similar wastes. But, both houses and the tubes have worthwhile investments re results. Don't get outa whack.
IMHO.
Some ambitious soul could publish a Salon des Refusés of rejected comments. Of course, nobody would read it.
To DBQ's point: My son volunteers at a non-profit that raises service dogs. They need lots of volunteers when they have a littler of puppies. There are messes to clean up and animals to feed. Maybe, as this continues, you can get find a backup moderator or two. Jaltoch?
It will be interesting to see if Drago's system can manage to survive the shock of "LLR"less commenting. I hope so; I enjoy his otherwise interesting remarks.
Not as much so for me. The fix of the high from posting (or being posted) and replies to my sharp incites and intelligent articulations of such is much too slow. Yes, I will admit that I am addicted. That is the first step.
“The reposting of comments as front page content is another interesting wrinkle in that I don't think the copyright ownership under the DMCA of comments by anyone other than the blog owner has ever been adjudicated.”
That is a good point. I think that the moderating, Ann (and Meade) night take the comments out of the DMCA safe harbor, as exerting editorial control. Luckily for them, no one is likely to get more than de minimis actual damages on such a copyright suit. But Google and esp Facebook are a very different situation, with their very rapidly increase in politicized content control, and rampant copyright infringement on their platforms.
My concern is that moderation can evolve into censorship thus defeating free dialogue. Then what’s the point of commenting? Or is that the point?
The comments are at least 50% of your blog's appeal to me. The spontaneous wit is enjoyable. This change demonstrates Peak Althouse. Correction, Peaked Althouse.
"The reposting of comments as front page content is another interesting wrinkle in that I don't think the copyright ownership under the DMCA of comments by anyone other than the blog owner has ever been adjudicated."
Not sure what you trying to get at there. I presume the copyright belongs to the writer, but you've offered it for publication here, so you're giving me permission to publish it. There's no copyright infringement claim. You can own the copyright but not have a claim of infringement. I've never asserted a claim that I own the copyright to something someone else wrote, and I never would.
"Not as much so for me. The fix of the high from posting (or being posted) and replies to my sharp incites and intelligent articulations of such is much too slow. Yes, I will admit that I am addicted. That is the first step."
Sharp incites, eh?
There's enough incitement here. Take a little more time and reach for insight.
tcrosse said...
We are feeling our way around to see what we can get away with.
Kinda like a high-school boy on a date...
It's definitely less of a conversation. By the time you remember, oh yeah, I commented on something 4 hours ago, the post is already 6 items down on the main page and the world has moved on. It may cause people to be *less* careful and insightful, because they don't have the immediate feedback providing either incentive or deterrent. In many cases they won't have any feedback at all, because everyone, including them, will have moved on.
Ann, for anyone cheesed off about the new commenting policy, you might direct them to dissenter.com. Dissenter is a browser extension that permits uncensored and mainly unmoderated comments on any website in a separate pop up window. It is essentially a parallel comment section.
As an extra added plus it generates more clicks as readers/commenters keep checking back to see if they made the Althouse grading curve and the grade posted on her office door as it were next to our nom de plumes.
"Not sure what you trying to get at there. I presume the copyright belongs to the writer, but you've offered it for publication here, so you're giving me permission to publish it. There's no copyright infringement claim. You can own the copyright but not have a claim of infringement. I've never asserted a claim that I own the copyright to something someone else wrote, and I never would."
I imagine the case of comment copyright would arise in situations where the comment was repurposed beyond its original offering, such as when it were scraped and used to popularize or monetize another site - if you don't assert you own the copyrights to comments on this blog you can't very easily file any DMCA complaint against their wholesale theft and repurposing, can you - and where the comment was reused as front page content to earn money for the blog owner without compensating the writer of the now front page-featured comment for his contribution to the sale.
In the latter case, of course, it's hard to imagine such a case getting to court since the blog owner would simply delete any such liability as soon as it arose.
We don't have to race to be the first comment since now it won't set the tone for a thread. Not that we ever did that.
"Ann, for anyone cheesed off about the new commenting policy, you might direct them to dissenter.com. Dissenter is a browser extension that permits uncensored and mainly unmoderated comments on any website in a separate pop up window. It is essentially a parallel comment section."
This may or may not be an excellent suggestion, since Dissenter essentially privatizes comments to those few individuals with accounts where they can be read and effectively removes them from the public square entirely.
In all seriousness, after half a day the quality of the commenters word choices seems to be better. And that alone is pleasing to English lovers.
The snark is still getting through so I'm good...
Geeze. Now I have to be moderate. Well, it's worth it.
Wait. What? Didn't this happen about 10 years ago?
I respect the new policy. I find the comment sections so far to be more manageable, especially on political topics which can become cannon fodder for flame wars.
If the policy is manageable for Meadhouse, it appears to be a good thing.
"It's definitely less of a conversation. By the time you remember, oh yeah, I commented on something 4 hours ago, the post is already 6 items down on the main page and the world has moved on. It may cause people to be *less* careful and insightful, because they don't have the immediate feedback providing either incentive or deterrent. In many cases they won't have any feedback at all, because everyone, including them, will have moved on."
This. It's where the system will fail. People will realize it's not just about waiting 2 hours to see if their comment is approved, but whether the thread will still be relevant by then for anyone to even see or respond to their carefully written prose.
And why would I respond anyway, as the odds are even worse that they will still be interested or even remember what they posted?
If you're putting 4-5 threads a day, people are going to feel they are corresponding with a black hole. Its like one of those email games where send in your move and find out what happened a week later. People won't maintain interest or focus and wander away. You'll to slow the number of postings or speed up the approval.
I was off line all weekend, so just learned of the new policy. It's too bad this is required, becuase 1) it takes so much work, and 2) there is always the feeling, at least by conservatives, that it will be mostly them who get censored. That is pretty clearly the group most censored today.
That said, the comments were being dominated by cat-fighting which often made it more like an episode of The Housewives of Madison than a discussion, so I welcome the experiment, and will do my best to earn publishication. I am hopeing that spelin and grammer are not a Kritearia.
Originally, I thought this would be a good idea, as I was bothered by the level of personal animosity displayed. However, now I'm not so certain.
I think you have a certain amount of self censorship going on.
It's definitely less of a conversation. By the time you remember, oh yeah, I commented on something 4 hours ago, the post is already 6 items down on the main page and the world has moved on.
Yes, this was my point on the original thread, and Bruce made a similar point above. I enjoy the back and forth with other posters, not just the opportunity to express a view and move on. But obviously it's Althouse's blog, and she will decide if the product is better from her point of view.
I do have a tiny bit of worry that some jerk will argue that by acting as intermediary, Althouse/Meade have actually become publishers of the content contained in the comments (rather than just immune hosts) and thus potentially unprotected (or only semi-protected) by Section 230 of the CDA. I have not researched Section 230 in a few years and do not know if this specific fact situation has been addressed by the case law.
"I do have a tiny bit of worry that some jerk will argue..."
I believe the law is established that an attempt to provide moderation does not take away the publisher's immunity. If that were not the case, the perverse incentive would be to do nothing at all.
One thing I will reject for publication is something that makes a factual statement about a person who isn't a public figure. That stuff is all abusive anyway. But I can't be sure I'm seeing and understanding everything.
Blogger tcrosse said...
" Some ambitious soul could publish a Salon des Refusés of rejected comments. Of course, nobody would read it."
RealClimate used to move them to the "Borehole", which is a funny climate related name, but they had funding.
"Ann, for anyone cheesed off about the new commenting policy...."
I find it hard to believe anyone wants to read this stuff, and the people who want to write it want to write it here so they'll be read and (in many cases) so they will be hurting me. Can't get that elsewhere.
"DMCA complaint against their wholesale theft and repurposing, can you - and where the comment was reused as front page content to earn money for the blog owner without compensating the writer of the now front page-featured comment for his contribution to the sale"
When you submit a comment, you're submitting it for publication on this blog and moving it from under the post to the end of the post is part of what you're asking for. I have never heard of a comment not liking the added boost of what I call "front-paging." The idea that I front-page comments to earn money off of them in some way that's different from their function in the comments thread is far-fetched. But in any case, when you submit your comments, you are asking to participate and agreeing to that use. You're also agreeing to other commenters quoting you in the comments and replying, as I'm doing to you here.
Ann, you don't have to publish this one. I do think you should (or have someone on your behalf) spend a few hours to research Section 230 issues. I just spent about 20 minutes looking (I knew this area of the law about 5 years ago). Here's what I think is clear. A blogger who occasionally/regularly deletes some user comments will not be liable under 230 for refusing to delete a libelous comment (the exercise of editorial judgment is protected). This is what Facebook and Twitter do all the time and the law is pretty established. But, once you affirmatively intercept and only publish comments that you want to see published, you may be acting more akin to a newspaper when it decides which letters to the editor to affirmatively publish (newspapers get sued all of the time for that). Note 230 applies to electronic web sites and not print, and offers greater protection to websites than newspapers have under non-CDA law. But I would be more comfortable if there was some decision out there on all fours with what you are doing. Best of luck!
In regards to the conversation aspect, it is too bad that Blogger doesn't have a simple way to tag people you are responding too (say, like Slack or Twitter). But so it goes.
Commenting, like blogging, is an exercise in writing. Instead of thinking of it as a face-to-face, think of it as writing letters. Short letters delivered relatively quickly. So maybe you write a small burb and wait to see what small blurbs get written back. Maybe the best idea is to just abandon the whole idea of back-and-forth. The egos involved in the back-and-forth is what was killing the comments. Just state your idea coherently and know that some will read it and some will not and whether the people who read it, hate it or love it just doesn't matter.
Ann, I did a little more research. The Sixth Ciruit has suggested that you and Meade should be OK (though someone had to litigate this to the Sixth Circuit to clarify the law on this issue after the lower court ruled against the web site).
I am proud that our local sleazy Scottsdale site - the Dirty - was able to pave the way. https://newmedialaw.proskauer.com/2014/06/16/sixth-circuit-reinforces-cda-immunity-reverses-lower-court-in-jones-v-dirty-world/
The comments are coming at us with much lower velocity, so it is possible to post a comment and walk away without missing much. This discourages riding the thread, which for me is a good thing.
Fen said...
Its like one of those email games where send in your move and find out what happened a week later.
LOL. Back in the day, people used to use postcards.
I played correspondence chess for a few years. It took a long time to finish a game. You would find out a little about each opponent by exchanging greetings, asking about where they lived, etc.
One guy I was playing was quite ill. After a few months of play, he stopped sending back the post card.
I feel a personal responsibility to do my part to keep up this comment section's reputation for being "occasionally ribald", regardless of blog policy headwinds or the fickle finger of moderation.
I miss my instant gratification.
I'm no longer a tagger in the Althouse comments section.
My performance art is being moderated.
I do not like green eggs, and ham.
Ann Althouse said...
One thing I will reject for publication is something that makes a factual statement about a person who isn't a public figure.
For the purposes of this blog, can we assume that you and Meade are public figures? ( Asking for one of my sock puppets )
“There's enough incitement here. Take a little more time and reach for insight.”
Got me there.
Glad the new policy is working for Althouse. That's more important than whatever impact said policy has on the ever-vibrant Commentariat.
I’m relieved. It’s refreshing and so far so good.
“When you submit a comment, you're submitting it for publication on this blog and moving it from under the post to the end of the post is part of what you're asking for. I have never heard of a comment not liking the added boost of what I call "front-paging." The idea that I front-page comments to earn money off of them in some way that's different from their function in the comments thread is far-fetched. But in any case, when you submit your comments, you are asking to participate and agreeing to that use. You're also agreeing to other commenters quoting you in the comments and replying, as I'm doing to you here.”
What you are essentially describing is implied (by facts) license. And, yes, whatever you create is most often yours to license. For your blog, I was thinking around the edges. For example, maybe someone was commenting at work, which might make it a Work for Hire owned by his employer, thus any implied copyright license by the commenter might not be effective. Or, maybe s/he is copying something by someone else in his comment. Is there an adequate copyright license for that use? As I said, around the edges. And even if there were some infringement, damages would be de minimis, with attorneys’ fees being very likely unavailable to the plaintiff, but very possibly available to the defendant (you).
Where I was really coming from was thinking about the big transmission companies, esp Google and Facebook, that are now all but openly censoring content and content providers for viewpoint. There, the amount of infringing material is massive. They have no way to identify the ownership of much of what they store and provide to the public. They depend on the DMCA Safe Harbor to protect themselves from liability from the rampant infringement that they host. But that requires that they don’t provide any editorial control. But it can be shown that they do by their censoring of conservative speakers and speech. Is that enough to take them out of the DMCA Safe Harbor? My guesstimate is that billions hang in the balance. And it isn’t helping that they are discriminating against the half the country that currently controls both the Presidency and the Senate, and will likely have flipped several of the Circuits by the next election, and most of them by 2024 if Trump is re-elected (along with having a strong majority in the Supreme Court). And I will admit coming at your situation from having discussed Google and Facebook liability over the weekend, and still having it somewhat in mind.
That brings a question to mind: What makes one a public figure? There is a full range of fame in the culture, from being a minor internet celebrity, local politician, child of a big celebrity, all the way up to being the Travago guy. There are also current major national leaders who the average college student can't identify like the Vice President or Speaker of the House. Are they not public people? Where is the line?
"there is always the feeling, at least by conservatives, that it will be mostly them who get censored. That is pretty clearly the group most censored today... That said, the comments were being dominated by cat-fighting"
It's interesting to see that 2 people from the Left who's goal was to make this blog too toxic for it's mostly conservative readership to enjoy have succeeded in some measure. They've certainly forced the blog to change. And as is usual, the conservative response to them has been passive - they push, we take another route to avoid them. They steal our lunch money, we start brownbagging it. I wonder how long it will take them to adapt to the new system and how they will attempt to undermine it.
The solution would be to find the bullies and cripple their hands, but being a pussy is a feature of conservatism, not a bug. That's fine, because more and more I'm seeing evidence that conservative philosophy is too feeble and needs to be replaced by something else.
And yes, with the censorship of conservatives throtting up on Youtube, Twitter and Facebook, there are fewer venues for conservatives to express themselves. And it appears amazingly easy to get conservatives to self-censor. As with here, whatever the intent, there is less Liberty. I think our 2 trolls would call that a win.
But if this keeps up, the Left could very well radicalize the Right into becoming the monsters they've always feared. I certainly wouldn't refuse the opportunity for a bloody revenge. And I'm tired of being cautioned by decent folk offering solutions that anount to nothing more than keeping our heads down.
You said let's talk. And they won't let us talk. Now what?
Moved to post my first comment as a friend of this blog. Interesting experiment; best wishes with Mencken’s Law (“90% of everything is crap”) as you strive to cull your commenters herd into a scintillating online Algonquin Roundtable (not forgetting Groucho’s law of club membership).
This seems the same moderation process so many other blogs have tried unsuccessfully over the years. Your current readership/commenters seem a nice enough lot, with the usual small handful of genuinely interesting voices, and only a couple of conspicuous annoyances whose individual ISPs you haven’t blocked, for whatever reason.
I predict you are underestimating the time commitment required, and the unintended consequences of eliminating spontaneity and installing burdensome disincentives, time delay, and overall uncertainty into posting. You may even discover that there is not, in actuality, a vast awaiting Mensa convention of Thurbers, Benchleys, Chestertons and Hellmanns each impatiently chomping at the bit to begin feeding you endless free nonstop content of (monetizable!) witty bon mots and trenchant observations, if only certain low-class hangers-on commenters like X and Y and Z weren’t loitering about and lowering the overall tone of the place.
Your big risk is not just that moderation, however benign and high minded, is inevitably perceived as censorship (by readers as well as prospective commenters). It’s that pesky fact of human nature— the fraction of people with anything truly interesting to say, and the articulacy to express it in a Comments format, and finally the free time and enthusiasm to contribute all that free of charge in a thankless online environment, is really quite finite.
And once those gifted few drift away, whether to other more welcoming comments sites or to their own competing pursuits, it’s not easy to attract suitable replacements. You may find yourself left with the obsessionals and lonely souls desperate for teacher’s approval. Neither type can support the type of Comments section you aspire to.
And if this blog is not currently attracting the caliber of readership/commenters you require, is it the chicken that is unsatisfactory, or is it the egg?
You have only a small ensemble of regulars here who are genuinely worth reading (and that’s true for even the largest of blogs like Ace Of Spades whose comments routinely run into the hundreds on even the most obscure of topics). Everyone can peck at a keyboard, but genuine intellect, articulacy, and motivation to contribute are rather more rare.
Opinion/commentary blogs demand original content. If the comments decline, then Anne (or Meade, or someone) must generate more original prose to compensate. On most of the daily headlines linked, I don’t usually see much commentary/analysis from Anne. That may have to change if comments decline.
It’s your blog, as everyone keeps saying. I’ll be checking in to see how this goes.
"When you submit a comment, you're submitting it for publication on this blog and moving it from under the post to the end of the post is part of what you're asking for. I have never heard of a comment not liking the added boost of what I call "front-paging." The idea that I front-page comments to earn money off of them in some way that's different from their function in the comments thread is far-fetched. But in any case, when you submit your comments, you are asking to participate and agreeing to that use. You're also agreeing to other commenters quoting you in the comments and replying, as I'm doing to you here."
Oh, I'm not suggesting you're doing anything deliberately here at all. Your responses indicate you haven't given any of this much thought at all previously, probably because you haven't had to, particularly with respect to the DMCA issues.
Again, the model I was going by was Rod Dreher's blogging, where the comments he front pages as standalone posts in themselves usually run to several hundred words and, as a percentage of his annual income/annual post production, can easily be valued in the several hundreds of dollars per comment front-paged.
Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen any licensing terms for commenting on a blog spelled out myself.
madAsHell said...
I do not like green eggs, and ham.
A train! A train!
A train! A train!
Would you on a
high-speed train?
Henry said: After a few months of play, he stopped sending back the post card.
I trust you duly declared victory and moved on to your next opponent.
"I have never heard of a comment not liking the added boost of what I call "front-paging."
Not true. I was front paged as a homophobe here because I expressed boredom (a one word post: "yawn") with the 3rd post on homosexual issues in a row that day. Everyone here, even those not fond of me, chimed in to chastise Ann for going too far. Can you imagine "Let's take a closer look at Bruce Hayden's racism". It was unwelcome attention.
I'm not angry about it, it was a long time ago... although now I remember there was no apology and I never punished her. Hmmm. But I only bring it up now to correct the historical record... and out of curiosity, to test the integrity of the moderation. Which I must admit has been more fair and objective than I expected.
Fen said...
They've certainly forced the blog to change. And as is usual, the conservative response to them has been passive...
I would use the word "delusional".
I think that the moderating, Ann (and Meade) night take the comments out of the DMCA safe harbor, as exerting editorial control.
Nope. That’s what Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act of 1996 addressed (47 U.S.C § 230). Prior to the DCA, moderation of a blog potentially created tort liability. Not today. Our hostess is not a publisher, and the DMCA is the safe harbor for IP so long as she responds to takedown requests.
- Krumhorn
Several years ago, I frequently commented here. I commented on other commenters and they responded to me. I felt like I was part of a community. Then the community was shut down when comments were suspended for a while. When they started back up again, it wasn't the same. Nobody responded to me anymore. I just do drive-by comments now, and don't expect a response.
Ann:
I guess my argument that a "Disqus-like ability to up-vote comments and rank them would drive more traffic to your Amazon portal — thus earning you more $$$" didn't win the day.
Question: how much (if anything) does Disqus charge for their service on a blog your size?
Henry: "I would use the word "delusional".
How do you mean?
And I wish you would elaborate more in these initial rebuttals of yours. We had a similar disagreement yesterday, took two passes each just to nail down what you meant. 24 hours later I don't recall what you were on about, am no longer interested, and probably couldn't locate the thread if I was.
Although you have demonstrated that drive by snark and insult can still thrive in the new moderation system. And that a single line of unsupported assertion can hurdle the newer quality control. So that's something I guess.
Maybe the additional oversight is a matter of national security.
Apparently, a discussion here might end up in a "dossier".
Henry said: "After a few months of play, he stopped sending back the post card."
Did you write back to see if he was okay?
Chess has always held a place close to my heart. As a child I spent 3 summers in Bermuda. My father had a British client working in oil. His ywo sons taught me to play chess. In between building pirate forts in tbe jungle. It was magical for a kid, Alice in Wonderland or Lost Boys.
Only problem was it was during my formative years and I managed to pick up a thick british accent. Did I mention we spent the rest of those 3 years in Texas? Yah, I learned to take a hit. LOL. I think they eventually beat it out of me.
Have you kept up? My Althouse Vision would have a chess patio and spades room divided by a pool bar. "Queen takes rook, check" as we watch the comments scroll by.
@Wilbur -- I supposed I did. Even a game with a mate took forever to finish.
@Fen -- I'm not all that interested in the topic either, but I'll say this, and let it alone hereafter. The assertion that "2 people from the Left" were trolls that succeeded because "conservative response to them has been passive" seems utterly delusional to me. In the insult theater we're talking about, there were two primary actors on the right who not only reacted to any comment by those "2 people on the Left" with insults, but who often targeted them with insults even when they hadn't even commented.
Ken in TX, I like that phrase, drive by comments. That's all I ever really wanted to do too. I stopped visiting the blog the last time the comment section was tinkered with and I'll probably do it for this change, everything already seems quite antiseptic. I wonder if this is Trump 2020 battle space prep.
Althouse has maintained one of the highest caliber comment section in all the blogosphere. That, in and of itself, drew in many readers.
Those days are gone, as we will never know what commenters are saying-
We'll only know what Althouse chooses to present.
I called it censorship yesterday and I'll call it censorship today. This is my last post at Althouse. I will miss many of you whose comments I have enjoyed and been inspired by.
Something I'm choosing not to publish is a comment that directs us to a URL and doesn't make a hot link and doesn't elaborate why we should go there.
Thanks, Virgil.
"The comments are coming at us with much lower velocity, so it is possible to post a comment and walk away without missing much. This discourages riding the thread, which for me is a good thing."
"Riding the thread"... I've never heard that expression before, but I think I know what it means, and I think there are some benefits to calming the flow. I like spontaneity, but when 100 people are participating, the 10 most agitated and aggressive will take over and make it so fast moving the others will give up, and there won't be much for readers. It's a bust. And that's what some people want. I've dealt with this for 15 years. Those of you who are not sympathetic to what I'm going through and who complain that your experience isn't exactly your preference...
"I was off line all weekend, so just learned of the new policy. It's too bad this is required, becuase 1) it takes so much work..."
It's less work for us. You need to understand that the other system was very difficult.
"... and 2) there is always the feeling, at least by conservatives, that it will be mostly them who get censored. That is pretty clearly the group most censored today."
That's not going to happen her. I can't force you to trust me, but that's really your only option... along with waiting and seeing. I'm genuinely utterly uninterested in viewpoint discrimination. I'm in favor of higher quality comments and not getting harassed.
"That said, the comments were being dominated by cat-fighting which often made it more like an episode of The Housewives of Madison than a discussion, so I welcome the experiment, and will do my best to earn publishication. I am hopeing that spelin and grammer are not a Kritearia."
Thanks, and I'm not rejecting comments for typos and the like. But it is a good idea to proofread. In my experience, there's always a typo or missing word or something.
"Not true. I was front paged as a homophobe here because I expressed boredom (a one word post: "yawn") with the 3rd post on homosexual issues in a row that day.... It was unwelcome attention."
What does that refer to? I front-paged the comment "yawn" and accused you of homophobia? That's a statement about me that I don't believe is true. Care to substantiate it? I searched my archive for "Fen" with "yawn" and got nothing. I tried "yawn" with "gay," "same-sex," and "homosexuality" and got nothing. I don't believe I would characterize an expression of boredom as meaning "homophobia" (as opposed to maybe a lack of empathy or a low understanding of the importance of the question). I'd like to look up why I had 3 posts that day, and I bet all were different and justified by events.
You've made a serious attack on me. You've done a lot of complaining in the last 24 hours, and yet here you are leveling an attack. You need to explain your attack on me. I don't think you can.
"Question: how much (if anything) does Disqus charge for their service on a blog your size?"
I think the basic version is free, but I don't like Disqus, and I don't want it.
If you're going to reject comments for not having hotlinks, then you might as well reject comments that link to subscription-only sites; and that includes NYT, WSJ etc.
I'm curious to see what goes on once you retire for the evening, with the cafe posts.
Supposedly you will turn off moderation, and then potentially wake up to an avalanche of comments on several prior day's posts that you have to start deleting once again. Seems like a lot of extra work to me.
I'm not leveling an attack. I'm correcting your point that you've never heard of a commenter not like the boost a front-paging gave them. And really, don't get snippy with me about a cheap shot you hit me with. The gall.
"That's a statement about me that I don't believe is true"
I distinctly remember it, even though it was more than 6 years ago. And there were about 40 people commenting something similar to "whoa Ann uncalled for"
"Care to substantiate it? I searched my archive for - "
I was forced to explain in the comments how my position supporting gay marriage evolved on your blog. You were at least fair enough to add that as an "Update: Fen responds.." on the front page. Try searching "Update Fen" perhaps?
And yes I was just as shocked as you are now. As were the others. Maybe one of the oldtimers remembers too. I'm not surprised you don't, but whatever I can be justly criticized for over 8+ years here, have you ever known me to just make something up?
Fen, as far as I can see, you are writing a falsehood about me in a way that is damaging to my reputation. Why won't you use the search box and find the thing you're talking about so we can analyze it?
You said you were front-paged with the word "yawn," but the search doesn't return that. You should take responsibility and find what you are talking about. Do you have a false memory? You ought to examine that possibility using the tools that are available to you here, and you ought to want to do that because otherwise you look unethical. Why would you leave yourself exposed like that? I don't know why you're telling me to do it for you, when you are the one who brought up, you attacked me, and you look bad as a result of something you did.
I feel my flow calmed.
I'm in tune
Right in tune
I'm in tune
And I'm gonna tune
Right in on you
Right in on you
Right in on you
Okay, I think this is what you're talking about.
There was no "yawn," but — in response to a Supreme Court order relating to same-sex marriage, Fen says: "Who cares? I'm so tired of hearing about gay marriage." My response was: "When you thought you could defeat it, you were only too happy to talk about it all the time. Defeated, you're "so tired of hearing about" it. Another way of putting it is just to admit that you're really sad about losing. If you'd won, you wouldn't stop talking. You're promoting no more talking about this because it's all you've got. That's how it looks to me anyway. But you're certainly entitled to be tired. Your position is old and wearisome, and your expression about it has been mightily tiresome, which is to say, I'm tired of hearing about how tired you are. And I won't be silenced. Same-sex marriage is still not established across the country (and in the world), so those who support it have good reason to keep talking. The argument for shutting up is a con."
You were criticizing me for blogging about what was an extremely important issue of the day, and you were "tired" of it, which I interpreted as hypocritical, because I thought you just didn't want to talk about it because you were losing. I criticized you for posting low-quality comments that "drag down the thread." I did not call you homophobic. That is a lie about me and you ought to apologize.
I wrote: "I guess I have to concede that some people who feel compelled to announce their tiredness actually wish for the success of the marriage equality movement. Fen offers no explanation for his behavior, dragging down the thread when he isn't a same-sex marriage opponent, and he proceeds to make many hostile remarks which I won't front page. What's that all about? I'll decline to speculate."
See? It's the same problem that made me change the comments policy: Low quality comments that drag down a thread. I put up a post and it's something new and interesting to me, and you post just to say you're bored. Just skip the post! What value is it to any reader?
Anyway, you're very annoying today and you lied about me.
If I'd had the new comments policy back then I would have just refrained from publishing a comment that did nothing more than say my post was boring. Instead I took a whole lot of trouble to respond to it and then to respond to the response. I don't believe that is a good use of my time and I don't think it's valuable for readers. It's low-quality commenting.
"as far as I can see, you are writing a falsehood about me in a way that is damaging to my reputation."
It's true. As for your rep, everyone there thought it was out of character for you to do such a thing. Even me.
False memory? Not possible, as the incident profoundly affected me and changed the way I regarded you. There were many times after that when you were being unfairly attacked and I had to quell my urge to defend you with "wait, remember what she did to you"
You at least recall my first days here when I was an Althouse supporter during the Valenti Breast incident? Carrying the debate over to their blogs? Declared rookie of the year? Do you really think one of your staunchest defenders turned into a cynical curmudgeon via natural evolution? That you played no part in it? The front-paging cheap shot wasn't the only reason you lost me, but it's the one I remember most.
"Why won't you use the search box"
That's alot of work for me, and to what end? I already know it's true and it's not important for me to convince anyone else. Besides, wouldn't it be easier for you? I would assume you have some kind of admin acces that would make it easier. What would I get for the effort? A front-paged apology seems fair.
I just read the 10:02 AM comment and thought that was a good point. But as with huge websites (NYT), releasing comments at your discretion and on your own time is your prerogative! Time backlogs should be less of a commenter concern as long as you've implemented what appears to be an outstanding/superior way of ensuring commentary that is both topical and of the quality that you've politely requested of us for so many years. I think that's the sort of thing that more discerning readers - as media consumers - are attracted to anyway.
And if it keeps those of us with thin skins (myself included, mea culpa) from posting and responding to too many personal distractions within the threads, then that's a price I'll gladly pay.
Kudos on the program and best hopes that it continues to work out well for you! As a commenter who has attracted and unfortunately gotten mired in more controversies here at times than I'd wanted, I'm happy with what you've worked out and find it professional, and hopefully fun. Best of luck!
See there, Fen? Even Ritmo can be a gentleman when he tries to be. Try being more like Ritmo.
Hey! I know! Why don't you pay us for each comment we make to your post that you approve?
That would really show you, and us, who and what you value. And if the capitalist types are correct, this will lead to competition to write the best comments. You could hardly ask for more.
Perhapa initially, you could pay us in play money or Amazon credits or something that you wouldn't feel, but if you like the results then perhaps you would make enough money to share some of the wealth as it were.
Don't reject it out of hand. Think it over. You could rebate us a portion of the percentage you make on transactions, for instance, as something that wouldn't come out of your actual pocket. The more so as this would increase buying here.
I like it, Nichevo. Have you read Radical Markets: Uprooting Capitalism and Democracy for a Just Society? You might find it interesting as your idea fits the basic premise. By Eric Posner and Glen Weyl. Available through the Althouse Amazon portal.
Nichevo,
Money is so...meh.
We should get "social credits" for approved comments that after accumulation can be redeemed to allow for a real scorcher.
Ok now my flow is less calm.
Ann Althouse said...
Anyway, you're very annoying today and you lied about me.
No. You completely mis characterized Fens's position on that thread.
He was just giving his opinion that he was bored of the subject and you front paged a complete straw man and bashed him.
You did exactly what the leftists are doing to conservatives now with the NZ shooter.
You all have been doing this to us for years.
I do not like the change.
But MeadHouse does whatever is best for MeadHouse.
And I would never disagree with self-interested action.
Achilles, Fen wrote "I was front paged as a homophobe here because I expressed boredom (a one word post: "yawn") with the 3rd post on homosexual issues in a row that day."
That is full of factual error.
It wasn't the "the 3rd post on homosexual issues in a row that day." There was one other post that day that could be said to be about "homosexual issues" (but not same-sex marriage, an entirely different matter, sexual feelings).
I did not call him a homophobe. I considered him to be opposed to ssm (which he clarified that he was not). I went years writing in favor of ssm while being respectful to its opponents and not equating it with homophobia. This is very important to my reputation and I put a lot of work into this.
His comment that was front paged was not "a one word post: 'yawn')."
I did respond vigorously to his lame little expression of boredom and hostility to those who care about ssm: "Who cares? I'm so tired of hearing about gay marriage." It really touched me off and I chose to go big on that. I still do. But my new approach is not to publish comments that are nothing more than stepping on my post. "Who cares? I'm so tired..." is one of the worst comments. Just skip the post if it's not for you. Don't waste my time pushing me around and telling me you don't care. I really shouldn't care about you. From my perspective now, I see I should not put my energy into reacting to people like that. These comments simply don't belong on the blog.
I can't imagine how much extra work this must be for you, but THANK YOU!
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