If you are missing obnoxious comments, or any comments at all, by "menominee," well, that's because I just unpublished all of them. "Menominee" is only the latest name of the indefatigable commenter who got banned from these comboxes well over a year ago when he was posting under the name "Kim Margosein," and who comes back under different names -- "remembertheliberty," "Eleazar Williams," "Winston Smith," etc. When I figure out who he is, which never takes long, I unpublish all his stuff. Most of the people who have been banned from this site realize there's no point in posting to a site where your stuff gets taken down, and find something better to do. But most people, even trolls, have real lives. Not this cat. The price of keeping a reasonably tolerable comments section is eternal vigilance, ah reckon.
Terry Mattingly has a post up about the life of comboxes. I like this:
Good commenters, as a rule, comment unto others as they would want others to comment unto them, or something like that. [Emphasis mine -- RD] They argue that journalists should get things right and also assume that the overwhelming majority of journalists truly want to get things right. Good commenters cite real information that others can read online. They don't call people by ugly names and try to read other people's minds. When they criticize a post they quote the passage they they want to criticize. They don't assume false names and try to hid behind ghost email addresses.
Terry's writing about commenters on his religion & media site, but I think this take generally applies -- especially the part about commenting unto others as you would be commented on. I'm pleased that the Crunchy Con comboxes are a relatively civil place, and I thank you who have make that possible. It does require a lot of work on this end, though, work you never see. As always, if you see someone being abusive, please e-mail me to let me know. I don't read all the threads all the time, so I might miss something.
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Bring back diane!!
Diane has managed to get herself banned at other locations in the blogosphere, but she seems to be on her good behavior lately, at least at Eirenikon, an Orthodox-Catholic dialogue site where, amazingly, dialogue occurs. But don't bring her back. She seems to take our host's coming into Orthodoxy as a personal affront, and has posted about it at endless and obsessive length at other sites.
Good commenters...assume that the overwhelming majority of journalists truly want to get things right.
Nice to know I'm a "bad" commentator.
Although it is hard to say if journalists are ideologically driven to get most things wrong, their editors are financially driven to do so, or reporters are generally just dumb (this career path hardly attracts our brightest lights if SAT/GRE scores are to be trusted).
And it must be noted by any honest peruser of the news that this field attracts a highly ideological sort when compared to their readers (if polls or voting patterns are to be believed) making it very unique among the trades. Do engineers or plumbers vote 80% Democrat? Have a strong desire to change the world? Any person with common sense should expect the overwhelming majority of journalists to slant things the way they want it to be. That is, to get it wrong.
'Comment unto others as you would have them comment unto you'?
Hmm, the responses "Donny" (Sons of Molech, Satan's minions) would get would sear my screen then. Haven't seen him lately. Has he been banned?
And what about your own inflammatory comments, Rod? I know it's good to be the blogger, but you can get pretty explosive too. And whenever I (or anyone else) calls you on it, we get blasted in return. Where (and with whom) does it all start?
And what about other dehumanizing comments about gays from your regular posters? How come we are not allowed in return (following the 'comment unto others' dictum) to dehumanize them? Or do you not see the comments (animals, plants and desks, rape, incest, cannabalism, child-molestation, necrophilia, beastiality, etc.) dehumanizing in the first place?
Mr. Dreher, what do you think the point of having people comment is? Is it to promote dialogue? Because for certain kinds of posts at least it seems rather pointless. Some of the more intelligent and civil people here should just start their own blogs, but I wouldn't miss most of the comments.
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