Blog Police

a while back .. when assface first started leaving his dumb comments here .. someone asked me how can you stand him .. (refer to this post for more details) .. so i thought i would elaborate a bit on the matter .. but i want to talk about the bigger picture this time .. that is i want to talk about the concept of comment moderation .. just how appropriate is it .. actually i would say that comment moderation is just a euphemism .. let's call a spade a spade .. it is censorship plain and simple .. wikipedia defines censorship as the removal and/or withholding of information from the public by a controlling group or body .. and isn't that exactly what comment moderation is .. actually some cynically refer to moderating as meddlerating.

so the question .. how appropriate is it .. of course it is your blog so you are free to do whatever you want .. you can turn off commenting altogether if you want .. maybe you don't want anyone commenting - be it negative or postive .. your blog your rules .. but then again .. censoring and moderating is not really in the spirit of the internet is it .. you know the whole open community and free speech thing .. so while it is your right to moderate your blog .. it might not be "cool" to exercise that right.

and i know some people will say .. it's not a black and white matter .. you can meet your readers halfway .. you can warn the person a number of times and if they don't heed your warning you can ban them .. or you can have a set of rules you expect readers to abide by when leaving a comment .. you can say something like "Abusive comments will not be posted .. Off-topic comments may not be posted .. Comments maybe edited for clarity and words filtered out".. a lot of online forums do business this way .. i've seen blogs that don't allow anonymous commenting .. i've seen blogs where your comment has to be approved before it can appear .. this i find ridiculous .. so it is clear that moderating your blog can take many forms .. but where do you draw the line .. who or what determines if a comment is unacceptable .. plus i would argue that refuting an argument is better than deleting it .. and besides deleting a comment is deleting a comment .. regardless of the reasons you give .. whether it's because they violated the rules or because you don't like their comment .. in the end you are deleting people's comments .. you can spin it whichever way you like but you cannot deny that you are deleting comments .. of course you could also say .. i'm not stopping him from holding certain opinions or voicing those opinions .. i just don't want those opinions appearing on my blog .. he can go leave them somewhere else .. which i would say is just denial .. when you delete or alter someone else's comment without their permission .. you are vandalising their intellectual property.

now me personally .. i don't like rules .. i have anarchist tendencies .. so my policy here on my blog is everything goes .. even the spam .. although i will admit i do have one red line .. religion .. i won't tolerate anyone insulting my religion on here .. anything else is allowed .. now just because i allow someone to say something on here doesn't mean i agree with what they are saying .. but i will allow it .. the only red line being religion as i already mentioned.

furthermore .. when you start deleting comments you don't approve of .. doesn't that undermine the integrity of your blog .. doesn't your blog basically become a propaganda outlet .. or if you feel that "propaganda outlet" is being too melodramatic then can we at least say a personal soap box?

and i would like to close with this passage i found online ..
If to be a Moderate
is to hold an intermediate position
between two extreme or radical viewpoints.
Then to “Moderate” a comment
would be to accepts comments from all extremes
and use one’s knowledge, experience and judgement
to try and strike a middle ground through discussions and arguments.
But not having the right to remove or change parts of a comment or in its entirety.