Housekeeping

I’ve made a few minor revisions to the following pages:

• Please Read This First
• Why was I sent to this blog?

The revisions add some material (mostly footnotes) to make it clear that that someone might be sent here by feminists to find basic theory information simply because that’s exactly what they’ve asked for (perhaps on their own blog rather than in a feminist forum), rather than only mentioning the option that it’s because they’ve been asking basic questions that disrupt a feminist forum.

I’ve also rearranged the sidebar so that the pointer to our Comments Policy is directly above the “Recent Comments” module in the left-hand sidebar, to make it more obvious that reading more than just a single FAQ that has been linked to is expected before commenting on any post.

Any other suggestions on improving the information architecture?

In which the moderator apologises for dropping the ball

I have been distracted over the holiday break, and this has meant that over the last month or so I have allowed some commenters through whom I would normally have cut off at the pass. The tone of the blog has suffered badly as a result. Those commentors are aggressive and are discouraging other voices, and that is not what this blog is about, although I suppose it is an object lesson on how easily a few disruptive commentors can ruin a discussion. Such disruptive comments also violated the comments policy as soon as the wolves threw off their sheep-cloaks, and their later comments should not have been approved. It just encouraged the others (such as the liar in moderation right now who I am not going to approve), and I should have known better.

This blog is meant to be a place for explaining the basics of various feminisms, and for constructive debate with people who wish to engage in good faith. I’m no longer willing to entertain commentors who merely want to harangue feminists about how we’ve got it all wrong and just want to rule over men. They are stealing our oxygen, their woman-hating is palpable and they are boring besides.

So, although dissenting commentors spouting oft-debunked MRA cliches will continue to provide us fodder for future FAQs from the moderation queue, they will no longer be allowed free rein on comments threads. I’m about to go back and disemvowel and delete as necessary.

Sorry about the interruption to normal services.

P.S. Dissenting commentors who can engage in discussion without resorting to disruptive behaviours such as stereotyping and imputing motives based on perceived affiliations, or posting excessively frequent or excessively long comments, or other vexatious behaviours,  are still welcome.