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.

Friday Feminism: Blogging while Feminist – a 3-comment rule?

I was reading something over at Pharyngula today where PZ Myers was alerting his commentors to brace for an influx of creationist debaters following a particular story getting picked up by both Digg and Reddit, and he reminded them of his 3-comment rule for dealing with newbie debating opponents.

Don’t attack without mercy until they’ve made stupid claims in at least 3 separate comments.

PZ recommended this to his readers when he found that the regulars in the comments threads were getting a bit too zealous for his taste, and the discussions were descending into vitriol spitting contests without enough leavening of actual interesting discussion.

I am all for vigorous, unhindered language and the expression of strong opinions, and I think dumb ideas need to be dealt with harshly, but we also need to allow opportunities for those ideas to be fully expressed. Too often, the conversations are beginning to go like this:

Stranger: I think…
Old hand: [Pulls out six-gun, shoots stranger down]I do believe I didn’t like your accent, stranger, and you were a bit cross-eyed.