07 September, 2006

Moderation and dissent

Dissent is very welcome here. We cannot learn by refusing to listen to those whose views differ from our own.

I have just started this blog ......
Over the years I have made some rather nasty enemies and I have had my fingers burnt before. So, for the time being, until I gain confidence in dealing with real problems (as opposed to mere abuse) in this format, moderation will have to stay a little longer. The sooner I can get rid of moderation the better.

Apologies for any inconvenience caused by this to anyone who makes honest comment in good faith.

4 comments:

Iain Hall said...

I have ordinary blogger comments at one blog and Haloscan at another . Now each as its advantages and disadvantages . Haloscan lets you ban some posters IP addresses which is handy for some Trolls But the committed trolls usually have access to various proxy servers and as Haloscan only lets you ban 20 IPs you can soon use up this allocation.
The Blogger system seems to work best if you disable anonymous commenting at least then they have to have a blogger ID but you can't ban persistent pests .
I supose it gets down to six of one and half a dozen of another. One thing I do recommend though is enabling email notification of new comments .
Anyway thank you for restoring my faith in the idea that there are some on the left with the courage to listen to the other side .far too many seem to want to turn inwards and only talk to the like minded and that is just a wank in the long run.

Ungrateful Troublemaker said...

Thanks for the hints Iain; will play around with this blogg later in the week .... then await the stampede of trolls, nasties and those gentlemen from West Africa who just have to have my bank account number so I can get my inheritance :-).

No, I tend to be a Progressive rather than a Leftie but if the cap fits .....

Shouting only to others who are your true soul-mates is no way to find out what is really happening in the World.

The Editor said...

I've never employed moderation in the two years I've been blogging. I don't tneed to. I don't get hundreds of comments every day, and the few I get, I "moderate" by removing if I think their content is beyond the pale. From the thousands of comments I've received during that time, I've only ever removed about a couple of dozen, most of which were card-carrying fuitloops anyway - what I mean is that a card-carrying fruitloop (myself) decided they were card-carrying fruit loops, ok? ;-)

But no, I couldn't really say that commenters are so bad as to warrant employing a moderation process.

At the risk of offending you, I'd like to say that I've noticed that most of those employing comment moderation have either been card-carrying control-freaks or up themselves.

Ungrateful Troublemaker said...

Thanks for your comment Gerry.

No offence taken; share your opinion of control freaks.

No, I had some very nasty experiences with threats - and with threats carried out - in the real world so I was a bit cautious when starting out in blogging. When no ratbags came around to smash down my door, off came the moderation, and it will stay off (I hope) .... it was as simple as that.