[UPDATED] Comment Policies

Poasted by gekko at 9:59 AM and filed under "Politik Inkorrecta"

[Update] Discussion on other blogs has shown me where there is some concern/misunderstanding of the intent of my comment policy. I am adamant in my belief that there is nothing unethical about this, provided I give fair warning and make clear exactly what my intentions are, and what sorts of comments will be altered. These are not the normal, fair, conversational comments people tend to leave -- the bickering sorts, the nagging sorts. Lord knows, enough people have seen me interact on a variety of forums wherein I bicker, nag, pursue, annoy, troll, irritate, and bash others. Usually deservedly, in my opinion. I welcome all that. The comments that I'm talking about are weapons and, as weapons, they are not part of ordinary discourse. Their sole intent is to cause emotional pain to people who do not deserve this sort of pain. Their intent is to disrupt free speech. So I've added stuff to my comment policy to, hopefully, clarify my position.

I've had a comment policy for some time, now. Some people are proudly proclaiming they have none -- they simply blow away the comments they dislike.

Well, that is a comment policy. It was just an unpublished one until they made the announcement.

Wotever.

A teensy bit of a kerfuffle-in-the-making has arisen over at UV's about the folks who, as part of their policy, state that they reserve the right to alter posted comments as they see fit, especially in an attempt to embarrass the commenter. Some find that a reprehensible activity. Morally abhorrent. Something along those lines.

Here's why I feel it is not:

I claim to own all content on this, my site. I pay for the site, I build it, I maintain it, and I provide it. I own what goes into it. If someone comments here, I own that comment. I have covered standard copyright law by making it clear that I claim all rights to anything anyone chooses to post here. Just as my submitting an article to a magazine confers the rights for altering and printing that article to that magazine (per their published policy).

That gives potential commenters fair notice that they lose the rights to the content they gave me. They are willing partners.

Next: I make it very clear what sorts of comments I will alter, and why. It has nothing to do with whether I agree with the commenter or not. It has little to do with flaming, insulting me, or attacking me. Mocking me. I will stand behind my words and will take whatever childish nonsense someone wants to fling at me.

But when a commenter, without provocation, defames someone dear to me, or attempts to hijack my blog to launch an attack on someone dear to me, I will reserve the right to change that hijacker's words in order to fuck with them. They want to fuck with people I care about, they can do it on their own blogs, not mine. My policy stands as a warning to peeps to behave in that respect. I have only used that method one time, and the "embarrassment" was to have the shit-sucking stalker who was hijacking my blog for his own masturbatory needs say "I love you, gekko" instead of the crap he had originally posted. I also noted that I had changed his words.

There is one other, unstated time I will make changes is when someone inadvertently posts something of my personal information that I do not care to have exposed, or if they make double-posts. I'll remove the personal information. And I'll blow away the duplicate comments.

Each person is free to handle their blogs their own way. Each person is free to decide to comment on my blog, or avoid it.

Somewhere, someone announced that it was "blog suicide" to admit to changing comments, but as far as I can see, I've had the policy in place, my blog is doing exactly what I want it to do and is still alive, and the people who tried to use my blog for their purposes don't engage in the abuse I have proscribed.

Win, win, win.

Ooh, got me one hot comment!

"Each person is free to decide to comment on my blog, or avoid it."

Exactly.

Posted by: Mark at May 9, 2007 8:32 PM

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