Monday, January 16, 2012

A quick note on comment decorum

Back here I deleted comments and left a note explaining that I did so because of the vicious ad hominem nature of some of these comments. I won't speak for my co-bloggers but I ask that commenters on my posts refrain from personal attacks.

I don't particularly care if the thread veers off topic and you want to talk about  flower gardening instead of oil pipelines. But if you start screaming FUCK YOU in caps or calling another commenter nasty names, I'll delete your posts without a second thought, whether or not I agree with you. I won't ban you unless you persist and you're welcome to continue posting if you change your tone.

Yes, I'm quite aware that some of my posts are vitriolic, but I try direct that vitriol at politicians and certain cohorts, not individuals adding their tuppence in the threads. Unless you're trolling and/or have the initials PR.

That is all.

5 comments:

Dr.Dawg said...

I'm with you. The least we should expect in our own living rooms is civility.

booradcan said...

But, but, but my real name initials are PR. I don't think i'm the one you want to ban.

Confused in Ontario

Scotian said...

Hey, I agreed with you right away, I mean one can show strong disagreement without having to resort to that level of vitriol. Since he was agreeing with my own position I wanted to make especially sure that it was understood by all and especially him that while we may share some of the same opinions regarding the political realities we have we did not agree at all in how to present it, and I found the way he went after that commentator particularly unnecessary and uncalled for. Hell, I freely acknowledge my own bitterness about aspects of the currently realities and I still manage to present it in a way that avoids the ugly personalities he took with that poster.

I know my opinions may not be too popular these days around here, but I believe I am still reasonably well regarded for maintaining a basic level of decorum while I present them. When we start reducing our disagreements politically to the type of comments that were made by the poster in question meaning and value is lost and we have nothing but an ugly smear, fear, content empty jeer instead of real dialogue/disagreement. That way is the way of the extremist IMHO, mainly these days more on the right than the left but it is IMHO not dependent on what side of a spectrum one is one but rather how far to the extremes one is comfortable seeing/living in about something, indeed anything.

Boris said...

Cheers, Dr. Dawg and Scotian, and agreed.

booradan, I don't think you have to worry ;)

David Wilson said...

Bob said somewhere, "at times I think there are no words but these to tell what's true." so ... no, I dont like the spammers who leave links to egregious Russian websites trying to inject bots and malware, but mere vitriol? bring it on, no problem.

following along on your 'this is silly' theme, I was reading the Guardian on-line today, an article describing the rebound in opinions around things nuclear in Britain since Fukushima, graced with ads shilling ... whatever.

I always enjoy my visits here, keep it up, be well.