Housekeeping note

March 20, 2006

Just a quick alert to readers who read and participate in the comments section. I had hoped to avoid any changes to the wide-open, edit-free nature of the forum, but recent developments regarding a handful of, shall we say, “dissenters,” has made it necessary for me to make a few changes.

My goal has always been to keep the comments section open to competing ideas in the interests of spirited discussion. My preference was to keep it that way. I’m afraid, however, that some have decided to abuse this approach. They chose to antagonize, insult, annoy, and in at least one instance, hint at possible violence.

Perhaps most importantly, the discussions have suffered since this small handful of people began taking advantage, literally, of the comments section. Sincere readers who wanted to read and/or participate in political dialog have had to trudge through nonsense from those who hoped to hijack discussion threads.

Though I’ve been patient, I’m tired of those who want to use the comments section to lash out at me, other commenters, Democrats, liberals, and conservative bogeymen. I just don’t have the time or the money to bother. My site is, in a way, my home — and I’m doing a little spring cleaning.

I reserve the right to delete any post and/or block any commenter. Those who add remarks that I find abusive, antagonistic, insulting, offensive, threatening, or even just annoying, will no longer participate in the comments section.

Is it censorship for me to delete or block commenters? Not at all. Bandwidth is expensive and I am under no obligation, financial or otherwise, to publish the remarks of those with whom I disagree.

These “dissenters” still have free speech — they can still speak their mind, but not on my privately-financed website. Indeed, at this point I’d encourage those “dissenters” to find a different website where they can share their views — because they are no longer welcome here.

On a related note, I’d like all of the other readers know how much I genuinely enjoy The Carpetbagger Report’s comments section. I’ve gotten to know many of you through your insights and I’m always impressed by the level of knowledge, wit, and wisdom many of you offer, day in and day out. You have my thanks and appreciation.

And now, back to the news….

Man, I always show up right after all the good stuff happens. Been coming round for a couple months, regular-like you know, but never thought to check comments.

Sheesh.

  • I agree that you should remove abusive comments. Caution though… disagreement in itself is not abuse (although it can occassionally feel that way)…

    Keep all the viewpoints… just remove the potty mouths.

  • If the left has “nattering nabobs of negativity,” must we suffer the “delirious diatribes of the delusion” from the right?

    No, indeed. Thanks, Carpetbagger. While I believe in responsible dissent, I welcome your “troll patrol” for the denizens of dogma.

  • Honest disagreement is still acceptable, right? I mean, if some Freeper wants to come in for a good debate with the “other side” but doesn’t engage in the trollish behaviors you listed above, that’s okay too, right? I appreciate the occasional opportunity for spirited (though polite!) debate, antithesis and synthesis, and refinement of ideas, and I hope that doesn’t stop.

  • Honest disagreement is still acceptable, right? I mean, if some Freeper wants to come in for a good debate with the “other side” but doesn’t engage in the trollish behaviors you listed above, that’s okay too, right?

    Absolutely. I’m not trying to keep dissent out of the comments section, I’m trying to keep those who just want to annoy and pick fights out.

    Spirited debate is always welcome.

  • Honestly, I did get rather tired of Claude implying that I was a Marxist-Leninist because I pointed out to him that Colin Powell told George HW Bush to stop on the road to Baghdad, not some vast left-wing conspiracy.

  • Thank you.
    I had the feeling our Trolls were pushing the limit of implied violence to the point where something really nasty in realtime could happen. The last thing we want is an incident where criminal inclinations and mental health impairments create white hot personal conflict that becomes a tragic headline.

  • The trolls were over the top. You know one when
    you encounter one. Their mission is to disrupt, to
    sabotage, not to engage in spirited debate. It’s
    hard to define, but you know it when it happens.
    Right decision, in my opinion. Too bad it has to
    be that way.

    Do trolls try to destroy stamp collectors’ sites
    as well? Do right wing sites have trolls?

  • Excellent approach Mr. Carpetbagger. And let me just thank you for not adding some overly burdensonme registration and ranking system to “automatically” enforce keeping the trolls out. Those systems are waaay more hassle than they are worth.

    And just because I can’t help myself

    delirious diatribes of the delusion”

    Brilliant Slip Kid! I optmistically await its use in the same context as the nattering nabobs. Don’t worry though, I’m not holding my breath.

  • Congratulations CB!
    As frustrating as it is, it really is a milestone in your blog. The wingnuts just don’t come after any old blog you know… They hate quality and can’t resist a chance to ruin it wherever they find it.
    You probably agonized over the decision weighing the threat to freedom of expression here – that is not really applicable. In the case of most trolls, it is hate speech, plain and simple.

    As a sort of filter you could change the question asked at the end of the posting section from “What color is an orange?” to “Which person is a true patriot: Clinton or Bush?”…

  • Thanks CB.

    There’s been a lot of times that I read a troll post and knew that it was utter BS and I had to force myself from not responding because I knew that the troll was only trying to get a rise out of us. And like a couple of others above have mentioned, having such persistant trolls is prpbably a measure of the success of your website.

  • Absolutely the right thing to do, CB. I, like marcus and others, also had to force down the urge to respond to the regurgitated pablum of the trolls because a) it would do nothing to change their minds, and b) it would only encourage them to continue their disruptive and abusive ways.

    This place is like home to all of us, a precious island of sanity in an insane world. Thanks so much for protecting it, and us, from the lunatics who would destroy even this small oasis of reason and progress.

  • “a precious island of sanity in an insane world”

    That’s great, maybe CB could add that underneath the subtitle at the top of the page.

  • CB,
    You are right. We need reasoned disagreement and thought provoking discussion, not just provocation. thanks for your site and your efforts, I appreciate the info and ideas I find here, you are one of my regualr reads. Trolls are going to be a regular part of the blogosphere, just like the annoying drunk at the bar, best treated by patience and ignoring them.

    cheers

  • Thanks, marcus, and if CB deems it worthy he’s more than welcome to use it. 🙂

  • Gonna miss being called a homoislamoathiestliberalcommie-loving defeatest, but I guess that’s the price for good taste.

  • “defeatist”
    I’m also a product of the Marxist, quota-loving, NEA-polluted government schools

  • I travelling all weekend and haven’t had an opportunity to post, although I have been reading the Carpetbagger throughout the weekend.

    In this case, I think CB did the right thing. As long as these guys received attention, good or bad, they would continue to post their disruptive nonsense. I also appreciate this since I was the recipient of the veiled threats. (However, I didn’t get to see the one that CB deleted.)

    I along with Rian, CB, and I’m sure the rest of you would welcome the intellectual challenge of a true opposition commenter.

    So long to our cyber Brown Shirts. Or were they cyber KKK?

  • I really value this site and those who comment here. Even though I tried to adhere to a “scroll by the troll” policy, it still took time to identify and go by them. I also thought the quality of discussion suffered under their influence, so I add my voice to the support for CB’s decision.

  • Hopefully, CB won’t wind up being the target of right-wing radio criticizing the site for “suppressing” conservative voices.

    Also, CB, if some people here get a little TOO unruly, you can just call on the crack Fox News Security Force.

  • On right wing sites that even dare to host comments, all dissent is banned. You can have all the facts in the universe behind you, but if it doesn’t mesh with the core conviction de jour, you’re banned.

    I think what they hate is reason. They seem to have lost the ability for rational disagreement, in favor of outright demonization. This hatred of reason also explains their contempt for science.

    Put me in the ‘You made the right call’ catagory.

  • I really wish they would have just listened to us and brought some facts to the debate. But with them, it was never about debating, just ad hominem attacks, rhetorical “flourishes”, and in the case of one of them, just odd-english gibberish mixed in with borderline rational thought process, with a very unhealthy dose of ideology. I cannot for the life of me understand what they think they were trying to defend, and try as I might to get them to stop just posting links and to try to have a debate with what are generally agreed upon facts, they continued to take the low road and just kept repeating the same worn out phrases. In the end, I dont really think they could or would have even wanted to engage in a debate. What I like about the people here is that they will question everything, they dont have any allegiance to parties so much as to principles, and they seem to genuinely want to figure out the best course for fixing the many ills that have plagued us in the last few years. I really wish more genuine debate with people of different points of view could take place here, but the large majority of people taking the other side of the arguments seem to be using only slightly more sophisticated methods than the deplorable ones the trolls used here. At the rate we are going, Fox News could start to put people on who talk like the trolls here, since they are heading that way and arent very far from it now what with the likes of Brit Hume and Oreilly. I dearly hope that we dont get to that point. I personally did not want to see the trolls banned, but it had become clear that they were not going to act like adults or even attempt to adhere to any kind of decorum for such sites, and the more you tried to get them to go in that direction, the more belligerent they became. How sad for them and their little minds. Im sure they will rationalize their being banned as a success, and be boasting to their friends about it, assuming they have any. One, I suspect, does not. The others, well, their friends are probably similarly dimwitted. They should really be ashamed of their ignorance however, but they are so far removed from self examination or reflection on anything in the grey area that they probably couldnt even contemplate such an emotion. I can only imagine they are completely uneducated, as it became clear rather quickly that their blind ideological spoutings were not the musings of an intellect that could make it through even the weakest of our nation’s universities. Why they would even want to publicly display the pathetic workings of their minds is beyond me, except that perhaps they dont realize how ignorant they are, which is the saddest part of all this. The vitriol in their attacks, and their blind allegiance to leaders, no matter how far removed from rationality they seem, and no matter how much damage they do to the world and their own country makes me think that we have now figured out how Hitler came to possess the power he did. These are exactly the types of minds that would be high ranking in the Hitler youth. Clueless, angry, bitter, but loyal. I hope there are not too many of this type in the US, or then perhaps my worries that we are on the road to fascism are not so far off base after all.

  • Thanks! The most persistent troll here is just so incredibly *boring.* And his/her dad, too. Let’s just keep the amusing ones. 🙂

    • Comments are closed.