Mano’s new comment policy, hoo-boy! Glad my own comment sections have been too tame to necessitate that kind of thing, if only because commenting is less frequent here. Anyway, if you want to say “butts” in four separate comments here, for the moment, it’s allowed. But I think that’s an interesting idea for moderation; might try a rule like that in the future if I get into a similar situation.
The rule I currently have that is germane to those situations is, “Try to be a little less aggro with each other than you might be on other FTBlogs. If somebody is being a shit, I’ll probably get rid of them myself.” Works well enough for the little leagues.
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i was thinking about which regulars on other people’s blogs i’ve banned or not. i banned roj blake for insulting me, think that’s about it. even if somebody was having an acrimonious time on pharyngula or mano’s blog, i usually won’t ban preemptively. dude was being a shit to me in my own space, so whomp, he was banned way back in 2017. adios muchacho.
I may be completely wrong here, but I feel like the overall comment environment (for Pharyngula specifically, but also much of the FTB network) has changed a lot over the past ~10-15 years or so. I feel like some time ago, there were frequent visits by spamming creationist trolls and similar, and the comment sections were more of a bar-brawl, free-for-all type of environment, where argumentativeness had some value.
I feel like more recently, the creationist/bigot/troll incursions are less frequent (or maybe just moderated/flitered out before a casual visitor like me notices them?), but some of the long-time commenters haven’t eased up on their confrontational/aggressive attitudes/behaviors, and lacking a “proper” target, have turned on the other “friendly” commenters, and just result in a more hostile/toxic environment overall.
If nothing else, it’s interesting seeing how the various bloggers on this site address (or not…) this issue, and how it changes the general climate of the different blog’s comment threads.
I’ve a day job that keeps me away from computers, so I can’t keep up with any of the faster paced comment sections, in addition to just finding some too damned hostile for no good reason, so i read a lot, but rarely comment.
anyways, I’m curious to see how Mano’s new policy plays out…
i’m curious as well! at minimum, there will be no more mega-comment sections where people have a prolonged debate.
I agree, and while I sometimes miss a good chew toy, there’s only so many times you can go over the same arguments before it gets tedious. It’s not as if the creationists are coming up with original ideas. Usually, its just an exercise in figuring out which century-old argument they’ve spruced up with new language this time.
As for moderation policies, I think there’s a lot of value in having different policies for different environments. The three-comment limit obviously wouldn’t work for a place like the Endless Thread, but it seems appropriate for Mano’s local issue.
And nothing is set in stone. If something isn’t working or circumstances change, new policies may be needed. Social media is a living environment, so we can’t expect things to remain static forever.
that’s interesting to speak of a wordpress comment section as social media, because to me it stands in contradistinction to such, like, FtB is never going to have the virality or cultural relevance of basically anything that happens in a true social media environment. and yet, social media moderation is relevant to the discussion, has almost all the same issues. maybe we are social media, just not massive. like failbook is an MMO and we’re a LAN party.
Crack that whip.
When a problem comes along,
You must whip it.
When something’s going wrong,
You must whip it.
Whip it good.
*strokes long grey beard*
Well, young whipper-snapper, back in my day blogs opened up the internet for the common masses. Before blogs, you had to be somewhat computer savvy, and know a bit of UNIX, to log onto USENET to join the conversations of alt.pave.the.earth or any one of hundreds of furry fandom threads.
If wanted to, you could purchase/rent an IP address, build a server, get a dedicated copper phone line, learn some HTML, and write a web-page. If you wanted to update that page daily, well, you could. Or you could use it to post the temperature of your refrigerator or, if you paid for enough bandwidth, a camera to watch your fish tank.
But in the early 2000’s, blogs were social media. Before before TikTok, before smart phones, before Facebook; blogs were how people presented their ideas on the internet. Then in 2002, with a razzberry at creationists, Pharyngula was born.
And the problem of comment moderation has been present from the very beginning.
@4 LykeX:
The problem with having heavy moderation on that is the argument you have heard a hundred times might be an entirely new one to the creationist. If a site wants to allow discussion a lot of what is brought up will be retreads of existing material at some level.
What moderation really is looking for is separating the honest posters from the rest. A creationist that raises an issue that has been gone over a thousand times deserves an answer if they are reading the answer. It’s the ones that repeat the same questions and posts over and over because they are not really reading the replies that should be banned. Unfortunately there isn’t a simple way to tell them apart and the dishonest ones are often the most determined.