EconTech

I have been forced to moderate comments due to the ubiquitous spam bots. Unfortunately, this forces me to draw lines I’d rather not draw. However, since lines are being drawn, this is the general gist of how they will be drawn, while noting that all decisions ultimately rest with me. If you have a problem with the comments policy, comment here. If you have a problem with a particular application of moderation, feel free to appeal via email but please do not comment here to protest.
Comments will not be posted if any of the bulleted apply:

• Non-germane to the topic at hand (though this will be leniently enforced).
• Vitriolic toward others (self-deprecation, however, is encouraged). This includes flame-baiting.
• Contain spam.

I would prefer that you restrain yourself from the use of profanity. I want this to be accessible to whoever wants to access it, and the presence of profanity on a blog triggers censors like little else (other than porn and that incident in a square in China). Excessive profanity is likely to trigger the vitriol rule, and minimal profanity can probably be eliminated without loss of meaning.

I want the discussion to be much like a solid workshop presentation: factual mistakes or omissions pointed out, logical errors corrected, and a passion for the subject at hand. Brad DeLong points us to Teresa Nielsen Hayden’s write up on how to moderate a blog. I will keep her notes in mind while making the relevant decisions.

1. There can be no ongoing discourse without some degree of moderation, if only to kill off the hardcore trolls. It takes rather more moderation than that to create a complex, nuanced, civil discourse. If you want that to happen, you have to give of yourself. Providing the space but not tending the conversation is like expecting that your front yard will automatically turn itself into a garden.

2. Once you have a well-established online conversation space, with enough regulars to explain the local mores to newcomers, they’ll do a lot of the policing themselves.

3. You own the space. You host the conversation. You don’t own the community. Respect their needs. For instance, if you’re going away for a while, don’t shut down your comment area. Give them an open thread to play with, so they’ll still be there when you get back.

4. Message persistence rewards people who write good comments.

5. Over-specific rules are an invitation to people who get off on gaming the system.

6. Civil speech and impassioned speech are not opposed and mutually exclusive sets. Being interesting trumps any amount of conventional politeness.

7. Things to cherish: Your regulars. A sense of community. Real expertise. Genuine engagement with the subject under discussion. Outstanding performances. Helping others. Cooperation in maintenance of a good conversation. Taking the time to teach newbies the ropes.

All these things should be rewarded with your attention and praise. And if you get a particularly good comment, consider adding it to the original post.

8. Grant more lenience to participants who are only part-time jerks, as long as they’re valuable the rest of the time.

9. If you judge that a post is offensive, upsetting, or just plain unpleasant, it’s important to get rid of it, or at least make it hard to read. Do it as quickly as possible. There’s no more useless advice than to tell people to just ignore such things. We can’t. We automatically read what falls under our eyes.

10. Another important rule: You can let one jeering, unpleasant jerk hang around for a while, but the minute you get two or more of them egging each other on, they both have to go, and all their recent messages with them. There are others like them prowling the net, looking for just that kind of situation. More of them will turn up, and they’ll encourage each other to behave more and more outrageously. Kill them quickly and have no regrets.

11. You can’t automate intelligence. In theory, systems like Slashdot’s ought to work better than they do. Maintaining a conversation is a task for human beings.

12. Disemvowelling works. Consider it.

13. If someone you’ve disemvowelled comes back and behaves, forgive and forget their earlier gaffes. You’re acting in the service of civility, not abstract justice.