Comment update

I just deleted a bunch of comments. On each, I left a note explaining why it was deleted.

I've tried to edit with a light hand; we'll see how that goes, and if it's insufficient, I'll get more aggressive. My object is to make this a relatively pleasant place to be. If you take a thread off topic, and it's funny, and people are enjoying it, I'll let it go; if you take a thread off topic, and we have to have seventy comments debating whether or not I should be stricken with a chronic disease in punishment for my health care apostasy, I'll shut that down pretty fast.

By the way, to everyone who thinks I need a little dose of chronic disease . . . well, thanks, I have several, notably chronic asthma and an autoimmune condition. I, like most other asthmatics, have come close to dying from my condition, so you don't need to waste any energy wishing that I could "learn what it's like". I was uninsured for two years with both conditions, and if anything, my opinions about health care were stronger than they are now. My opinions may be wrong, but they are not due to my ignorance of the "real world". So please, no more lectures on how I'd feel if I'd "been there" from people who do not appear to have been "there", or indeed anywhere in its close neighbourhood.

Comments

I apparently missed the healthcare cat fight, but I'm sorry to hear you have asthma. I did notice you revert to British spelling when you get frustrated. [neighbourhood]

Is that your husband who broke the Senator Craig story on RollCall? He was quoted in Editor and Publisher.

Posted by John Furie Zacharias | August 29, 2007 10:01 AM

how can we believe what you say about being sick when you refuse to explain your self description as being 'born and raised on the upper west side' and 'having deeply proletarian roots'?

Posted by steve kelso | August 29, 2007 10:58 AM

I also missed the sick (in both senses of the word) posts.

The anonymity of internet posting tends to bring out the worst in some people, and weird/unseemly behavior is an all too frequent occurance.

I gather Megan is new to the blogging game, which is actually sort of refreshing. Her standards of expected decency haven't been so lowered as to not be bothered by such abusive behavior.

Posted by szr | August 29, 2007 11:11 AM

Steve Kelso: Don't act like such a dweeb. If you'll read Megan's threads, you could get all of the information you need. Your one note striking is tiresome and quite irksome. Were I the one wielding the Power Delete button, I have no doubt what I would do to all comments like that.

And Megan, thank you for clearing ups ome of comments. Many were not productive or worth the time to wade through. I enjoy comments with substance, be they pro or con to topic, but just some rant or comment like Steve's above, and I'm not interested in its non-conduciveness to discourse.

Posted by falkoyn | August 29, 2007 11:22 AM

Seems that Andrew Keen's premise ( "The cult of the Amateur" ) is alive and well.

Posted by Mark E Hoffer | August 29, 2007 11:32 AM

I gather Megan is new to the blogging game

She isn't. It is just that the blogging game is played by different rules in that other part of the blogosphere you appear to be new to.

Posted by ...Max... | August 29, 2007 11:41 AM

Max, I won't delete that, but please, be nice, even (especially) when you're defending me. SZR's remark was civil, and I'm trying to encourage civil opponents, not chase them away.

Not that I don't appreciate the support. I do, very much.

Posted by Megan McArdle | August 29, 2007 11:50 AM

Szr:
Her archives over at janegalt.net go back to late 2001, and the past year or so she was blogging for The Economist. The comments at both sites were of markedly higher quality.

In fact, I can't remember seeing anywhere near this level of vitriol in the comments at any libertarian blog, ever. Whether this is because of a dearth of dissenting commenters, or just because libertarian(-ish) people are exceptionally civil, I don't know.

Posted by Brandon Berg | August 29, 2007 11:53 AM

In fact, I can't remember seeing anywhere near this level of vitriol in the comments at any libertarian blog, ever.

I would imagine that most libertarian blogs don't have the stature (and therefore the readership) of The Atlantic.

Also, I think you need to be very careful when describing comments as "vitriol." It's all too easy to declare a contrary opinion forcefully stated in the heat of debate as "vitriol." And remember, a public blog isn't likely to be like an academic symposium on a university campus (although I seem to recall that some of those got kind of "vitriolic" at times too). You're going to get non-academic types that don't believe in collegiality when discussing whether sick people should have health care provided by the state or whether torture should be state policy.

Depending on how the new comment censoring goes, most of the non-"libertarian" people will probably go away after a while. Myself included.

Posted by liberalrob | August 29, 2007 12:32 PM

Liberalrob, you are another commenter that I want to stick around. I just want to keep you, and my old commenters, from screaming mean things at each other. Not that you have. I'm only deleting things that I think are likely to lead to angry, unproductive arguments about who's a big fat mean doody head, I promise. I've had a comments section for five years now, and if I had a penchant for deleting commenters who disagree with me, you'd have heard complaints about it by now. If you look though the comments threads, you'll see I've left a great deal of angry disagreement, and I haven't touched any of your comments.

Posted by Megan McArdle | August 29, 2007 12:39 PM

Megan,

Brava for taking a stronger hand--it really had to be done. The lack of civility was really hurting the level of discussion. I'm expecting the comment threads to gain about 20 IQ points from now on. It would have been terrible to allow a tragedy of the commons in your comment boxes out of a misguided idea of tolerance.

Thanks so much!

Posted by Amy P | August 29, 2007 12:42 PM

Best of it in dealing with your conditions.

Posted by dalea | August 29, 2007 12:47 PM

I would imagine that most libertarian blogs don't have the stature (and therefore the readership) of The Atlantic

Try "Volokh Conspiracy".

For the record, the first time I heard of "The Atlantic" was when Jane announced her job change. I'm sure I followed links to its site before, but the name on the masthead did not register. Printed periodicals have become much less relevant in the last 10 years, especially outside of one's professional domain. Perhaps its only true for people who spend too much of their lives in front of the computer, Alt-Tabbing at will between work and play ;).

Posted by ...Max... | August 29, 2007 1:58 PM

This may not come as a surprise to you, but when you make arguments that most people consider breathtakingly selfish and arrogant, not to mention ignorant, you have to expect people to react. Especially when you pretty regularly condescend to your commenters in your posts.

Not that people don't say some nasty, uncalled for things to one another and to you, but you do bear quite a bit of the blame for legitimizing dismissive ad hominem around here.

[I mean, really, "Public Good is a technical term." Do you not see how people might find that obnoxious? Last week you titled a post "How racist was the Southern Strategy?" Are you really shocked and amazed that people get personal?]

And referring to "civility" as a justification for deleting comments is generally just an empty rhetorical move to take the high ground - why not just leave the comments up and let other people judge whether they're "civil?" Oh, right, because they're "unpleasant" to your sensibilities, at least before you get back to insulting the intelligence of your commenters with and in your posts. Meh. Whatever.

Further, I tend to think moderating comments with an eye to stopping personal attacks is an endless waste of time. But whatever, it's your blog and your time, so good luck with that.

Posted by cs | August 29, 2007 2:08 PM

I agree with liberalrob in that complaints by some of the libertarian commentators here that other comments are "vitriol" are really "a contrary opinion forcefully stated in the heat of debate". They were losing the argument and so fall back on whining about how mean the other side is to them.

I'm only deleting things that I think are likely to lead to angry, unproductive arguments about who's a big fat mean doody head, I promise.

You are already playing favorites with Max in this very thread. It can only go downhill from there. How is anyone supposed to trust you?

Posted by noen | August 29, 2007 2:14 PM

Libertarian blogs are much more civil. I can't think of a single one, and I have visited dozens, that have any vitriolic disagreements. Discussions become heated at times, but they never descend into name calling and wishes for the death of one's opponent. Why is this? I don't really know, but I have noted one significant difference between such blogs and most others, including Megan's old blog- you see people commenting under their real names far more often on serious libertarian blogs. I think commenting under your real name helps control one's baser impulses, but why libertarian blogs have more such commenters, I could not even begin to guess.

Posted by Yancey Ward | August 29, 2007 2:17 PM

The quality of comments here are remarkably HIGHER than they were at her old blog. They're more intense, and there are a higher number of throwaway points, but there are a number of reasons for it:

1) Megan made a decidedly large number of strikingly erroneous points on highly contraversial subjecrts right out of the gate (as her friend and oft-defender sums up "It's very bad!" She also got caught in that whole "decidedly proloteriet" mess that certainly didn't help her credibility amongst a group of newer readers.

2) The percentage of readers who were already inclined to agree with her amongst her readership has dropped substantially

3) As her readership increased, the number of outlier commenters (including dumber ones) increased

4) Megan's failure (as perceived by many commenters) to adequately respond or respect reasoned criticism of obvious flaws in her posts have led some people to, in turn, stop trying to "reason" in their posts

Posted by Justin | August 29, 2007 2:21 PM

My sentence above should read "and so fall back on whining about how mean the other side is mean to them." Sorry about that

I'm expecting the comment threads to gain about 20 IQ points from now on. It would have been terrible to allow a tragedy of the commons in your comment boxes out of a misguided idea of tolerance.

And wouldn't that be another example of a comment "likely to lead to angry, unproductive arguments about who's a big fat mean doody head"? This is exactly what I'm talking about. You let "vitriol" like Amy's comment pass but not others. If you really want to convince us that you will be fair you need to actually be fair. Because otherwise it just looks like all you are doing is trying to silence your critics.

Posted by noen | August 29, 2007 2:26 PM

As for the policy itself, I am not an advocate for deleting comments other than spam, even nasty death threats, but as long as the policy doesn't descend to the depths of what Brad DeLong or the moderators of Democratic Underground do (deleting comments that take the other side of the argument, even perfectly civil ones), then I find it tolerable.

Posted by Yancey Ward | August 29, 2007 2:53 PM

But noen, Amy's comment wasn't directed towards anyone in particular, i.e., it was not an ad hominem attack. I think what was off-putting in many of the comments was the derogatory remarks directed towards a particular poster, instead of a reasoned argument against the poster's position. This also included certain adjectives directed towards the poster's argument, without actually countering the argument with reasoned discourse.

Many of us have different viewpoints, primarily because of the way we were brought up, educated, or the realities we were exposed to as we started adult life. These differ for different people, and there are people out there who are well meaning and well intentioned who will never agree with me simply because their world view is so different from mine.

But we can keep our discussions civil.

Posted by Rex | August 29, 2007 3:02 PM

Megan:

I hope you know that comment moderation can be a full time job in itself. As for your notably chronic conditions, you left one out: British Spelling.

Posted by Mike | August 29, 2007 3:45 PM

The issue is not those who have factual disagreements, or even those who have a different moral base that leads to disagreement. Both of these were present in spades on Jane's - I mean Megan's - old blog. But on all of her health-care posts, the ratio of comments with these types of disagreements to those with a holier-than-thou "you're a libertarian and libertarians are evil and deserve to die for not caring about others" tone was far too low, and it made the whole comments section useless. If I want someone else's religion jammed down my throat, I'll find a church and start going.

Megan, hopefully you can censor just the cr*p so that the substantive disagreements can be read by people like me who - while I usually agree with you - really come to see what people who don't agree with me think.

Posted by Josh | August 29, 2007 4:02 PM

I agree with liberalrob in that complaints by some of the libertarian commentators here that other comments are "vitriol" are really "a contrary opinion forcefully stated in the heat of debate". They were losing the argument and so fall back on whining about how mean the other side is to them.

Sorry, comments like "Megan is weapons-grade stupid", and "you're a heartless pyschopath" don't qualify as debate points. That's just trolling.

You contributed several wildly off-topic comments, which have since been deleted, to a humor piece about imaginary presidential advisors. Among other things, you called Megan an "Ayn Rand devotee", railed bitterly against what you supposed her position on Bush and Iraq to be, and derided her blog as "content free" (which raises the question: then why are you here?).

I suppose you thought you were winning an "argument" and really kicking some major libertarian butt, but in fact you were tilting at windmills. Megan is not an "Ayn Rand devotee", I'm fairly sure she thinks that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake and that Bush has mismanaged the war, and in any case, none of that was in any way relevant to the post at hand - again, it was a humor piece about imaginary presidential advisors.

Posted by Rob Leder | August 29, 2007 4:28 PM

[This comment has not been deleted because of its amusement value. Do I conradict myself? I contain multitudes . . . ]

This comment was fascistically deleted for using the word Fascist.

Posted by ManOnBlog | August 29, 2007 4:49 PM

Justin:

1) Nonsense. You can disagree with her viewpoint, or even her method of breaking the healthcare problem down, but you have no grounds for your assertions. I find her attempt to tackle the universal health care argument from first principals interesting and much more honest than 90% of the punditry out there.

The spelling...well I pick nits, but your criticism is delivered in a patronizing manner and yet it looks like you typed it with a wet hot dog.

2) Not really, plenty of 'interlocutors' as she was fond of saying, at our old place

3) I'm privy to the stats at janegalt, and I doubt you are correct

4) Your saying she's to blame for nasty comments? Even if we stipulate that she argued badly, that hardly justifies ad hominem.

You have substantiated none of your assertions even as you rail against her 'very bad'-ness. Ultimately, you provide evidence of the problem even as you hope to refute it.

Others have suggested that commenters should try to adopt the same tone as if they were in the blogger's living room. Perhaps on a magazine blog that is no longer the perfect analogy, but she is still the host and it seems like a good rule of thumb.

Posted by "Mindles H. Dreck" | August 29, 2007 5:44 PM

The quality of a comment section seems to be inversely proportional to the number of people interested in "winning". I've never been able to figure out why the winning was so important, but for some reason folks are willing to make complete a$$es of themselves to feel the invigorating rush of proving how smart they are to people they don't know and who won't ever know their identity.

This mindset should be worth considerable amounts of money in research grants to the person brave enough to meet with these "winners".

Posted by Joe | August 29, 2007 5:57 PM

You contributed several wildly off-topic comments, which have since been deleted, to a humor piece about imaginary presidential advisors. Among other things, you called Megan an "Ayn Rand devotee", railed bitterly against what you supposed her position on Bush and Iraq to be, and derided her blog as "content free" (which raises the question: then why are you here?).

I still find it very difficult to believe that someone who ran a blog for... what? ten years? Called "Jane Galt" and is a self identified libertarian is not an admirer of Ayn Rand. That defies credulity. I had never heard of Megan before but it is certainly a valid guess. Perhaps some sort of explanation would be in order.

To stay on topic, I frankly have little faith that Megan's policy will be fairly administered. I guess I will wait and see.

Posted by noen | August 29, 2007 7:06 PM

On a serious note, the problem with all the people saying that "the IQ's gonna jump 20 points around here," or whatever, is that people tend to think that the quality of the discourse has improved whenever it swings more in their ideological direction. Myself included.

Look, whatever my disagreements with MegArdle aside, this is a private space, and she (or the Atlantic) can delete whatever the hell they feel. I do think you have to be careful, though, because the line between what's legitimate-and-provoking and what's illegitimate can be very murky. (As a matter of legality, in public space, I'd say there's no line at all, but again, private space.)

And, let me say, that I will be the first to admit that I can be a real pain sometimes-- not in terms of my views, but in my sometimes outsized rhetoric and tendency to dominate the discussion through sheer volume. (What else am I gonna do at work? Work?). I try not to be too much, but there's just not enough of a filter between my brain and the keyboard sometimes.

I still don't like you libertarians!

Posted by Freddie | August 29, 2007 7:39 PM

noen: Ms. McA. explained her use of the blogonym "Jane Galt" a few items back. She picked it some ten years ago when forced to come up w/ a posting name for an (I believe) New York Times thread wherein she wanted to really tick off a very pro-Ayn Rand poster or commenter. We all make bad choices sometimes, & I'm sure the agony of living w/ this one has caused her enough suffering already. (This is in the category of "know your enemy" advice.)
Speaking of names, on the previous thread it was mentioned that if "real names" were used it might lead to more civility (whatever "civility" is). Let me point out that "M. Bouffant" is my real name, though not my "legal" name. And that anyone can make up a "real" (i. e., dull, non-funny & non-descrptive) name: "Robert Edwards," "Louise Reynolds," or the like, and any one who uses a "legal" name that is relatively distinct or rare could be setting themselves up for trouble if a random nutcase decided to find where they lived, & so on.

Posted by M Bouffant | August 29, 2007 9:03 PM

Then how could you possibly call being ugly or socially awkward worse than asthma? How can you be so dismissive of the suffering you've experienced? All you come across as caring about is your money.
As for being uninsured, well, you have parents who are well off. That's quite different from the overwhelming majority of the uninsured.
I don't mind having comments deleted, hell I expected many of mine would be. I wasn't trying to be constructive, I was trying to express the displeasure I, and many others, feel that such an august publication would hire a sloppy and glib libertarian, and a poor example of libertarians at that. Instapundit shows quite well how little such views have to do with those held by the readership of the Atlantic. You don't even google before writing, Meghan.
Put it this way. If Glenn Greenwald started blogging at Townhall, he'd be hard pressed to expect a warm welcome. Not that you're in Greenwald's league, but the base here is mostly in ideological opposition to you.
I may tone it down a little, but I'm still going to heckle.

Posted by brad | August 29, 2007 9:36 PM

M Bouffant, I don't buy it. I don't believe her explanation, it would never occur to me in a million years to adopt any Randian character as my "handle". Obviously she identified with Jane Galt to some degree. And I really would like to see from her a more detailed post on where she sees herself vis-à-vis Ayn Rand's philosophy. On what points does she agree with or disagree with Rand and why? It is a fair and natural question. She can't simply brush it off as "Oh! I was just goofin' around."

Posted by noen | August 29, 2007 10:23 PM

From M. Bouffant:

any one who uses a "legal" name that is relatively distinct or rare could be setting themselves up for trouble if a random nutcase decided to find where they lived, & so on.

Yes, that is something to take into consideration. When I began making comments online 3 years ago, I thought carefully about it since I do have what appears to be a unique name. I sometimes wonder if what I chose was smart, but I am committed to it, and I do usually try to avoid interacting with the obviously insane people you sometimes encounter in threads like these. However, life has risks, and I consider this one a relatively small one.

Posted by Yancey Ward | August 29, 2007 10:24 PM

Having read a lot of her writings in the last year, I am fairly confident that McArdle's explanation for the Jane Galt moniker is true. Also, I don't consider her to be a libertarian at all, despite her claim to be the squishy variety. There are just too many positions she has advocated that eliminate her from the libertarian fold, at least in name.

Posted by Yancey Ward | August 29, 2007 10:28 PM

On what points does she agree with or disagree with Rand and why? It is a fair and natural question.

Here's a quote from her old blog: I do read her work (Atlas Shrugged is perfect for the beach), and I think she makes some good points, but I also think there are some serious problems with trying to force an ultra-rationalist ethos onto creatures that evolved in the jungle, rather than a logic class. - http://www.janegalt.net/archives/001219.html

Many people on the Right side of the political spectrum enjoy Ms. Rand's fiction, and find general agreement with it's pro-capitalist outlook and heroic portrayal of brilliant iconoclasts, without necessarily agreeing with or being an expert on the full extent of Rand's political views and philosophy in general. I think Megan falls into this camp (as do I - though I'd prefer The Fountainhead or Anthem in my beach bag to the overbearing Atlas Shrugged), and I wouldn't expect her to provide a point-by-point exposition on which parts of Objectivist metaphysics, epistemology etc. she does or doesn't agree with.

There are just too many positions she has advocated that eliminate her from the libertarian fold, at least in name.

Progressive taxation, for one.

Posted by Rob Leder | August 30, 2007 12:33 AM

Some support for you.

Wikipedia Managing the comments became more difficult as they continued to grow in number, and at the end of June 2004 Billmon announced that he would be closing them down, writing that

over the past few months I've noticed a definite deterioration in the quality of the conversation here at the bar. Trolls I can usually give the bum's rush pretty quickly - at least most of the time. But I'm seeing more and more stuff on the threads that strikes me as marginal at best....- people who seem to get their main kick out of insulting or picking fights with the other patrons; people who don't have anything particularly intelligent to say, and aren't very articulate about saying it....That's generally what the on-line world is like, I know, but for a time Whiskey Bar seemed to inhabit a different space: a bit more thoughtful, more intimate, less raucous, and - maybe most important of all - less crowded.

and

Juan Cole's rules for the moderated comments on his site.

Posted by artappraiser | August 30, 2007 8:33 AM

Juan Cole's rules may or may not be good ones: I won't read them. I have attempted to leave comments at his site 2 or 3 times politely pointing out that he was wrong on matters of fact. None of them made it through moderation. That tells me all I need to know about his actual comment policy.

Posted by Dr. Weevil | August 30, 2007 8:58 AM

Look, whatever my disagreements with MegArdle aside, this is a private space, and she (or the Atlantic) can delete whatever the hell they feel.

What is the libertarianally correct position on comment moderation? Freddie's private space observation seems, on the surface, like sound libertarianism.

On the other hand, doesn't it represent a breakdown of libertarian logic to suggest that internet spaces - pure marketplaces of ideas that they are - can be improved by regulation?

Of course, as a liberal myself, this doesn't pose any kind of problem for me, and if this remark is deleted as "concern trolling," I'll have to admit the justice of that decision.

Posted by politicalfootball | August 30, 2007 10:19 AM

I'm not too concerned about the comment policy.

Personally, I'd leave even the vitriol, but that is because I'm lazier than I am sensitive.

Her house, her rules.

Posted by Jens Fiederer | August 30, 2007 12:17 PM

In fact, I can't remember seeing anywhere near this level of vitriol in the comments at any libertarian blog, ever.

Brandon, that's because no one gives a shit what libertarians think.

They're so irrelevant, no one reads their blogs except other libertarians looking for affirmation for their crackpot economic beliefs.

Just because one of them managed to score a spot in a mainstream publication on the strength of her connections and family money doesn't mean anyone is interested in reading them, except as a kind of freak show.

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Jane.

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