I could lay out all sorts of rules, but the rule I'll mainly be using is really fairly simple: if you wouldn't say it to my face, or the face of the commenter you're addressing, don't say it here. Imagine you're at a debate tournament, or a cocktail party. If what you're about to say would get you thrown out of either, can it or I will. And repeat offenders will be banned.
I'm also going to delete/ban commenters--you know who you are (and if you don't, you're about to find out) who drive things in circles by getting into long pointless arguments about trivia where they refuse to concede any ground.
For the first time, the comments that simply communicate the commenter's deep hatred and/or contempt of me are also going. I am sure I will be accused of stifling debate, of suppressing criticism of me. So be it. A significant fraction of the comments now consists of some variation on "You stupid, ignorant bitch, why aren't you writing what I want you to write?" I am now fully conversant with two facts:
1. Many lefty commenters think that I am a stupid, ignorant bitch.
2. I am not writing things they want to read.
Still not clear on why they're reading the things they don't like to read, but hey, to each his own. Anyway, I don't think there is any further value to be gleaned by repetition of these sentiments. And they destroy the thread when other commenters respond.
I am also going to delete flame comments from my supporters, even if they are merely responding to the trolls. Dealing with trolls is my job.
I'm not trying to wring the spirit from the debate--you can be as vicious as you like about peoples' ideas. But the minute you say anything that even smacks of rudeness about the commenters themselves, I'm going to delete it if I see it. (And if you think I've missed one, please point it out). I also reserve the right to delete comments for any other reason. I am going entirely on my judgement, and there is no appeal. I encourage those who cannot live with this to start their own blog, where they can spout bile to their heart's content.
Update (Liberal) commenter Brad L asks me why I accuse my trolls of being lefties. Well, because I know what blogs they came here via, and the most persistent ones clearly have a left political agenda. I get a lot of crap from the right, but with a few exceptions (there are a few), it has nowhere near the level of obnoxious vitriol I get from the left. But of course, many of my best commenters are also liberals. I don't think they're trolls because they're liberals; rather, I think I attract liberal trolls. Presumably the conservative trolls are out on some left-libertarian blog make life unpleasant for its owner.
Well I love you.
Is it wise to allow comments to the related post?
I don't think a lot of the comments were just about you not writing things people wanted you to write about. They were about you writing post after post refuting claims nobody was actually making. Just seemed a little inane, is all.
Well, it's giving me a nice harvest of IPs to ban. It's also pretty hilarious how many of the flood of hostile comments are apparently one guy in the UK sock puppeting.
hear hear megan.
The end-goal of freedom can only be reached from a foundation of order.
-winterspeak
You're bemoaning the costs for free and open crappy discourse. You, however, are worried about the wrong cost. The major reason I'd hate to see this kind of thing happen is, damn, it will eat your time, and your blog output will I predict diminish considerably. I think in the end if you want to do what you're porposing you have to
1) Basically ban comments altogether Douthat-style,
2) Convince _The Atlantic_ to hire you a bunch of gnomes (or, equivalently, interns) to do it for you,
3) Get a professorship somewhere, get tenure, then blog all you want. Hell, do it naked on the lawn. You've got _tenure!_, or,
4) Massively reduce your prodigious output.
(4) would suck. Do reconsider.
Megan,
Yes, the quality of the comments section has deteriorated significantly in the last couple of months. As long as your intern can keep up with it, then I applaud your decision, but if, in the end, it is left to you to do the monitoring, then I think the best decision may be to turn off the comments feature altogether. It is not worth your time to do the editing.
Bravo.
Not surprisingly, I'd be depressed if you banned comments outright. But it wouldn't be just because I wouldn't get to expound pretentiously on whatever subject I desired; it's because I find that blogs without comments "shrink", a little bit. Their project seems less important and less grand. I can't help but feel that Douthat's blog has lost something, some access to the broader conversation, since he closed out all comments.
so I never really read blogs until halfway through the Democratic Primary. Do you mean to say comments aren't normally this ridiculous/offensive?
Hurrah!
You DO know what gets you kicked out of debate tournaments and eventually fired, don't you?
Here's an example.
I am studiously not describing any of the behavior for fear the intern will accuse me of using such words!
Sanjay's point is a concern - deleting comments will take time.
There is another cost to offset - the mental energy spent debating tangential points that come up in the comments. Some of these end up being interesting blog-posts themself, but others simply consume energy in a point of increasingly narrow interest. It's hard to know with certainty whether there is a *net* savings there, but I suspect there is. When everyone is civil, it is easier to pick and choose the comments you want to follow up on, instead of the natural human reaction to stomp on the obnoxious ones.
It's funny, I had been thinking about hitting your email box with this suggestion - I really miss the more thoughtful (if no less animated) discussions here. A few of the thoughtful conservative commenters have had the heart to stick it out here, but they have been getting drowned out by noise on both sides.
I will say this, though:
Many lefty commenters think that I am a stupid, ignorant bitch.
I don't think I will ever understand why you see this as quite so one-sided. Never mind that most liberal folk (like me) have been more-or-less shouted out of the room, I feel like when I do come by here and read the comments you describe, I read comments that either insult you without "claiming a side," or go so far as to say something like what kind of libertarian are you?!?.
Meanwhile, the people from the left that come here, by and large, are actually looking for different viewpoints.
Not that it changes anything, but the whole "lefties hate me, but everyone else is nice and civil" thing that seems to be happening here is a bit insulting. I'm happy to see the hate brigade go away, but as a matter of observation, I just don't think your characterization of who/motive is quite right.
I'm pretty sure I would say all that at a cocktail party :-)
I'm so glad that you're doing that. I stopped reading comments long ago for the reasons you outlined. In fact, the effort of policing comments is one of the reasons I stopped blogging...
Great, this blog is going to get so much better now that comments will be moderated. Right... Choose one or the other: no comments or no moderation.
Megan,
Good for you, even though I have been liking your posts less lately. Sorry you and your large staff will have to spend time monitoring and deleting pointless posts.
When you do have additional time, maybe you can help identify the leading Democrats (as opposed to anonymous DailyKos posters or at-home soccer moms) who are trashing Palin in a sexist way. I know Dr. Laura is, but what about, like, Democrats?
Also, maybe you can find a Democratic leader saying anything as mean (and factually unfair) as his joke that started with "Do you know why Chelsea Clinton is so ugly"?
I'll just take this opportunity to point out the best comment policy, ever
http://ussmariner.com/comment-guidelines/
The whole thing is worth reading; it's funny, well-written and the most honest, common-sense approach to comment moderation I've ever seen.
1st, way to go. It's been getting bad here for a while.
2nd, are you going to leave a trace of the deleted comment?
Thanks. It's a badly needed change.
Seem to be quite reasonable ground rules. Good of you to spell them out to give everyone advance notice. I have only followed your blogging since you joined the Atlantic, but I have noticed that the comment section has gone downhill lately.
Will you still allow us to point out your typos and factual errors, or will you consider that to be impermissible hate speech?
Another day, another comments policy. Ho hum.
I'd still like to know who the imaginary straw men were who were "attacking Bristol Palin."
If the quality of comments has declined, I can only suggest that may be in response to the quality of your blogging. I notice that Yglesias guy never had to moderate, even with a poster calling him a "trust fund scumbag" in every thread.
Mike
Reasonable discussion?! On teh Internets??! Isn't that illegal or something?
Mcardle has the same problem with people who seem to live to insult her at every opportunity and otherwise engage in crappy behavior. They seem to think that she posts anything less than a doctoral thesis, it's proof that shes a twit and a moron.
So, stomp em like bugs. They don't like it, they can start their own blog.
Hah, I thought I was on Ta-Neishi's site.
Anyway, still kick em in the nuts. It's better to have a blog that works for the people that like the blog than one that provides entertainment for those using the internet as an outlet for their own venom.
Bravo, Megan! The comments have definitely gotten out of hand, but I'm really glad you're not doing away with them altogether.
Megan McArdle writes:
-- My old commenters miss the civil discussion that used to take place at my old website, and so do I.
There's always the obvious solution to that.
Some of us were visiting, and commenting on, the Atlantic blogs when McArdle was still at her "old website."
After years of journalism, I still feel icky about anonymous blog postings; too easy to say things that you wouldn't say to someone's face.
But then I remember that Ben Franklin and Samuel Clemens also wrote under assumed names; anonymous speech is an American tradition.
I'm grateful you're not ending comments; you and many of your regular contributers post valuable insights and information. I'm grateful to all. And as one of those far-left liberals (that's a dirty word, right?) I understand the anger so many feel today.
Though I disagree with much you say, at least you understand the need to at least discuss how to help people in need before discarding the remnants of the Great Society.
And I fervently wish you'd talk more about corporate responsibility and corporate welfare.
Good luck with your moderation, sincerely. I don't fault you one bit.
I'd say it's about time.
Well, NDM, you're free to go do your thing on any other Atlantic blog that will have you. And of course, here, if you keep it civil. But the reason there are so few Atlantic blogs where people can comment is that the trolls ruined them. They're not going to ruin the comments section here.
Good for you. Hopefully it will be fun - and useful - to read the comments again. Nuff said.
I for one am quite pleased to see that boorish behavior will no longer be tolerated in the comments section. Some of the commenters used to come up with the most inane insults.
Good for you Megan. I have been shocked by the vitriol in the comments, particularly the personal nature of them. You are a very thoughtful blogger, regardless of whether I agree with you or not (in full disclosure, I usually do). I'm surprised you haven't done this sooner.
Yes, I am as pravda of you as you ought to be of yourself. That said, one of the reasons I read you is to read the entertaining and freewheeling discussions, so I hope this editing doesn't turn out to be one less reason to read you.
Up until recently, I thought the comments thread here were second only to Reason's Hit and Run for intelligence, wit, civility, whatever. But yeah, in the past few months there's been a whole lot of stupid pointless nasty (and it's been 75/25 liberal to conservative. Don't know why. I think libs tend to seek out opposing viewpoints more often than conservs, which is good - but they are far, far more vitriolic, which is not and personally insulting, which is not).
The Reason site has a few trolls, but the comments seem to police themselves, for some reason. Haven't figured out why yet.
Good call. I had stopped reading the comments because of just these reasons.
MBunge:
I agree. I've been reading your blog since before the Atlantic days, and I have never seen you engage in partisan hackery like you are doing now. Your Palin posts simply parrot the Republican talking points, and you still haven't responded to the simple direct questions about who exactly is "smearing" Sarah Palin or "attacking" Bristol Palin. And in the spirit of your imaginative post about the possible reasons why Bristol's baby is or is not relevant, would you please enlighten us how it is less relevant than her moose hunting or child bearing?
Apropos of nothing, I think that spoofing someone else's handle should be grounds for immediate banning.
But good luck with the new effort. It may prove to be too much, but losing comments would be a shame.
"I for one am quite pleased to see that boorish behavior will no longer be tolerated in the comments section. Some of the commenters used to come up with the most inane insults.
Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | September 4, 2008 5:55 PM "
This was posted by someone else using my username, and I wonder if Megan has anything to say about that sort of thing.
I wonder why the Atlantic makes us go through the farce of signing in (complete with email) if one's username is given no protection.
Rob Lyman writes, in apparent reference to my impersonators: "Apropos of nothing, I think that spoofing someone else's handle should be grounds for immediate banning."
Well, I kind of like my impostors. In fact, sometimes I impersonate myself just for kicks. But if Megan says she doesn't want it, I'm sure my alter-egos will cease and desist.
No complaints from me, even if some of my own comments end up biting the dust. Actually, it's probably a good move, although you might need SEVERAL interns to buttbuttinate the chaff.
The quality of the posts does have a direct impact on the quality of the comments. We saw that EXTREMELY clearly with Douthat, who basically went off with "HITLEROBAMA" for a few days and people CORRECTLY called him on his bs. It was a cowardly act to shut his comments off (as such thing go in the blogosphere). There is little value in reading him now.
Don't go down that road.
Great idea! I was almost ready to give up reading your blog, because of the deterioration of the comment sections. Hope this fixes the problem!
"Well, it's giving me a nice harvest of IPs to ban. It's also pretty hilarious how many of the flood of hostile comments are apparently one guy in the UK sock puppeting."
Megan
Longtime lurker. I am pleased to see you taking these steps; seems your move to the Atlantic brought out a lot of troll-like "admirers". Would it be too much to ask for you to identify the names of the commenters encompassed under the one sock puppet's work? I have long suspected some of the more caustic replies, under different names, were all the product of one person. I would love to know if my suspicions were on target (selfish yes, I admit, it is all about me!).
Good for you. It's your blog. You have no obligation to publish anything by anyone.
Man, it's gonna suck to be that intern. Hope he/she is well compensated.
There's plenty of nasty punditry on Palin to justify Megan's post - Colmes, Quinn, the Kos diarist with the rumors, the reporter on CNN who said she should stay home and take care of the baby. How come the right has an organized attack machine but the left has free-range wingnuts? Can't have it both ways.
I don't really care if you ban worthless comments, but I don't understand why you care to them at all. No matter what criticism is raised her nor how, you distort or ignore it.
Take for example, my asking you to comment on the preemptive arrests of protesters at the RNC. Your response was to talk about events that occurred days later.
Or, as another example, the numerous requests to have you link to a single person attacking Bristol Palin or "smearing" Sarah Palin.
You ignore your critics be they civil or no, so why do you keep taking this high horse? It's not the incivility that appears to bother you, but the disagreement. At least, that's how your actions make it seem.
Many of us only became "trolls" because you ignored attempts to engage our ideas when they were presented without vitriol. We therefore turned to vitriol so that we'd at least get some catharsis out of it.
Face it, Megan, your blogging has deteriorated and you're spiraling further and further into partisan hackdom. That's why the trolls come. The maggots go to the rot, not the other way around.
I was also going to post something to the same effect as what Dreck just posted. AFAICT, Megan voted Bush reluctantly in '04, but Democrat in '06 and has been leaning toward voting Obama in '08. Whether that's because of increasing anger at Republicans over the last 4 years or just a desire to be one of the Kool Obamabot Kids, I dunno. But why people think she is just repeating Republican talking points escapes me.
Yay!
I enjoy your writing, but a thoughtful and civil comments section (which yours used to be) adds a whole additional level of enjoyment and enlightment. I used to be amazed by the level of intelligence and debate in the comments of your old site - from both the right and the left. Hopefully this helps move things back in that direction.
Heisenberg weeps! Don't be so hard on yourself, you aren't a maggot!
Translation: "If I think you are being an ass in your post, I can be an ass in your comments"
Opinions aren't facts. Get your own blog and be an ass there.
NutellaonToast has quite a moving story. Apparently, he was just a mild-mannered leftist, going about his business, when for no good reason at all, Megan McArdle (The Arrogant) had the Audacity to not respond to his questions.
Apparently, not having the moderator personally respond to him drove him over the edge. NutellaonToast may be a troll, your honor, but if he is, then aren't WE too trolls, for ignoring his just inquiry?
You may call him a troll, but I say, NutellaonToast is a victim. Nay, not a victim, but a veritable saint, for suffering such cruel injustice with such dignity.
Have you thought of letting the commenters self-police, through some sort of voting system? Comments with enough negative votes could be hidden automatically, and really vile ones could get flagged to your (or your intern's) attention. Social media sites like digg have had some success with that style of moderation.
Comment moderation is much needed... The Palin story on Economist.com has 1,101 comments and counting
Megan occasionally pretends to be partly on the left, but all she ever does is trash the left and extol on her positions that favor the right. Go back through a few random posts and see whether or not I'm wrong.
Just recently she trashed Obama's DNC speech without a word about McCain's.
Maybe that's because McCain hasn't given his speech yet.
Then she started getting more and more ridiculous and partisan so I started calling her on it. Rather than ever admit a wrong or some such, she just dug in deeper or ignored.
I don't claim that I'm a virtuous troll or anything of the sort. I just think it's ridiculous that Megan claims moral high ground. When was the last time she actually admitted to being wrong, provided evidence to the skeptics, or did anything that remotely resembled engaging her critics? Provide me with an example, please. Other than the war and the 2x4 comment, both of which took years for her to come around on, I can't recall a single one. Even her eventual admission of being wrong about the 2x4 comment was more "those nasty liberals are being mean to me" than it was "I'm sorry I said something intemperate."
Even now, your own reply to my non-troll criticism was to dismiss with sarcasm and misrepresent my position. Yet you decry the lack of civility. Look in the mirror.
I don't claim that I'm a virtuous troll or anything of the sort. I just think it's ridiculous that Megan claims moral high ground. When was the last time she actually admitted to being wrong, provided evidence to the skeptics, or did anything that remotely resembled engaging her critics? Provide me with an example, please.
Sorry Nutellaon, but most people don't write blogs to address their commenters' concerns or issues. Megan doesn't appear to be claiming any high ground, moral or otherwise. Rather, she is claiming ownership of the blog.
Trollish comments are typically not welcome on a blog, and that is simply the end of the story. The fact that you didn't feel she addressed your complaints adequately, or didn't admit error often enough, or whatever your problem is, is really quite irrelevant. That's what your blog is for.
I guess I may have to cool it on responding to some of the bait left here by Trolls - probably good for my blood pressure anyway. I think I once (sort of rhetorically) asked Megan how any libertarian could even think of voting for an avowed statist like Obaba, though I admitted that McCain[-Feingold] is little better. I don't think that the righties on here insult Megan, as we'd like to persuade her to come over to our dark side. I've certainly tossed barbs at the lefties, but no more than they toss.
If I really hated Megan the way some of the commenters seem to, I wouldn't read this blog.
I think most of us come here because sometimes you have real gems of posts, thoughtful and provoking.
Other times you go off on unreadable tangents of off based personal opinion. I mean used intra trade election info to say obama's done for?
Ban the vitrol throwers, but you should respond more to your critics and work through your thoughts more. Blogs are tools to do this, not opinion pieces from a infallible being.
If your going to ban things you don't want to hear, mise well just get rid of comments completely and do away with this farce that your trying to spark debate.
Megan,
Congratulations on making this decision; the single reason that has stopped me from commenting more is the idiocy that went before. I'm very glad you've decided to be a comments policewoman and I don't consider it censorship.
Well done,
JW
Score! This might be an entertaining and educational place to hang out again. Hopefully Rob and Brooks and Freddie and Violets haven't left in disgust
Megan -- I'm a conservative/libertarian, and I love your blog because of its intellectual honesty. Whether I agree or disagree with your take, I know it comes from a place of integrity and honesty that I can respect. I used to feel the same way about Sully's writings, but tragically he's become an ideologue.
I've been so disgusted at the vitriol, spew, and personal attacks levied at you, so kudos for smiting the purveyors of garbage and reclaiming your blog as a place where reasonable people can exchange ideas civilly. The great commentary is one of the features that attracted me to your old blog, so I'm thrilled to see it return.
Thank you, thank you, thank you very much indeed.
I think the same problem has cropped up on other blogs, this post at Volokh sums it up pretty well.
Commenters On Apples and Oranges:
RED: I sure like apples.
BLUE: Apples? They're rotten. Oranges are better.
RED: Are you insane? Oranges are disasters.
BLUE: At least oranges aren't corrupt fruits that hate America.
RED: Yes they are, in fact Hitler liked oranges!
BLUE: WTF? Hitler was an apple.
The End.
Second, you're wrong anyway. People weight the issues that matter to them. She disagrees with Obama on a lot, but finds him preferable to McCain on a few key items. She'd make a crappy shill for either candidate.
Finally, she's been offered the shill job for much more money and turned it down.
I suppose I'm too late to this party to actually participate in the discussion, but with any luck at least the proprietress will read this...
Because I have a few thoughts.
There are limits to the value of protected speech, and ad hominem attack sits on the far side. If you haven't figured that out yet, read up on Al Hamilton, already.
I pose that online communities : civic communities :: trolls : criminals :: moderators : police.
The difference is that while asshattery in civic communities ultimately subjects the miscreant to social ostracism sufficient to hinder his progress to self-actualization (and perhaps even his ability to survive), no such disincentive exists in online communities.
It would follow that deliberate moderation is, in fact, a requisite to healthy and open online discussion, which exposes the other flaw in my tripartite analogy...
Communities do not exist without users. This fact is vital because police et al. have the upper hand by default since their value to the safety of all trumps the need that they be held accountable for their mistakes, while in online communities commenters have the upper hand because their willingness to bolt far exceeds moderators' willingness (or freedom) to unclench.
The good news is that those here with their highest interest in thoughtful discussion tend to discount the trolls as a matter of course.
In conclusion: high damned time this happened. Good work, MM.
I've been reading your blog since way back in the old days, three permutations ago at least. The reason I stuck with it is because you approach most of your subjects with intelligence, plus a nice dose of irony and humor. I've learned quite a bit over the years and I've been humbled by my own lack of knowledge in more than a few areas.
That said, a staple of your approach has always been liberal-baiting. You're quite skilled at it, too - needling, getting under the skin, provoking, antagonising.
There's no particular offense in that, like I said you're good at it, but to my taste it smacks of unnecessary and inaccurate generalizations about 'the left' or 'liberals' way out of proportion to anything you say about the right. I've said as much to you in emails and responded in kind in comments. So just like I've been driven to distraction myself, it's also not surprising that your approach drives strong responses in the comments, in proprotion from the left.
Of course some responses have crossed the line, wherever that vague and unbright bugger lies, but some have skewered you appropriately and deliciously.
I, for one, would hate to lose the latter for the sake of the former.
In that vein, here's a novel suggestion: Monitor the comments for a period, one week or two, just as you notified us that you would. However, rather than deleting anything, simply mark any posts you deem offensive as "WOULD BE DELETED" or "WOULD BE BANNED". Everyone will get a clear idea of where your boundaries lie, and we can judge whether we censor ourselves, stop commenting or simply stop reading.
Cheers,
PS - I don't buy the bandwidth / host(ess) / start your own blog rationale posted above. The Atlantic is the host, I presume The Atlantic is paying for the bandwidth and The Atlantic is certainly paying Megan. Therefore, her blogging here can hardly be characterized as a labor of love that others have to handle gently. Rude comments are evident to all of us, and we draw the appropriate conclusions about the posters. But Megan is posting on a public medium at someone else's behest (and expense) and I don't think that merits special handling.
Megan,
Thank you.
I doubt most of us will miss the "trolls", "flamers" and "sock puppets". I certainly will not.
There are lots of people here who are capable of disagreeing without being disagreeable. You and they make me think and question. For that, I thank both you and them.
Doesn't commentary worthy of a debate depend on where you're having the debate?
I'm reminded of the classic Point-CounterPoint sketch from early SNL:
"Jane, you ignorant slut..."
Your plan is fine but I would have preferred a 'management by exception' strategy. I would dislike walking up to a bridge to read the posted warning: Don't pull your pants down and point your ass over the rail. (Actually in that case you'd probably have to have a sign saying: Don't steal that sign. Etc.) Not that I want to do that. To have somebody have correspondence with the somebody who did that would have been fine. I think your discussion about traffic signs is applicable here. With regard to MLJ or a sock puppet, one of the best comments has been his finding of Sarah Palin's seeking out Ivana Trump. I refer you to the comment (it would be nice if somehow comments were more easily located). He may be shouting but the aperture is kind of small and shiftable.
You really never learn, do you? Just implement your policies. Don't write long, meandering posts about them. Your opponents now know that they have gotten under your skin. This is oxygen to them. You owe nobody any explanation. Silently "disappearing" the idiots without explanation or opportunity for discussion is what you want to do. This just works, believe me. Problem solved. You are in complete control of the venue, so you can execute a perfect "Don't feed the trolls" policy if you wish, but you seem to want to blather on instead.