Prometheus 6

I notice some folks are having comment issues. I'd like to share a couple of resources that didn't actually help my views but encapsulate major sections of it. First, from News You Can Bruise for 2001 October 28

Perusing some Linux Today talkbacks today, I was reminded of the "Tar Pit From Hell" theory of discussion boards which I expounded to my co-workers many months ago. It is basically the following: when you add a public discussion forum to your site you are placing your site on a big slab of plexiglass which floats around on the Tar Pit From Hell. As long as no one actually uses the discussion forum, you are safe. But the more people pile on to use the discussion forum, the deeper your site sinks into the Tar Pit From Hell. There are various measures you can take to slow your descent into the Tar Pit From Hell, but none of them deal with the fundamental problem, which is the fact that your site is sinking into a damn tar pit.

A bit overstated. Still...

Next is the concise Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory.

I have gotten great utility from this principle, both rhetorically and philosophically.

I'm not as down on comments as those resources imply. And I'm aware that commenting has dropped off since spammers forced me to eliminate anonymous comments. I may be upgrading stuff around here in ways that will let me open it up again. That will not let assholes feel more comfortable, though. I've never had a written commenting policy, but the effective policy around here is you get to comment until you make me angry.

Subjective? Judgmental? You betcha. And I'm entitled for two reasons: I'm a real, nice, patient kind of guy; if you make me angry you're clearly over the top. And I own the damn site so I get to maintain it as see necessary.

I don't make assumptions about anyone's motivation for running their site as they do. On my sites I do watch for trouble. If I see someone being intentionally inflammatory I will decide whether or not I can use the condition so created. As soon as they stop being useful, they're outta here.

Because if you're going to have serious, non-echo chamber discussion of issues, your discussion space must be orderly. Yeah, yeah, autopoesis but you don't see much of that when folks keep lobbing hand grenades into the pile of parts. And you're not silencing ideas by excluding disruptive voices because (if you're honest...heh...) you will reach all relevant ideas and accept or reject them as they rise.

So I guess the upshot for comment policy writers is, don't feel bad about requiring registration, blocking and deleting asshole comments or using other techniques that people you really don't want to hear from anyway will complain about.