BlogaBarbara

Santa Barbara Politics, Media & Culture

Monday, March 20, 2006

Comment Moderation

After this weekend's series of mean, accusatory and politically-motivated vitriol, we have decided to implement comment moderation at BlogaBarbara. Basically, we've had it with the mean spiritedness and accusatory tone of the some of the comments. We've addressed this issue before and it is clear we cannot rely on everyone in the BlogaBarbara community to be good neighbors.

What does this mean? Your comments will now have to be accepted by BlogaBarbara editors before they show up on the site. It means more work for us but I think the blog will be better for it.

We don't care what your opinion is or what side you are on in the second district race -- it will be accepted if it is civil and on-topic. Two requirements that should not be hard to keep.

You could try to convince us otherwise herein -- but I have a feeling this will be a welcome addition to most.

11 Comments:

Blogger daraka kenric said...

This is the single best decision you have made, dear editors of BlogaBarbara...

3/20/2006 9:43 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Another issue is the overly anonymous authors and the ease of entering any identity desired through the Blogger system.

Several times during the string of "Veronica Meadows" comments an entry or five deliberately entered the identity name of a prior commenter, but with a much different message.

3/20/2006 9:50 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The moderation-filtration feature will lose a lot of contributors and readers here. Blogabarbara will become more of a black hole like Newspress editorial contributions, and with no confidence on how frequently the approvals of postings are made.

To avoid this, the act of moderation should happen every few hours, which I doubt anyone can keep up with that.

Just delete the nasty postings every day or two, as has been happening already. The name of the one posting the comment can stand as a monument, although unfortunately most of them stay as too many Anonymouses.

The date of the posting also should be set to display, not just the time. The Blogspot settings allow that option.

3/20/2006 10:42 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Attacks on Das need to be moderated. They are meritless and not deserving on print.

3/20/2006 11:06 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes.

I am a full-on supporter of BlogaBarbara and support this action.
It's a rising tide.

SBR

3/20/2006 11:18 AM  
Blogger Bill Carson said...

Good move in the right direction.

Attacks on ALL the candidates need to be moderated.

3/20/2006 1:12 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Spirit,

Yeah, it's tough managing a blog. A lot of angry people out there.
For myself, it seems that robbing liquor stores would be a safer thing to do.
Maybe not.

But thanks for giving it a try.
I hope you will give it another.

SBR

3/20/2006 3:44 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Good move. Too many angry people out there.

Rae

3/20/2006 6:51 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sara, maybe this editorship will give you a better understanding of some of the pressures faced by someone like Travis Armstrong. You will not run posts because in good faith you'll decide for good but unrelated reasons they shouldn't be run -- only to be attacked. You'll be attacked for not being equal to all candidates, or favoring one; you'll be condemned for only running posts that back your opinions...when in each case you're just trying to do the right thing to uphold the discussion. Standards are tough but in the long run better for the community. I think on the letters page they even call the writers to make sure they sent it in...as opposed to the fake Veronica Springs entries you mention above. Good luck. And thank you for not remaining the blog version of screamy right wing shock radio.

3/20/2006 7:29 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Too bad about the screening. I liked the instant gratification of just being able to rant and roll, and then touch a button and have everyone put up with what I wrote. Words before thought. I'll miss it.

3/20/2006 7:33 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

it is too bad. and will kill this blog as in this age we want to have an instant debate.

how about just removing comments more regular - no harm no foul - we are all old enough to know a post in poor taste

while there have been so bad post - this on whole is a tame blog compared to most

3/21/2006 9:31 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home