For most of this blog's life, I was very resistant to using comment moderation. But now that I've turned it on, I love it!
In the early days of this blog, before we moved and through our first year in Canada, there was a lot of discussion and healthy debate amongst commenters, whether or not I was around. The comments section became something of a forum, and I felt using moderation would have ruined the vibe. I felt it was better to weed out trolls by deleting, rather than preventing, their comments.
And in those days, trolls were often unintentionally enlightening. They were usually US wingnuts who embodied so much of what I was eager to leave behind. They proudly displayed the ignorance, exceptionalism, small-mindedness and intolerance better than I ever could have explained it.
Their ignorance of Canada was especially funny. Did you know that if a Canadian says something bad about the Queen, there'll be a knock on their door in the middle of the night, and they'll be taken away? Did you know it's illegal to speak English in Montreal? That you must wait weeks or months for even the most basic health care, and then when you get it, it's botched and you die?
Even the occasional Canadian troll (you may recall the notorious GaryStJ) had an educational value. Although when he started following me to other blogs, it got a bit creepy.
So in those days, I either left the troll comments as-is, or deleted them, but quoted them in my own posts.
In addition, I was still working out my own comment policy - what I wanted to tolerate in my own space, what balance to draw between free expression and senseless arguing, what felt right to me.
But now I've worked out my comment policy and I'm very comfortable with it. Bogus claims about censorship don't bother me. Blogs that allow unrestricted comments, where the comments devolve into a name-calling screaming match, show me exactly what I don't want.
Wmtc rarely has the kind of lengthy, in-depth discussions it used to. Allan and I are at home in Canada now, so I'm no longer asking the kinds of questions that sparked those chats. It also could be partly because certain former readers who tended towards those discussions have moved on.
The recent rash of troll activity yielded nothing educational or entertaining. It was simply a waste of energy. I was going to be away from my computer for a while, so I tried comment moderation as an experiment.
To my surprise, I loved it. I love the complete control it gives the blogger. It's total stress reduction: I don't have to download my email and wait for unpleasant surprises. I see the troll's or banned commenter's name, and delete the comment unread.
In the past, if I wrote about a topic where I didn't want any debate on this blog - such as abortion or capital punishment - I would post a warning or turn off comments. Now I can keep comments open for readers' thoughts without fear of pollution.
Allan and I gave each other moderation rights to each other's blogs, so we have more opportunity to publish the comments. So usually comments don't sit waiting for moderation for too long, anyway.
Several trolls and banned commenters continue to leave comments, knowing their words will never appear on the blog. I'm not sure what they get out of this, but then, I don't understand the troll mentality anyway. It's the easiest thing to make their attempts disappear. Two clicks, and they're done, and I don't even have to read the comment.
Thanks Blogger!
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