Unlike many blogs, this one has a comments section -- but it's not automatic. I screen comments.
From time to time, one of my perennially-unpublishable commenters accuses me of "censorship." Nope, sorry, that's not what it is. Censorship is when a government (or, occasionally, another powerful entity) suppresses your expression by law or force. All I'm doing is exercising editorial discretion. You can say whatever you like on your own blog, or in a comments section that I don't control, or paint your opinions on your own wall. But this is my blog, and I decide what gets published. If you want a soapbox, there are plenty available elsewhere. This one is mine. I am not obliged to provide equal time for differing opinions. Just as you are not allowed to daub your slogans on my fence, you don't get to use my comments section as your megaphone.
What doesn't get published includes (but is not limited to) comments I deem to be inflammatory or excessively partisan, statements of opinion presented as fact, any unusual claim unsupported by evidence, and anything I suspect of being a cute attempt to smuggle in signals (if your screen name is "Horst1488," your comments are never going to be approved). If I think your comment is too far off-topic, it's probably not going to get through screening.
These decisions are a judgement on the comment itself or, in the case of "Horst," on the commenter's lack of taste. They are not a judgment of the commenter themselves, nor do they represent an endorsement of the opinions expressed in the comments that do get published.
Update
6 months ago
4 comments:
Your site, your rules. It works.
Nobody cares whether a website posts comments or doesn't. What is dishonest about you is that you respond to comments without posting them so people can judge what the commenter actually said. I know that the first comment I made was grossly mischaracterized by you, and then you just launched into sneering ad hominins based on the straw man you created.
If you want to be taken seriously post the entire comment you are supposedly responding to so your readers can judge for themselves unfiltered by your sophistry.
A) How do you even know it was your comment? There are lots of comments I don't publish, and many of them are from people with similar kinds of brain rot.
B) Also you can, and I say this sincerely, go fuck yourself. This is my blog, done for my enjoyment. I don't care if you take it -- or me -- seriously or not, and if you don't like it, go read something else. Touch some grass! There's a whole world out there, most of which is not me.
I agree with the first comment, above. Each blogger is entitled to set rules for blogs they run and to determine whose else's blogs they will read. If Roberta wishes to edit comments, as I reserve the right to do on my own blogs, or to censor them or to put them in all caps, it is no skin off of my nose. I find many things disagreeable, but that does not negate the right of others to engage in them - as long as I am not forced to participate.
Write on, Roberta!
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