Poor Claudia. I told her via e-mail that her name had come up in this thread, and she tried to weigh in on the discussion, but came in as I was changing my comments policy — twice.
So she sent me what she wanted to say by e-mail. Here it is:
Hello Brad, Herb… thank you for thinking of me… I’m flattered! I just read the email you sent, Brad, so I’m late joining this particular fray. As to the "subject at hand", are we discussing the banning of LexWolf, Brad’s mendaciousness or the management of blogs in general?? To comment on all three, well, I won’t miss Lex. Sorry, Lex, but you come off like the guy at the party everyone tries to avoid. Know-it-alls are annoying, but tolerable. Slatheringly aggressive know-it-alls don’t make many friends and, truth be known, I had taken to simply ignoring your posts because any value they contained was buried beneath so much hissing vitriol that it simply was no longer worth my time to read them. Secondly, is Brad a liar? Oh come on guys, really! Brad has opinions and philosophies just like all of us who post on this blog. Mostly he defends them with a clarity and articulateness that I envy… sometimes not so much! But, hey, this is a discussion, not an academic treatise, and it’s more like an oral argument than anything else. I don’t always agree with Brad, or several others that post here, but I respect his intellectual honesty and that of many other authors on this blog. Finally, on how to run a blog, I have no idea. Personally, I began posting on this one with a pseudonym, Lily. Yes, Herb, there were personal security concerns… thank you for understanding that! But, at the same time, it began to feel somehow dishonest… I have a reputation amongst my friends and associates as a "what you see is what you get" kind of person, and it’s something I try to remain true to. Yes, my real name is Claudia, but I prefer not to share my last name. It is quite unique, even more so than my first name, and there are some seriously crazy people in this world. My opinions are not always popular ones, especially in this state, and I while I would love to shout them from the top of the Confederate battle flag on the state house grounds that probably wouldn’t be the smartest thing to do.
Thanks for inviting me in, folks… I’ll try not to be a stranger!
Claudia
Related Posts
Brad, one of the drawbacks of your new policy is that the blog becomes less relevant. Who wants to read comments, knowing that they’ve been filtered?
I know you probably chafe at the suggestion that you would abuse the authority, or censor legitimate discussion, but the truth is, while I agree with prompt expulsion for abusive language or personal attacks, you have shown a propensity to take offense at simply being misunderstood (albeit in an obnoxious way). I say, better to remove the offending posts after the fact.
Of course, I say that without knowing how much time you’re spending policing the blog.
It’s a dilemma. I’m not sure which takes more time — going through unfiltered messages to take out the really bad ones, or filtering it on the front end (which means at least looking at ALL of them).
Theoretically, with the first approach (my old way), I don’t feel obliged to check them as often, or even read most of them.
Trouble is, if I DON’T stay on top of them, the lowest common denominator tends to drag down the whole conversation. I’ll have one or two relevant, good-faith comments, and then somebody will say something intended to insult somebody else, and somebody else takes the bait, and everybody else joins it, and pretty soon the whole durn blog looks like a barroom brawl, and plenty of sensible folk choose to stay out of it.
That’s the factor that caused me to drop my “Oh, let them have their fun” attitude. Dragging a conversation into the gutter is NOT a victimless crime. It destroys the overall environment for constructive discourse. And since constructive discourse is one of the main POINTS of a blog, I’m willing to go to some lengths to stop the problem.
Ultimately, I want to go to what I TRIED to do yesterday, but was prevented by technical problems — require registration, and authentication. But I have to work out the bugs first.
Brad, you gotta try the new way. After all, I don’t have to tell you how long it takes to turn a corporate culture around–it’s usually a long and tedious process–and this is probably an example of that. Once it gets going, I think you’ll see the quality of contributions rise, perhaps even the number.