In the earlier days of this blog, we were renowned for the high level of discourse and the friendliness of our commenting community. We had lots of different opinions and different sorts of people participate–conservatives and liberals, Lutherans and Pentecostals, feminists and gays, Muslims and atheists–but with a few exceptions everybody got along. (Remember Little Buddha–something like that–the atheist who provoked extensive, in depth discussions about God and His existence, who eventually signed off thanking everybody for the personal support he felt and for the friendships he formed on this blog!)
Well, as the number of readers has soared, that sense of community and the friendly climate isn’t the same. People tell me that they don’t comment anymore, due to their fear of hostile retorts, or that they don’t read the comments anymore. I have valued the openness of our discussions and I have resisted all of the recommendations to rein in some of the threads and some of the participants. But I have now started banning people.I have been doing this for a few months, but it became an issue again on the post about trolls. Which, of course, attracted trolls. But one of the people I banned has gotten all indignant about it, spinning conspiracy theories (that Amsdorf and tODD are really running and moderating this blog, which is especially laughable to long-time readers since those two agree about hardly anything!) and launching vicious personal attacks on this blog, other commenters, and me. (All I’ll say about the latter is that I am very, very blessed.)
So what will it take to get banned? Bad language, of course, but that includes insulting language. That includes insulting other commenters but also blasphemy; that is, insulting God. You don’t have to believe in Him, but don’t insult Him. You wouldn’t like it if someone insulted your father, so the same principle goes with insulting the Heavenly Father. There is also a tone that irritates me that makes me want to disinvite some people from my virtual living room: The tone of contempt and mockery for the other people on the forum. It’s hard to define, but I know it when I read it.
I’m not saying that I’ll necessarily be perfectly consistent, but I’m going to be more pro-active than I have been. I am unlikely to ban you for just the content of your ideas. So far I’ve banned right wingers and left wingers, atheists and fundamentalists. It’s not so much what you say as how you say it. I’d like to recreate as much as possible our old climate, in which people held passionate and in-depth debates but did it in a friendly way.
I will depend on you readers to help me with this. If you read a comment that you think violates these standards, flag it. (Click the flag by the comment.) A certain number of flags (I’m not sure how many–that’s set by Patheos), will cause the comment to disappear, though anyone who wants to read it can by clicking the name that goes with it, which will remain. In the meantime, I will be notified that a comment has gone into moderation. It may take me awhile, but I will eventually read it and either approve it, delete it, leave it invisible, or–if the offensiveness has bothered lots of people and is part of a pattern–I will ban the poster, a process that also deletes what has been said.
The thing is, my responsibilities at work have increased dramatically, and I haven’t been able to monitor the comments as closely as I’d like to. So it may take me a relatively long time to attend to the moderation. But I’ll do the best I can. My work situation–our president has left and I’ve been appointed interim president–should be temporary. I’m looking forward to the time in what I hope is the not too distant future when I can not only follow the comments more closely but take part in the discussions myself.
In other blog news, I just discovered that if the blog is accessed on a smart phone, the format automatically adjusts so that it fits the small screen! (Patheos keeps adding features that I don’t even know about.)
Anyway, thanks for reading! Thanks for commenting! Let’s see if we can create another Golden Age–or at least a Silver Age–of the Cranach blog.
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