“Anybody can become angry — that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way — that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.”― Aristotle
“The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.” ― Winston Churchill
“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so sure of themselves and wiser people so full of doubt.”
― Leah Wilson
“Wise men profit more by fools than fools by wise men.”― Cato
“We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.” – Johann W. von Goethe
“Life teaches us to be less severe with ourselves and others.” – Johann W. von Goethe
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”- W. B. Yeats
As many of you know, I’ve been mulling over my policy on open discussion, and whether there should be some kind of screen or control on trolls and those who abuse the comment threads.
I’ve come to a policy that I’ll call “modified open door”. You may be aware that we haven’t seen a couple of the more obnoxious posters in a few weeks. That’s because I’ve blocked them – or at least, insofar as I understand WordPress’ tools for screening comments.
Whereas formerly I left the comment threads almost completely unsupervised, except for the very occasional trashing of comments that were threatening, or that I deemed racist, sexist, or otherwise beyond the pale. Occasionally I have edited comments that were book-length Gish gallops – if you want that kind of space get your own blog and develop your own readership.
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Agnotology is the study of misinformation, and using such misinformation to gain better understanding of a topic.
The direct study of misin- formation—termed agnotology (Proctor 2008)—can potentially sharpen student critical thinking skills, raise awareness of the processes of science such as peer review, and improve understanding of the basic science. – Daniel Bedford
The bedrock impulse behind the Climate Denial Crock of the Week series was my idea that an industry had sprung up devoted to the generation of ignorance, thru the use of carefully crafted “climate crocks” – climate denial memes, simple enough that Rush Limbaugh can speak them in 15 seconds, but which often take an honest scientist hours to explain – and communication skills that are beyond most science experts.
This blog is a teaching tool, first, for myself, in that I use it to track down, spotlight, write about and discuss the various subjects that eventually make their way into the video series – but also for readers – readers that I hope will take knowledge gained here to the water cooler, the mailing list, the holiday dinner, and the cocktail party, and become themselves better communicators of the actual science behind this most important of issues.
For that reason, I find it useful when the occasional highly motivated misinforming poster crops up on these threads, as sometimes happens, and we hear new wrinkles on the disinformation, new blind alleys to track down, and new distortions of scientific papers and writings. In my experience, when I follow these threads up, I not only learn something myself, but I’m able to bring that insight to others. One good example of a classic climate denial crock is the “CO2 follows Temperature, not the other way around” crock – which I treated in the video here.
One nice feature of the ‘hands off” policy was that I didn’t have to spend a lot of time supervising nonsense and could devote myself to other things. Over the last few years, however, we’ve developed such a strong community of well informed posters, many of whom know way more than I do – that the site has developed a pretty strong immune response of its own. You know who you are.
Many of you have been writing me about this or that troll that is disrupting discussions and refractory to any kind of normal reasoning process. The worst of those are, I hope, now gone – we’ll stay alert – always open to nominations.
Some of those will stay, because as much as its a pain in the ass as the repetitive circular reasoning, bonehead misconceptions, and egotistical puffery sometimes is, I do still find that by tracking some of this stuff down, or better yet, when a motivated reader tracks them down and shares the results, I learn something, we all learn something, and we are better prepared for our work in dispelling ignorance among our circle and in our networks.
I welcome any and all comments, and hope that I’ll continue to get alerts when commenters or comment threads get out of control.
DFTT remains a good operative principle, unless one thinks that by creatively FTT, one can learn more, or demonstrate something to the wider readership. Thanks to all who have made comments during this process, and continue to make this a beneficial tool for me, and I hope, others.
Interesting. The above implies there is a group of ‘right’ people and those who disagree are ‘wrong’ and most likely ‘disinformers’ and/or alien to normal ‘reasoning’.
This way of thinking is incompatible with the Wilson, Goethe (1) and Yeats quotes posted above.
IOW you are very sure of yourself. You blame deception in others instead of yourself. And you are full of passionate intensity about protecting the world from whoever you consider as ‘bad people’.
No, the above implies there are those who don’t want to have a meaningful discussion, they simply want to muddy the waters and/or incite the participants.
But sometimes there really is a right view, and then those who post the opposing view really are wrong. If that situation happens, what should the moderator do?
Anybody convinced they are absolutely right and nothing can ever happen that will make them change their mind, is too irrational to have a coherent comments policy.
That’s a strawman, because those who hold the Climate Crocks views are not convinced they are absolutely right. Climate science can be done that will change their minds. So, your point, while true, is not relevant.
e.g.: We are not convinced we are absolutely right that the lower bound of climate sensitivity is 3C. The science continues to point to 3C as being the lower bound, not 1.5C. You can argue here that it is 1.5C, but you can’t keep using the same science that is increasingly overwhelmed by science that points to 3C.
Martin – are you speaking for everybody here?
Anyway I can only comment on Peter’s words really. He can do as he wishes, and I can ask questions to elucidate what may appear as inconsistencies.
“He can do as he wishes, and I can ask questions to elucidate what may appear as inconsistencies.”
perfect role for you. well done.
“IOW you are very sure of yourself. ”
not that sure of myself. That’s why I rely on mainstream science and scientists, and try to stay as close as I can to what they are telling me.
Exactly, you’re sure of the fact that the scientists you like to hear from, are absolutely right, and anybody who disagrees with anything they say, is absolutely wrong.
if you mean that I like to hear from the National Academy as opposed to Tim Ball and Anthony Watts, well, yes.
May I respectfully ask again how that all reconcile with the quotes you chose yourself for this very post.
This latest statement is nonsensical wrt the Churchill quote. You’re saying you KNOW who’s right and it’s NEVER the “fools”. That’s the opposite of what Winston said.
I wonder why you inserted those quotes in the first place…
I like quotes.
Rest Assured, if the National Academy changes its position, you will read it here forthwith.
btw, here’s another quote:
“Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large.
I contain multitudes.” – Whitman
I’ll spell it out for you:
On one side of the ‘debate’ is all the world’s academic and scientific institutions and scientists, and even the fossil fuel industry, scavenging the Arctic.
On the other, Mr. Potato Head.
Nobody is ‘absolutely’ right, science doesn’t work like that – but we *do* know who is absolutely wrong.
Andy Lee Robinson, Your comment’s last paragraph is now one of my favorite quotations.
Glad you like it, but thank one of the infinite number of monkeys in my brain! 🙂
Andy Lee, that’s a Bill Maher Quote 😉 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OwFSLm4pII tom 1:39
But it is still an excellent quote.
Indeed it is, but the last para is mine…
Of course, logorrhea neglects these quotes from the post:
“The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes.” ― Winston Churchill
“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so sure of themselves and wiser people so full of doubt.”
― Leah Wilson
But especially this:
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”- W. B. Yeats
Logorrhea has the passionate intensity which leads him to cherry-pick the things which allow him to pretend to justify his pre-determined conclusion.
OMG! Here I am trying to say “EXCELLENT post, Peter, and I for one am glad to be a foot soldier in “Greenman’s Crock Army”, but I first have to read some of O-Log’s incoherent whinings? LOL and LMAO at the irony of that!
This is really well-stated, and makes many great points—the opening video clip is priceless. I can’t remember ever hearing of agnatology, and thank you for that—-btw, have you noticed that you can change it into omnology by dropping only four letters and adding three? Is there any meaning in that?
(But I do think you were remiss in not including a quote from one of the modern world’s greatest thinkers. “We have met the enemy and he is us”—–Pogo)
The concept of being a professor of ignorance just does my head in!
Sigh.
We need a database of current states of climate arguments. Skeptical Science is basically that database, but we need a canonical name for each argument and a summary of the current state of the argument, plus the list of papers and datasets that are used to establish the current state of the argument, and finally, the list of papers that are refuted by the current state of the argument.
Then the rule for moderation can be: If your post argues against the current state of some climate argument, your argument most not be one that has been refuted.
The whack-a-mole strategy is what must be prevented from obscuring the current state of climate science.
“The whack-a-mole strategy is what must be prevented from obscuring the current state of climate science.” This a good point, Martin. Particularly now that we know software programs exist that allow one poster to immediately generate a whole host of “persona”, creating thereby the impression of a groundswell of hostile opinion. One might waste one’s life slashing away at a perpetual flood of denialist sock-puppets.
If I should ever win a lottery jackpot, one of the projects I will finance is a code-phrase detector for blogging software. It will detect code-phrases used to support canards and misleading arguments, and both color-code the text and hyperlink it to detailed information on the issue. It will also generate a score for the comment, which can be used as an independent measure of merit aside from popular vote.
If I had any confidence in my own ability to do this, I’d throw up a proposal on Kickstarter. Sadly, I know nothing about writing plug-ins for blogs.
That’s a very good idea. I can even imagine how it could work.
Ideas are a dime a dozen. A solid implementation can be worth the author’s weight in gold.
There’s really odd thing going on with your comments on here, which is that (and this only happens with YOUR comments), I can’t favorite them. The thumb moves away from my cursor. Anyone have a clue how to stop this?
I’d pay a dollar for a video capture of that happening.
A dollar? Cash in some BH stock and make it worth our while.
I have seen the same phenomenon and tried to figure it out. What I have observed is that it’s not necessarily specific to any one commenter like E-Pot, but seems to happen to several comments on the same day (or during the same visit to Crock). I notice it at intervals of a week or two. I often don’t “thumb” individual comments when I first read them but wait until a subthread has formed and try to do 5 or 6—sometimes it will “take” most of them, but hop out of the way on only a couple. ??????
PS Another thing that makes me think it’s not specific to E-Pot is that I HAVE “thumb upped” a number of his comments (some of those by mistake as I was moving to the thumb down), as well as voted thumb down on some, and they all “took” as far as I can remember.
That’s why some newspapers like the LA Times have just flatly refused to publish anything from AGW deniers and skeptics anymore. They have decided “no more whack-a-mole”, and stated that the preponderance of evidence in favor of AGW is so great that they would do their readers a disservice to publish the feeble and misleading “but-but” arguments that the deniers have been reduced to making.
Must admit I’m a little nervous about a newspaper like the LA Times deciding to deny access to the letters to the editor column to denialists. After all, this column has always been open to whackjobs and crackpots of all stripes, a place where they can blow off steam. Do they also refuse to publish letters from Creationists? How about gun nuts? Where does one draw the line? Different for an online site such as CDCW, methinks.
Good questions, and I don’t know the answers about gun nuts and creationists. I have only seen the specific reference to climate change deniers being barred. My daily paper is the Washington Post—maybe Arcus or some other Californian knows the answer?.
I think the reference I saw was speaking to articles and op-ed columns mainly, and the implication was that they were going to stop presenting “both” sides because that was a false equivalency—-that there was no longer any doubt about AGW occurring, and that they would not present lies to their readers. Whether whack-job AGW deniers or other crackpots are still welcome on the letters to the editor page is unknown to me.
Here’s a real world example of the abuse of privilege some editors have had. I live in Bend, Oregon. The Bend Bulletin is the monopoly daily newspaper here. As a highly informed individual I took it upon myself from October, 2002 forward to write to the editor of the Bulletin with factual concerns about the lies being told to the the public by the Bush/Cheney Administration leading us into the criminal and wasteful war in Iraq. There was a vindictive campaign of nit-picking on the part of the editor who wouldn’t entirely refuse to print all anti-war letters, but who would demand such a level of fact checking as to amount to the censorship.
In the meantime this same editor was publishing a near daily barrage of letters in support of the scientifically rotten PR flim flam then current on the issue of “intelligent design”, an attack upon the theory of evolution by religious hucksters and the simple-minded.
So, yes, I can see the potential for abuse of the system by rotten, corrupt, criminally conspiring editors intent on treating their readerships as ignorant, easily manipulated, superstitious serfs.
You know what irritates me to no end? That papers put their climate change articles in the opinion section. At least that’s what our paper does. Climate change isn’t an opinion, it’s science. When the ONLY place they put stories on climate change is the opinion section, it’s an invitation to crackpots to have an opinion in their pages as if their opinion were just as good as the science.
smartguy – the thread ran out of replies, so I will post an answer to your query about runaway greenhouse here. As usual, SkS is a significant source for good info. From what I gather, it is not likely on earth. That does not mean we cannot significantly screw ourselves up, it just means that technically, the most severe Venus type greenhouse probably won’t happen. Make you feel all warm and cuddly? What’s the saying? Thank goodness for small favors?
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Venus-runaway-greenhouse-effect.htm
How did we get from trolls to runaway Venus greenhouse? At least its interesting and informative.
I don’t remember where I last mentioned the Venus Effect, but we can go off topic in this little corner without bothering anyone. I shouldn’t tax my brain digging up long-unused physics concepts and wading into the deeper SkS threads—I read the SkS piece and my head now hurts (mostly from reading the comments, where it always gets overdeep).
I am aware that the Venus Effect is a bit of hyperbole as far as Earth is concerned, and that we will not get there soon—–and if we do, it will be for different reasons. My concern has always been with tipping points, and the prospect that we are very close (maybe) to some that will produce a “Mini Venus Effect” that will destroy the Earth as we know it. If we suffer catastrophic ice sheet melt and release of methane from permafrost and clathrates in the sea bed due to GHG warming, we may wish that we could be on Venus (and already dead and gone).
Good post, Peter, and I agree with taking the middle path — not denying admittance to all denialists, yet not allowing a flood of them to dominate. Good to let a few orcs breech the wall on occasion, this so we can capture and interrogate them,discover the latest strategy of their masters. Once we have gotten this out of them, though, I think it best to dispatch them immediately (no point in wasting one’s time in trying to convert these heathens) and place their heads on poles, facing outward — this, as Voltaire put it, “to encourage the others.”
Ecraze l’infame!
will leave the heads/pikes work to you guys, for the most part.
Peter,
There’s a couple of disruptive brats here I’ve simply attempted to ignore, If Word Press has an “ignore” feature available, I would certainly employ it as I have on other bulletin board services. Some people over time prove conclusively that they are not worth paying any attention to. We’ve got a couple of them here. I can usually ID when they are around because the comment numbers balloon as people foolishly think that rational argument can ever educate or influence anyone determined to be a troll.
The Guardian provides some good advice about trolls (with drollery):
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/jun/12/how-to-deal-with-trolls
Orcs? Trolls? Have you been playing D and D? Again?
Omno is arguing that there should be room for any crackpot idea within climate science. I guess its this “balanced view” that is really keeping us from having any real action to limit CO2. So I vote for Peter’s axe – to quote a certain queen: “Off with their heads!”.
Omno, do you really feel there is room for arguing whether gravity exists or not? I mean a lot of the denial is from people who simply does not accept physical facts or believe the overwhelming evidence proving physical processes in action. In my eyes, there is no room for people like this in this discussion anymore – they don’t add anything to the discussion and their sole purpose is stalling action because of a gazillion reasons that might hurt them (in other words out of pure selfish thoughts).
Do you think the teacher in a physics class should accept any kind of crackpot answer on an exam? At one point you got to establish whats true or not, and when it comes to science, the scientists are right and whatever paid shill that opposes science is… well just a crackpot idea to be ignored. Its really unfortunate that we still have to put so much energy into debunking stuff and it makes me sad that people like Tamino has to spoon feed certain people about how certain we are that Arctic ice is in decline and that its something to worry about (or “staggering” as the classification was). Climate change and global warming is a major change to our biosphere and directly influences our habitat, and if you or anyone else just cant see it, then for gods sake open your eyes and start listening to the facts that speak for themselves.
The longer we stall action, the more likely your worst socialist nightmares becomes the only option out with serious regulation in anything you can eat or do. But I guess that’s where the problem also lies, classic capitalism is really about survival of the fittest through material access as a birthright, even if it means the rules are changed with mass extinction materializing around us (let them die so I can survive). I can perfectly understand why many climate scientists, geologists as well as biologists feel we are on a dangerous path as the things they study are going through major changes as a consequence of our actions. Anyone who still don’t accept humanity as the primary force of nature on Earth should really be muted from now on.
JCL – lets make that a criteria. If its taught in school, forget it. The discussion is moot. If a troll wants to make up a theory about gravity, take it up with the scientists and write your own paper. Otherwise you are just drooling looking inwards at your navel. While there are scientific discussions here, the real format for scientific discussions is Skeptical Science and other blogs where real climate scientists and others with similar ability hang out. This is more of a journalistic blog, where education is a priority, and reliable references are used. It should be for education, not spouting biased unreferenced opinions and conspiracy theories. All you need for the latter is a bar with drunken patrons. I had the same conversation about teachers with youknowispeaksense. His blog policy is absolute, no trolls.
JCL -“Omno is arguing that there should be room for any crackpot idea within climate science“. No I am not. There has to be a middle, wise ground between “anything goes” and “we listen only to (our) scientists, shut up everybody else”. Otherwise this blog would be only a collection of press releases.
E-Poet – “Of course, logorrhea neglects these quotes from the post“. If you’re talking to me instead of the dumbog you keep having arguments with, please note those are the very quotes I referred to in my initial comment, so your contribution would be a total failure.
Christophere Arcus – “never lead to a substantive discussion of science“. Now you’ve lost me. As I explained already in the past, I do not talk science here for a series of reasons. First of all Peter only listens science from his preferred scientists, so it is pointless to argue any of it (all he has to do is reply “Scientist so-and-so said” and that would be it). Secondly but just as important, there are so many differences in the interpretation of science between me and Peter, almost any comment about it would and most likely should be considered as “trolling”…the equivalent of trying to talk the Pope into embracing atheism. So you are basically accusing me of being a troll because I have deliberately chosen _not_ to be a troll. Another massive #fail if you ask me. Plus I am amazed at the suggestion that my comments are self-centered, when over the years many of you guys have unsuccessfully attempted to move the conversation from the topic to my good self. And I have steadfastly refused.
climatelurker – thanks for showing a good degree of discernment
I hope that’s it from me. As usual, nobody’s even tried to argue against my original point, namely that most of the quotes are totally contrary to the way this blog goes. That’s not a judgment on the way this blog goes as much as an observation of what is for me a very very obvious dichotomy of thought in our host.
The fact that it isn’t obvious to him reminds me of a…quote: “We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.” (ahr ahr)
=The longer we stall action, the more likely your worst socialist nightmares becomes the only option out with serious regulation in anything you can eat or do.=
I came to the same conclusion after reading about those water capture laws in the southwest/midwest states a few years ago. Right now they are just preventing fallow land owners from making large ponds with rain water on their properties. They’re not picking on individuals with rain barrels.
But if these states revert back to their level of dryness and drought that they used to enjoy during the Medieval Warm Period, pushing lots of farmland into useless status whilst power plants and large cities look to keep the water flowing, and the situation becomes dire enough that tax revenue is needed to feed the lower 50% of Americans or the like, then rain barrels would indeed be a target for fines.
Even in the wet and lax-regulation state of WV, I’ve heard the state looks for new man-made ponds on Google maps with regulation in mind for those large enough to qualify for such per state law. My friend’s neighbor had to bulldoze (fill) one area in, that he had dug out for water collection purposes, as the state had caught him doing it without proper permits.
A lot of people may disagree with me here, but there is a difference between someone who takes the opposing side and a troll.
I would call Dave Burton a troll but I would not call Omnologos one. Omnologos might be contentious sometimes and on the opposite side of what most of us on this blog think but he(?) does have valuable thoughts. DB on the other hand, as far as I can tell, serves only to insult people and to spam this site with the typical talking points.
It’s a blurry line between a troll and differences of view.
Funny. I was just thinking of writing something similar, but different.
Dave Burton is an obvious troll, bitter over having lost Climategate nine times – and seeing remakes, CG 2 and CG 3 (who the f-ck is FOIA, the suspense is killing me.)
And I can see Peter’s logic. A scientific blog is a good honeypot to track new memes.
But, given the precedent of Dave and the criteria of Peter, I don’t see how Omnologos survives. I’ve seen nought new from him. That could well be me being very unobservant. And I’m happy for people to point out any unique “insights” he has brought to the table.
Hey ho. It’s Peter’s blog. I guess if I decide to read the graffiti that is my problem.
And I do have a self-control issue. I like feeding elephants, ducks, gerbils and, sliding down the evolutionary scale, have been know to feed the odd troll too. It’s fun to watch them warble. I know, that’s me playing with my food – very self-indulgent.
So, everyone other than Omnologos, examples of new “insights” he has brought our way? 🙂
I too am at a loss as to what “valuable thoughts” or “new insights” O-log has brought to Crock. Admittedly, my eyes often glaze and my IQ slumps when I read his stuff, so I may have missed something. I Join jsam in asking for examples.
And I don’t remember where it appeared or in what context, but FOIA typically stands for Freedom Of Information Act—-a type of law that has been passed at the federal, state, and even local levels, and that allows people to pry loose information from government entities that want to hide it.
You are entering the Twilight Zone.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151558351300281&set=a.10150141139700281.328977.140379955280&type=1&theater
http://www.cfact.org/2013/03/14/16479/
Denierdumb at its finest.
Ah!—all is now clear. “Denierdumb at its finest” is an understatement.
Mr. FOIA is a handle that some paranoid and delusional denier is hiding behind? And he has all these SECRETS that will PROVE ALL, but he has to be careful or the BLACK HELICOPTERS will swoop in one night and he will NEVER BE SEEN AGAIN……etc. Excellent twilight zone conspiracy stuff. Thank you.
Brought to you by CFACT…and Morano. Yes, that is an “a” in Morano.
How we’ve come the point where PR is seen as the equal to science beggars belief. Morano vs Mann. Lawson vs Nurse.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Committee_for_a_Constructive_Tomorrow
Oh, and if you like your conspiracy ideation and smears The Auditor’s posts are always good. See the comments.
No wonder sane people don’t post there!
http://climateaudit.org/2014/01/22/the-copyright-of-the-the-copenhagen-diagnosis/
Yes, a fine crop of commenters on Auditor, including O-log, who made as little sense as he does on Crock, so he is at least an equal opportunity obfuscator.
dumboldguy – you are making a rhetorical statement that omni has no capability of understanding. Satire, irony, jokes, subtlety.. those are lost in translation. Could be a spectrum disorder here. Not trying to be unkind, just mindful, if you know what I mean. Is there an acronym for that?
We need a much bigger alphabet to come up with a proper acronym that would fit O-Log. I know folks with spectrum disorders, and they are not as “handicapped” by them as O-Log seems to be by whatever ails him. As I said, I do not want to lose too many IQ points by visiting the Land of Omnologos for extended periods, so I’ll leave it to you to “define” him—-good luck (and make lots of popcorn for the journey).
Omnologos is obnoxious and opinionated, but he doesn’t drown out every other conversation with rapid-fire nit picks, like the Guy_One_Vowel_From_Texas_Pseudo-Historian_Who_Shall_Not_Be_Named. I’d drop into the comments to read what people thought about Peter’s post only to find that every single post was DB’s off-topic trolling or somebody trying to beat him down. I came to avoid even looking.
O-log original? No. About as original as a similarly egomaniacally-named Politico troll template like a TruePatriot1963 or a RealAmerican2012. Boilerplate bluster. But he’s not going to keep me from reading actual climate-related discussion. I’m not going to have to scroll through 87 comments to find out that no one bothered to address the post.
Egomaniacally-named is so far of the mark, am going to steal it 😉
Omnologos is a troll. Since this topic is trolls, I will put on a wet suit and dive into the filth. His comments are irrelevant, lead off topic, self centered, semantic, and never lead to a substantive discussion of science. Unlike other trolls, there is no scientific point to any of his discussions. They are all argumentative. One could say that a discussion of greenhouse gas and SAT with false denier arguments leads to a possible research of the subject by other readers. Not so with monologs. Sorry the spell checker seems adamant about spelling the name wrong 🙂 So, recently we wind up in a discussion of St Louis weather and a cartoon. Did I mention that when you combine the above qualities with no ability to understand satire in a discussion of a cartoon, the results are well, ridiculous and riddled with miscommunication? I would be interested to hear from anyone who thought that monologs comments did anything more than annoy them with irrelevance and semantic circular reasoning. Did anyone ever do substantial research and discover more about AGW due to an monologs retort?
OK – heres my two cents. 1. Invectives. 2. Putting words in peoples mouths. Fed up with them. Any coward can hurl insults at you from behind an avatar of anonymity. Few of same would care to take up the issue face to face. Putting words in peoples mouths is just a form of stupidity and lack of graces. It is a willful and open distortion of anothers thought and word. For reason which escape me, some cannot fathom that their misbehavior can destroy their credibility and their ability to communicate the views they supposedly so cherish.
But how could one have omitted Billy Madison, 2-minute video?
A moderator ougtht to be able, with 1-2 clicks to:
Accept
Reject
Hide, with code to say why, i.e., show the commenter, the date, and code, but reader has to click on it to see it. That exists in some blogging software, except done by voting, not just moderator choice. I don’t think think there are that many reasons.
That way, a reader can assess a moderator’s choices, and if they find them trustable, can just ignore them.
It’s sad that blogging tools have not generally caught up with USENET KILLFILEs of the late 1980s. That’s complementary, letting readers ignore commenters. In its absence, I have to keep a mental version of it.
The comment preview (sometimes with spell check) has been a feature of many blogging systems since the late 1990’s, yet there’s nothing of the sort available on a great many people’s blogs (including this one). In so many ways people insist on going backwards.