Comment Moderation

People who know me know that I’m a big fan of open discussion.  I think that the more viewpoints that get thrown into the pot, the more obvious the truth becomes.

However, we do need commenters to respect all of the members of this community.

People who know me also know that I love to swear.  I find nothing morally apprehensible about speaking emphatically.

However, I have chosen not to do so in excess here.

In the words of Kurt Vonnegut (Hocus Pocus, 1990), “...profanity and obscenity entitle people who don’t want unpleasant information to close their eyes and ears to you.”

I hate rules.  I hate them.  But because I care about the people (from all different walks and traditions) in this community, we’re going to lay out some rules.

Racism will not be tolerated.  If anyone would like to discuss race, I’d love that.  It’s a complicated and curious issue that needs explored.  Different races and cultures exist, but derogatory remarks are not appropriate.

Sexually explicit comments will be deleted.  Coarse joking is something that I find morally apprehensible.  Comments of a derogatory sexual nature will be considered threatening statements and will be removed.

Please control profanity.  Sometimes swearing can show your resolve and add emphasis to a statement, but excessive and unnecessary profanity will be removed.

We don’t edit comments, ever.  At least not before this week, but that won’t happen in the future.

I want people to say what they feel, how they feel it, and I don’t want to run the risk of unintentionally changing someone’s message by editing out their profanity.  The safest way to go about this is to protect the person’s opinion by completely deleting the comment.

So please note:  by violating these rules you are giving full license to us to remove your comment, thereby voluntarily relinquishing your right to express your opinion.

I don’t care what you say on this website, we have made a choice to expose ourselves to an open forum.  You can argue, you can disagree with what I say, you can say I’m stupid.  In fact, I encourage it.  But you must say it in a way that respects your audience.

For the time being, we still will not require comments to be approved before they go active.  Comments will be posted to the site immediately, because it’s important to us that members of our community can speak and discuss in real time.

So if you see an unwise comment, please know that we’ll remove it as soon as we find it. Feel free to tell us about it using our contact form.

Thanks for your understanding.

Comments

How could looking forward to revelations and a river of blood be considered sane/healthy?

Hi Miranda,

Thanks for commenting.

Could you elaborate a little more?  I’m not sure I catch the relevance.

I don’t think we’ve written anything about a river of blood.

How did that make any sense.  At one point you portray yourself as some moral protector of the right to free speech, vowing to never edit/erase comments in the future.  Then you turn around and openly admit to censoring comments.  Thanks for doing such a stand up job with encouraging a serious conversation.

I’m sorry Miranda, you must have misread.

“I want people to say what they feel, how they feel it, and I don’t want to run the risk of unintentionally changing someone’s message by editing out their profanity.  The safest way to go about this is to protect the person’s opinion by completely deleting the comment.”

The point was that we will delete comments that violate these simple, and completely reasonable, rules.

I did delete a comment from this post that intentionally violated these rules and was posted under a fake e-mail.

Brad,
I don’t think you’ve overstepped the boundaries here. Troll comments or comments that don’t further any sort of open discussion should be deleted.

Comments that are offensive but thought provoking may be left, but really it is up to you to draw the line. Melissa and you have done a great job so far and I don’t see any reason why there is a need to have such passion about allowing EVERYTHING regardless of intent.

I think 9 times out of 10 you’ll be faced with a decision to delete only when the intention is questionable. Morally objectionable content that is followed by solid intent to provoke valuable discussion will be apparent by the conveyance of the message.

I must say I am quite suprised by the negative comments posted by Miranda and Bill on the previous post. Nothing written by Brad here even remotely called for that kind of negativity. As soon as you try and do some good…

Bill obviously finds something about attempting to reach the needy Reprehensable and Miranda, sounds like she has a bit of a religious chip on her shoulder there.

Tip for the wandering negativist ***Read the philosophy and purpose of the house and website before making a comment. The focus here is on helping people in need. Don’t let a person’s religious background put you into a vehenimous funk. D@*#! - I self censored.

jt you are a fraud just like brad above. your idea is stupid and everyone knows its a scam.  go ahead and take their money.  hopefuly your neighborhood gangsters wont take advantage of your stupidity.

**Go ahead and take their money??

I don’t know what your referring to Bill, there is no money to be gotten. Did you read the purpose of the house like I suggested?

And actually you are hoping for the wrong thing here, Neighborhood gangsters are exactly who the house is for. The purpose of the house is for *All people in the community* to take advantage of what the people in the house have to offer the community.

Gangsters need to learn to read too.

This house is not my idea but I think that it’s great. You have the ability to support the house w/ a donation if you think it’s a good idea too. If you think it’s a fraud, don’t give. Or maybe you could visit the house and have a foot to stand on when you judge thier intentions.

thats the whole idea of this “idea”, its a fraud to take retarded peoples money because they are brainwashed into believing this crap.  no matter what they write as the “purpose” of this house crap is, its bullshit. just like every other crazy stupid christian, they will want to grow and spread their filth all over the dam place.  there is not enough clorox on this earth to stop this bacteria from grow. im not going to donate to this crap, and neither should anyone else.  jesus was a typical jew he was nothing special. mary was a whore, she to was nothing special. there is no god, its man made. the bible should be used as toilet paper.

sorry *growing*