Two weeks ago I turned the comments facility on this site off. I’d had enough of the abuse: I’d had enough of the time wasting comments were causing. Most people whose opinion I trust still think this was the right thing to do.
Traffic data suggest they’re right. Page views were 12,627 the week I turned comments off. They were 10,558 last week but I did not blog for well over two days and it was half term. Unique visitors were 7,630 the first week, 7,210 last week. In both cases RSS feeds tend to add 1,000 or so reads a day. Average reads a month are a bit over 50,000 page views and 20,000 RSS reads at present. Comments seem to make little difference to this — certainly comments pages make up 10% or less of traffic, even when things were out of control.
So why turn things back on? I only do so reluctantly — but last week I got dragged into discussion on another blog. If I’m going to waste time on comments I’ve concluded I might as well do it here — certainly engaging on the site in question was a real waste of time. Debate with neoliberal ex-City traders on financial transaction taxes was always going to be fruitless, and was. When their moderation policy allows abuse I have no time left for them.
So, comments are allowed here again, but subject to the comments policy noted here. And please note, I will be ruthless in deleting comments I think do not comply. So please don’t waste your time submitting material I am bound to reject: hitting the delete button takes seconds — you’ll waste a lot more time constructing your comment that will be heading straight for the bin.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
My personal impression has been that your volume of postings has risen since you turned the comments off, which is a very good thing. I think you will need to be ruthless in cutting off the pointless arguments which interfere with producing decent blogs on the real issues.
Blogs are not internet forums. Bloggers are generous in allowing comments atall but in doing so they have the right to select those comments that contribute to the issues raised, and to reject those that do the opposite. Personally I take the view that if someone feels strongly in wanting to express views that run contrary to those of the blogger then they should promote those views in their own blog. My guess is not many past critics of this blog have their own blogs!
May I offer support to your policy.
“agreement with me is not a condition of a comment being accepted, but disagreement must be reasoned and be offered within the framework of understanding that this blog seeks to promote. This policy is necessary to make the comments section on each blog useful, meaningful and enjoyable for readers. For those who disagree or think this an act of censorship I have one suggestion to make: please go and start a blog of your own. Free speech is valuable. I support it. It is what permits you to offer your opinion as readily as I offer mine. But nothing requires that I must offer your opinion on my site. To say so is an act of editorial freedom – an issue as important as that of free speech.”
I’m hoping the lack of comments opposing this policy simply means they have already been deleted!
One has been!
I agree that you should only publish comments that add a useful gloss to the articles you post. Please do not go back to publishing every bit of far right nonsense, which merely wastes everyone’s time. If you publish it, then you have to answer it or allow them the last word. Not all the commenters who disagreed with you were wholly uninteresting, but most were.
[…] is the same with the Robin Hood Tax that Richard is now happy to have you discussing over on his fine blog. Though keep it civil. If you just look to the first iteration, it looks like the Banks pay […]
Just another few words of support for all your efforts, Richard. This blog is an excellent resource.