Censorship?
On the occasions where I’ve deleted comments (which just loosened up over the last week or so) I’ve been accused of censorship. If you position it that this is my blog, I’m the authority on what gets displayed, and that I’ll remove your comment if I don’t like it – then yes, I’m censoring you.
If you look at it the opposite way – that this blog is *my* freedom of speech, my freedom to express my ideas and thoughts, then I am actively defending my self against your censorship.
You can see the argument really goes nowhere and is actually somewhat offensive to the people across the world, sitting in prisons who have done nothing but question their government.
I’m not government, and I’m not oppressing you. If you need to tell the world about a subject freely (such as how wrong and inexperienced I am) – there’s an app for that.
It’s Atwood’s Fault
Jeff recently got his blog back up and running, and re-enabled comments for his blog. In this case Jeff perfectly worded (as he does) exactly what I’ve been wanting to do (emphasis his):
Comment moderation will be more stringent. If you don’t have something useful and reasonably constructive to say in your comment, it will be removed without hesitation. You can be as critical of me (or, better still, my arguments and ideas) as you like, but you must convince me that you’re contributing to the conversation and not just yelling at me or anyone else.
I’m not looking for sycophants, but shrill argument is every bit as bad. When you comment here, try to show the class something interesting they can use. That’s all I’m asking.
I’ll give an example of this, since just yesterday I deleted a comment from my one of my NoSQL posts that falls right into this category – but is actually a bit more on the marginal side. I wrestled with deleting it because the author had a valid and reasonable point – the problem comes in that it was 1) anonymous 2) I couldn’t respond without sidetracking the topic of the post and 3) followed his point up with an insult (it took me 11 hours to put that post together) which turned the comment into bait:
Instead of putting forward a rational argument your blog post stoops to sarcasm. Pretty weak effort.
I think the author’s point deserves to be heard – that I’m undermining my message by the sarcasm in my post. I’ve heard that more than once in my life (more on this below). But there’s no way of responding to this comment without derailing this post into me sounding like a defensive 5th grader.
Style Versus Substance
More than a few folks have mentioned that my posts have been a bit more “edgy” lately, and that I’ve also been a bit more abrasive than I was before I left Microsoft. I can see how this might be the perception of a few folks. Truth is I’ve been drawn to subjects that make people uncomfortable and I try to ease the conversation with humor. Some people take that as sarcasm – which it is – and decide they don’t like what I’m saying.
I’m OK with that. I don’t mind if you don’t read my blog. This is where I get to say my piece, and your blog is where you get to say yours.
Telling Me I’m Wrong
I want to hear that I’m wrong. I want to know when I’ve totally missed the point or overstated a position. It doesn’t help when you tell me I suck or have no experience because that’s not something we can intelligently discuss.
So, as Jeff points out, I invite all comments and you can tell me I’m off the reservation all you like – but it has to add to the conversation. If the above comment would have offered something I could respond to – perhaps:
Your sarcastic tone is really grating and detracting from the points you’re trying to make here. Statements like XYZ come across as condescending and rude.
In all likelihood what I’d be faced with here (which I’ve had to deal with many times before) is my humor might be rubbing right against a cultural difference. Or maybe I used a really lame, confusing analogy that made no sense.
A comment like this leaves me with something to do – I could clear it up, perhaps state that I wasn’t trying to be sarcastic as it was actually a reference to an improperly named internal .NET library – or maybe I could apologize for offending said cultural difference.
In summary – I welcome your comments, as I always have but this time I’m asking you to contribute some professionalism and add to the conversation.
