Whole Lotta Stomping About Comment Moderation at 9-11 Blogger

Whew! James reported earlier in the week about the first decision under the Reprehensor regime being to restrict speech; looks like that's about as popular over there as I am! George Washington (aka Alex Fluom) wrote a post defending the policy. The first response got a negative 17 points, a number that would probably make Pomeroo blush. What did he say?

I'm a newbie but I fully support the proposed changes.
I want a good debate on the issues, beecause we need our intelligence were it's needed most, in finding out what really happened.

you go reprehensor

On the other hand, this got a plus 32:

well enjoy your site then because you will be virtually alone, comments and exchanging ideas & information is what the Internet is all about.
Posting something that may or may not appear in an hour or 24 hours depending on what one person thinks is utter bullsh*t and is completely unacceptable.
You will get your wish though as your bandwidth requirements will be minimal very shortly.

It's fair to say that there are some mighty unhappy people. Obviously it's not my place to tell them how to run their business (and I doubt if they'd listen to my advice anyway), but it strikes me that comment moderation will only work if it's fast and seamless. From what I can see, it's been neither. So far today, the most recent post with a comment was made at 5:33 AM. This means no conversation between the blogger and his readers, since any replies will be seen hours later.

Lord knows, comments are not an unalloyed blessing. But they are essential to a blog creating a sense of community.

Update: Apparently quite a few of the 9-11 Blogger commenters are going over here, where they're trying the opposite; to allow everything including Holocaust denial. We'll see how long that experiment lasts, as Killtown is already bidding to become the first teenager banned from every 9-11 forum.