I wish every blogger operated similarly to Scoble when it comes to comments, but unfortunately, not all find it important enough to activate comments or if they do, some make it really convoluted to leave a comment.

Someone claimed I deleted some comments. I did not. I don’t delete comments. Even very distasteful ones. Even ones who call me an idiot. Even ones that say discriminatory things.

I do hold and reserve coherency guidelines on MakeYouGoHmm for comments. I have only invoked that so far to remove comments that are offtopic or spam and one wacko who was making some very disturbing comments about one of our children, but everything else gets through, even if it’s someone calling me names. Folks can criticize me or my position all they want, but if anybody goes near my children with weird commentary then off to the delete stack it goes.

Someone named zshan left the derisive comment that I had a “clown smile” recently and someone else named Shoo_per called me an “ignorant child” at least a half-dozen times and another blogger referred to me as “usually paranoid” (in a trackback, not a comment) I don’t get offended or mad by comments like these. C’mon, it’s just words, and I do not take seriously anybody who can’t make their point without namecalling anyway.

Sticks and stones …

To Scoble I’d say: I don’t think it would be out of line or limiting free speech to delete something crazy said about your family or children. There’s some weird people out there and there’s nothing worthwhile to anybody (except maybe other lunatics) with that type of despicable speech.

Beyond these very rare exceptions (I can count them on one hand with this blog), one either supports free speech or not — it’s not a choice based on things we like or dislike. Some believe that Jason Calacanis is one of the worst bloggers out there when it comes to deleting comments that hurt his feelings or that he doesn’t like. I unsubscribed from most Weblogsinc feeds after I learned about this activity firsthand. When this happened to me, Calacanis even went as far to tell me via email to “go flame me on your own blog.” I’ll give Mr. Calacanis credit for at least taking the extra step and emailing me why he wasn’t approving the comment — the second time he removed one of my comments. He certainly didn’t have to do that. I have only left one comment at his blog since; he didn’t remove that one.

Just my personal opinion here, but if one doesn’t like me leaving a criticial counterpoint or questioning something that person has said or done, then they greatly reduce the chance of me reading or linking to anything they ever have done or will ever do.

Never say never though.

I’m looking for interesting information from almost any source, even sources that do not demonstrate a care and/or concern for Free Speech. Things that … make you go hmm should not be limited only to things that make me go hmm, though I do realize it often is that way because I’m the principle contributer to this blog. I enjoy reading the commentary of others as long as it’s not psycho, spam or completely offtopic. I think those are fair comment guidelines.

And if anybody reading this doubts that I won’t approve critical commentary, then reading this should clear that up. This shows where I feel a line starts to appear between approving Free Speech and keeping trolls at bay.

Troll patrol is part of running any website where you allow the internet at large to leave comments. Thankfully, the vast majority of commenters are not trolls, they are people who I appreciate very much reading and leaving comments. Agree or disagree, what matters most to begin with is that they felt it important enough to take time to sit down and write something and leave it here.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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