I agree with you that comments on large sites, mine included, aren't very useful. I probably don't end up reading more than 20% of the comments on my own site. (But it's worth noting that I often post updates, corrections, and amplifications based on comments. They do come in handy sometimes, and they also provide a source of dissent for people who link into the post from somewhere else.)
I also agree that there are good reasons not to have comments, but it still seems odd that most big conservative sites don't have them and most big liberal sites do. It might just be a coincidence, but I somehow doubt it.
And I definitely agree that if you don't have comments you should stay very, very quiet about the joys of the self-correcting blogosphere.
I wish Atrios would ban any appearances of "First!"
I wonder if it would be possible to set up comment-thread-moderators, like on message boards. Any ad-hominen or vulgar attacks could be deleted by a trusted few empowered individuals with some spare time on their hands.
Frist!
BTW, was that really Kevin? If so, more cats, please.
I feel extremely strongly that blog owners are responsible for everything posted on their site, including comments. I also believe that once a blog crosses a certain level of major popularity, comments threads inevitably become overwhelmed with endless crap, a fair amount offensive. I believe that if the blogowner doesn't have time to police the comments, or can't recruit other volunteers to do it, they should shut down comments. Otherwise you wind up with, at worst, LGF, or at best, with the sort of unreadable and useless comment threads Kevin has, or Atrios.
And I'd like to really really emphasize just how nauseating and disgusting I find LGF. I'm appalled that there are people I respect who still link to it or read it. (Though I think LGF was fine in its first few months, back in 2001.)
With the same wary caution as before, I disagree with you, Gary.
At a minimum, I don't want to lose an interesting voice because that person lack the extra quantum of time or energy needed to police his boards. If a board gets sprawling or ugly, I stop reading it. That seems like sufficient policing for me, in that I'm not injured by what I don't see.
As to LGF - I actually think that site serves a purpose too. It would be nice to believe that all conservatives were naive, woolly-headed idealists like baa, but most of them want to crack open Dem chests and snack on our still-beating hearts. LGF is useful in reminding oneself of that fact.
blog owners are responsible for everything posted on their site, including comments.
But why on Earth would that be true? Why wouldn't the author, whose name or pseudonym appears alongside the comment, be responsible?
Right! Ogged does not get the credit for the cock jokes I post here. HE DOES NOT! THEY ARE MINE!
Re: 7; I think a lot of the push to this attitudes comes from a line I've often seen by defenders of LGF: that the proprietors of the blog are not responsible for the comments, so Charles Johnson should get a free pass for the fact that he has a comment board on which people make statements that are indistinguishable from statements made my Nazis. (You've probably seen this.)
Well, this is obviously horseshit, so there's a temptation to say "bloggers ARE TOO responsible for the comments."
But I think that's overreacting. It's pretty easy to say why Johnson is responsible for the comments--he polices the section very carefully and doesn't delete these comments, and he posts articles that are intended to stir up the very rage that they do in fact stir up. Atrios's or Kevin's have got that way through benign neglect, really, while Kos and Obsidian Wings have comments that are policed heavily--so while the proprietors are broadly responsible for the tone of the boards, that tone is (IMO) nothing to be ashamed of.
And so, with all due respect and trepidation, I think Gary is making an unwarranted slide when he says this:
I believe that if the blogowner doesn't have time to police the comments, or can't recruit other volunteers to do it, they should shut down comments. Otherwise you wind up with, at worst, LGF, or at best, with the sort of unreadable and useless comment threads Kevin has, or Atrios.
LGF didn't wind up the way it is because Johnson couldn't find anyone to police the comments. LGF is the way it is because Johnson takes care to keep it that way.
Right. You can tell something about the blogger from the types of people and comments that find a comfortable home on his site, but that's not the same as saying that the blogger is responsible for everything that's posted.
Ogged, I'd make it stronger with respect to Johnson: He has shown by his behavior that he endorses the comments. Maybe not every single one, but the comments in general.
Kos also is responsible for the comments as a whole, although as I've said I don't think he has anything to be ashamed of there.
And you, sir, are responsible for the fact that this site contains so many cock jokes. (Apostropher too.)
Y'know, Unfogged mostly contains references to cock jokes without many actual jokes. Poop jokes, on the other hand, are dime a dozen recently.
At which of Freud's psychosexual stages is this blog therefore arrested?
I would agree, though, that Squeaky Johnson (that's almost a cock joke!) is responsible for the Nazi overtones at LGF, as he's awfully quick to delete and ban posters for other offenses.