Bill has a post about his commenters and comment policy. I liked these points especially:
4. Disallowing comments from a particular person, or editing or deleting an offensive, off-topic, or otherwise substandard comment, has nothing to do with censorship. People who think otherwise confuse censorship with lack of sponsorship. I am under an obligation not to interfere with anyone's exercise of legitimate free speech rights. But I am not under any obligation to aid and abet anyone's exercise of free speech rights, legitimate or illegitimate. To make the latter point perfectly clear: I am under no sort of obligation to provide anyone with a forum. 6. Some undesirables: The skimmers, those who cannot read but only read-in. The sophists who, abusing argument, argue for the sake of argument. The ideologues, those who are out for power, not truth. The uncivil. The illogical. The politically correct. Worst of all, perhaps, are those who exemplify the anti-Socratic property: those who think they know what they don't know. If Socrates was famous for his learned ignorance, these types are marked by their ignorant unlearnededness.I think I've seen all of the types Bill IDs, but not to worry. When NWW gets flooded by commenters, I'll let you know. For the time being, I'm still looking at getting a large enough reader base to allow comments to take off. Maybe if I wrote better and less obtusely? I also don't mind people who disagree with me - even those who disagree with me rather fundamentally are of course welcome, provided they're civil to me and to others, and respect that I reserve the right to ignore them if I choose. Finally, I have to admit that I'm not always clear why some posts get a lot of attention and others disappear, never to be seen again. Newsworthiness is always a plus, as is a certain degree of brevity and a topic that isn't too out there. On the other hand I've always had something of a "zig when they zag" persona, and not just when I'm in the editor's chair either. I must tell you I was relieved to see that NWW was not nominated for a moonbat award on the Small Dead Blog Awards.
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