Thursday, January 04, 2007

New Comment Policy

I've had a hard time figuring a comment policy that works for me, so have so far stuck with the random deleting of unbelievably obnoxious comments. That's no longer works for me, it doesn't create a space that welcomes the sort of discussion I am looking for.

If I was going to sum up my politics in half a sentence it'd would be: the fight for liberation of the powerless against the powerful.

Although I don't think my blog has a grand political purpose, and my motives for writing are primarily self fulfilment (I see my day-to-day activism as being the way I take part in that fight), I want conversations on my blog to be primarily about how we achieve that goal, not the legitimacy of that goal.

Too often the conversations that were happening in my comment section were ones that I didn't want to read.

So from now on the comment space is for people who believe in the fight for liberation of the powerless against the powerful. Anyone else is here on sufferance, you're welcome to contribute, but remember that this space was not for you. If I believe that what you are saying is getting in the way of the conversation I want to have I will delete your comments and may ban you.*

In the past I've also had a hard time keeping track of who is banned and who isn't. So I'll also start a list of who I have banned in this post.

Questions? Comments?

* If you don't know who the powerless and powerful are then you are also here on sufferance. If who you think is powerless bears little resemblance to the actual world then you are definitely here on sufferance (hint: men, white people, and capitalists are not particularly powerless).

12 comments:

  1. Good call, I'm very tempted to follow your lead at some point in the future, we'll just see how things go as I haven't had to put up with nearly as many trolls as you have - I suppose it's good that they find you so challenging but it does rather get in the way!

    All the best

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  2. Anonymous7:01 am

    Wrong Anon,

    It is MAia's blog and she can set any rules she likes. A blog does not have to be democratic place.

    However Maia has to balance up alianating 80% of the population (including white women)from commenting on her blog. It is not going to increase the readership thereoff and hence any message about feminism and the rights of the powerless will not reach those who she is trying to influence.

    But in the end that is her call.

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  3. I find wordpress excellent. You can set it up so that the first time anyone comments before it appears you moderate it. If you designate them as spam at that time you never have to see their comments again. And for the people reading its as if that person never existed.

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  4. However Maia has to balance up alianating 80% of the population (including white women)from commenting on her blog.

    Huh?? You think 80% of the population is powerful? what planet do you live on?

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  5. Anonymous9:03 am

    Casey,

    (hint: men, white people, and capitalists are not particularly powerless).

    Just making an observation. Perhaps you would care to put a figure on the percentage of the population this description fits?

    Point I was raising is that if Maia wants to get her message across to those who are powerful to be more caring for the powerless she would need to engage them either in revolution or in conversion.

    Conversion is what her blog is about (revolution is done on the street) and if she wants to convert people then bearing them under suffrance on her blog is not going to change their opinion.

    Thats all.

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  6. Anonymous12:40 pm

    I think there is alot to be said for having a place of allies, and that's what I see Maia doing with this comments policy. It's not about suppressing opposing views, it's about using our time and resources wisely and acknowledging that not everyone has to spend time listening and responding to arguments that are essentially not going to help the struggle (especially trolling).

    Some kinds of disagreement do help, ones that promote intelligent conversation or thinking in new ways, but I've seen quite alot of comments on this blog that seem to be simply about trying to make Maia wrong or bad or stupid. Waste of time.

    Cheers Maia. Good move.

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  7. Anonymous2:21 am

    Maia invites the harrassment with her extreme positions on almost everything. She should be open to vigorous debate rather than shutting it down.

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  8. Good for you, Maia. You've put up with more than enough nonsense from right-wing and anti-feminist trolls in the past, and I don't see why you should tolerate them. There are always going to be people out there who want to silence writers who bravely stand up for women's rights, and those people aren't worth listening to. There is no point in entering into a dialogue with someone who has a woman-hating agenda.

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  9. Anonymous7:04 am

    Ha ha. Women hating agenda. Can you hear yourself?

    It would be safe to say that there are more man haters out there than women haters.

    But keep on saying what you do. We need the entertainment.

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  10. some say, "cooperation is good, but control is better", I do not happen to be one of them, be well.

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  11. One line in this post has been consistently misinterpreted:

    "hint: men, white people, and capitalists are not particularly powerless"

    I did not mean to imply that I thought that anyone who belongs to any of those categories are is equally powerful. It was more a throw-away line because I wanted to tell Men's Right activists who whine about free drinks nights to fuck right off and pre-empting arguments about poor powerless white people who don't get the 'special prvilege' Maori get.

    I do think that men as a group, white people as a group, and capitalists as a group all have power in this society. If that comes as a surprise to anyone, then they really don't know me that well.

    I have deleted an anonymous comment that attacked me personally (and contained minor identifying), but I wanted to address two points:

    1. I'm a woman.
    2. I've never been, or claimed to be, consistently radical.

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  12. Anonymous5:23 pm

    There seems to be a problem with the link from the main page to this page - there's an extra "http//" there.

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