On moderation

We’ve had a few lively debates lately and some of the less sane of you have been getting shirty about moderation.

So, if you want to know how it works, why not read the page we link to next to every single comment box on the site?

Particularly this bit:

Every now and then someone will post a comment that breaks one, or even many of these guidelines and still gets published. “Why is this so?” I hear you cry.

Maybe the moderator was tired or distracted and missed it? If the comment is particularly offensive try using the contact form at the top of the page and ask that the comment be reviewed. A link to the story and the comment number is helpful in finding these things. (Note: Just because you disagree with something does not make it offensive or likely to be removed.)

Possibly the comment was so insightful, hilariously funny, and such great reading that the moderator decided to allow it anyway. That’s their decision to make.

And yet your comment got deleted? How unfair is that?

Well, chances are we just didn’t think it was as good.

It could be we’re idiots for not appreciating or understanding your genius.

But we’re the idiots making the decisions.

Best to do what the sane people do: take the dog for a walk, open a drink, kiss someone you love, and get over it.

I’ve particularly liked the emails suggesting I am corruptly abusing power. I link to think that in the emailers minds I’m in a jacuzzi moderating their comments, sniffing brandy while smoking on a fat cigar with bikini models fondling me in ways not fit to publish as people the emailer disagrees with back truckloads of cash up to the house so that I might do their bidding.

(For the nutcase emailing me about his comments made between midnight and 4am not appearing on the site until *gasp* 9am on a Saturday, well, he was close.)

Anyway, please don’t think that just because you got modded for your offtopic offensive spray that the other guy didn’t as well.

Happy Rioting.