by Judith Curry
It’s time for a discussion on blog commenting policy and moderation.
I receive a lot of emails from readers, complaining about the dreck in the comments, saying they don’t read the comments or post comments because there are too many comments, the tone of the comments, commenters bickering with one another, and pointless irrelevant comments.
Now some of the comments are excellent; provocative and/or informative, and this is what makes the blog worthwhile for me and for others.
I have resisted much moderation since I want to allow the full range of perspectives here on the climate change issue. I think my good will in this regard is well established, and it is time for some heavier moderation.
I also think that the nesting makes it too easy to submit short, flip comments and to bicker. I have changed the nesting many times in the past, i now have reduced it to one level. David Springer informs me that this has messed up the threading on all previous threads. I am inclined to eliminate nesting all together, so if you are responding to someone, you would need to mention their name and the time of their comment. Lets try this method on this thread (i.e. no one push the reply button) and see how it works.
Your thoughts on this and blog policies in general?