Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Blog Comments

Over at QandO they have a post concerning the tone of comments left on blogs concerning religion. The long and short of it is there are a lot of hate filled whack jobs out there.

When I started this blog I thought long and hard about what I wanted it to be like, and I visited a lot of blogs to get a feel for what they could become. One thing became clear early on, popular blogs have a problem with their comment sections. They attract scum by the bucketfuls. That is one reason why I've never even considered blogrolling sites like Eschaton or Little Green Footballs. Whatever else they are those blogs act as a platform for the expression of the worst of humanity. (I'll admit that the Daily Kos comment section can be just as bad these days. But they are grandfathered in.)

I'll never allow for this blog to degenerate into that kind of platform. (Not that I will ever get that kind of traffic, but it's nice to have the policy up front.) Blogs like Power Line get slagged all the time for not having a comment section, but I cannot believe that anyone who actually reads Atrios or LGF comments believes that we are missing anything worthwhile.

Many blogs that I link to have quite healthy and interesting discussions in their comment sections, I think of QandO, Daniel Drezner and American Future right off the bat. So I know it's possible. And I cannot think of a single good reason to settle for anything less here.

Why settle for less in what you read?

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