Comment Policy

Since its inception in 2003, Terra Nova has been about promoting intelligent and sustained conversations among the community of virtual world researchers and creators.  While those who manage the blog sometimes delete obvious spam and ban associated IP addresses, our practice has been to let individual authors control the moderation of comments on their own threads.  However, some of the authors and commenters on Terra Nova have been concerned lately about the tone and substance of some of the comments posted here. The problem is not serious at this point, but it has prompted discussion.  Given this, we thought it would be helpful to establish our basic expectations about the comments field.

1.  We expect and hope that those who post comments on the blog will do their best to encourage others to participate in discussions that are civil, good natured, and respectful of the feelings and sensibilities of others.  This means that we do not want to read personal attacks, insults, aggressive comment-fisking, profanity, and sarcastic sniping.  All of these are forms of speaking that tend to scare off and offend certain readers while at the same time derailing the conversation intended by the original post author.  We make a serious attempt at creating sustained conversations, and have a much higher expectation for civility than exists in many other online forums (e.g. political blogs and Slashdot).

2. As one dimension of civility, we expect commenters to give others authors and readers a chance to speak and to listen carefully to what others say.  As long as this principle is followed, there are no word limits on posts.

These expectations apply especially to those who participate here regularly. Naturally we expect our authors to adhere to these guidelines as well.

Comments

[Makaze]

While I'll whole heartedly agree with the first sentiment I have to question the second. Although there are a few posters here (not naming names in keeping with suggestion one) that tend to drone on ad nauseum and/or attempt to bully others with their opinions via beating them into submission with an overwhelming wall of text. I've also seen some really great posts and then subsequent discussions about these posts far longer than 400 words. Placing an arbitrary limit (even a soft one) seems counter to the promotion of what we're all after here. I guess I'd just like to see the "porn" standard applied. "I can't define it. But I know it when I see it"

[Syntheticist]

I think both are fair; the wall of text, regardless of the content, is pretty intimidating to read, let alone know where to start responding!

But yeah, it's true, there are good people who write good posts over 400.

[Jesper Juul]

Are you saying there is only one way to properly comment on a blog post?

If reading Terra Nova has taught me anything (vis-á-vis MMOs) it is that the idea of a centralized authority trying to control a community is not only politically suspect, but ultimately naive.

[greglas]

Hi Jesper! Speaking only for myself, no, I would certainly not say "there is only one way to properly comment on a blog post." And I think most communities, including MMO communities, do develop expectations, formal and informal, about what constitutes desirable behavior.

Re Makaze & Syntheticist, again speaking for myself, I think of the 400 number as a very "soft" rule and yes, there have been many good comments here that have gone over 400 words. But as S-- says, a "wall of text" is generally intimidating. Since many readers and commenters here actually read through all the comments before responding, it is generally a good thing if commenters are considerate about sharing the space.

[Rorlins]

Every community has norms, mores, and standards. Even among friends, sometimes it is nessecary to stop, look each other in the eye and say "That's not cool". It's hardly naive to ask people to speak with respect or be asked to leave. On a personal level I have asked people to leave my home for failing to adhere to basic rules of etiquette and respect. Why should a blog be any different?

[Peter Clay]

The great advantage of blogs, as opposed to USENET, is that they are owned by people, who can choose to delete comments. This greatly improves discussion.

[Andy Havens]

Brief is fine. I'll try harder, being one of the 400+ offenders ;-)

Censorship, other than of the truly scary, violent, threatening or hate-inspired variety of speech, troubles me. If I don't like a comment, I can ignore it. If someone doesn't like mine, same. I don't have to like or agree with everything I read.

Too much freedom is better than not enough.

[Indy]

Andy, in this case it is NOT censorship. Censorship is where the government determines what can be said/published. This, OTOH, is editorial control - the owners of this space laying out the rules for using their soapbox.

Those who pay for this space get to make the rules on how it can be used.

[Mike Sellers]

Andy we may have to form a "400+ club." :) But I agree with the OP.

(My. Shortest. Post. Ever.)

[Patroklus Murakami]

I think you're right to set out what your standards are. It's helpful to know what the posting guidelines are but the trick will come in enforcing them :) I've found this, along with my fellow moderators, on a fairly civil discussion board centred on Second Life.

That said, I agree with point 1 of your guidelines but disagree strongly with point 2. There's no need for personal insults, flaming etc in order to develop an intellectually coherent argument. The addition of those kind of elements (though immensely satisfying when in the middle of a flamefest) add nothing to the debate. But it can be the case that a poster needs way more than 400 words to develop a line of thought or to put together a compelling argument. I see the need but I hope, as others have, that it will be seen as a 'soft' target. I don't think long posts are the problem that some paint them to be, they can often be illuminating and they can always be skipped. (And I managed that in less than 200!)

[JuJutsu]

I'll rein in my proclivity towards sarcastic sniping.

[Bart Stewart]

As another habitual offender of the 400-word rule, I'll also commit to trying to live within that limit.

But I can't help but feel somewhat bemused at the thought of a blog site that wants to encourage the participation of academics asking them to constrain themselves to a paltry 400 words or so. Sort of flies in the face of the stereotype, doesn't it?

Publish really briefly or perish?

:D

Totally on board with the expectation of civility, however. Being passionate about something is great, but volume and venom do nothing to communicate or persuade.

--Bart

[Verilazic]

A little formatting work can help with long posts, though probably only to a point. Personally, I've found simply rereading my posts before posting has led me to cut out things that really didn't help discussion, not to mention inflammatory comments.

As for moderation, I found this article to be rather helpful:
How To Keep Hostile Jerks From Taking Over Your Online Community

[Matt Mihaly]

Well done.

For those concerned about the 400 word limit: I bet the limit will be, in practice, a lot 'softer' for those who are contributing productively vs. those who are effectively just spamming the board.

-matt

[Andy Havens]

@Indy: I find your use of all caps disturbing.

;-) I'm so kidding I can't even begin to say. That was irony. Right? Not even sarcastic sniping? And I was being self ironic, and that's OK, too... Right?

Censorship doesn't have to be governmental. The term applies to any suppression of material deemed objectionable by an authority of any kind.

"Editorial control," is a sub-type of censorship, usually referring to material that is objectionable due to content, whereas editorial control refers to format, length, type of language (casual vs. marketing vs. academic vs. business), quality of material, etc. A 400-word comment limit is certainly an "editorial requirement."

The removal or refusal, however, of content based on a criteria of "...personal attacks, insults, aggressive comment-fisking, profanity, and sarcastic sniping" would be censorship.

Which is not always a bad thing. I expect my home-town newspaper to censor letters-to-the-editor that contain certain types of language. I expect censorship of certain words and content from shows billed as "child friendly."

Editorial control is important... for the writers/editors. I believe the bloggers on this site have excellent taste and high-standards of what they will and won't allow in terms of posts. The determination of whether or not a story makes sense for TN is part of their "job."

My job has nothing to do with games. I come here because I like both the posts and the comments. While some might argue that too few comment rules has a chilling effect, I believe the opposite; if you start arguing about what's ok and what's not... well, that's not a very welcoming set of behaviors. And that kind of behavior often leads to arguments about whether content is being restricted due to specific editorial considerations, or unfair slamming of persons and ideas.

In short, the definition of "inappropriate" is tinted in some cases by popularity and personality.

I'm not saying that would happen here. But I've also learned things (in general and about myself) from some of the most "objectionable" comments and posts I've read on blogs.

I like this place. I trust the writers/editors. I'll stay if they lay down some more "qualitative" rules. It just seems... kinda crunchy.

[Comment contains 371 words, including this text.]

[Do smileys count towards the word count? ;-) Whoops... Now I'm up to... 386 words. Not counting ellipses and smileys. Crikey! I can't stop! Now it's exactly 399!]

Therefore,

[Keith M Ellis]

The only time I've had trouble reading the comments for a thread, other than the occasional bad comment, is the big two-guys-obsessively-criticizing-each-other-about-SL examples recently.

[F. Randall Farmer]

Hey! Greg, you forgot something in the main post:

"3. In exchange for this restraint, the post author will promise to moderate comments to remove obvious spam content, such as adds for Viagra and gold farming services."

Randy

[greglas]

Hey Randy --

Fair enough, but me and Ren (and some others) have been deleting the general TN comment spam for what feels like eons. I'm sorry that we don't get all of it, but you should know we're bailing with buckets to get rid of the stuff you *don't* see. :-)

[Syntheticist]

"3. In exchange for this restraint, the post author will promise to moderate comments to remove obvious spam content, such as adds for Viagra and gold farming services."

Hey, what?

That's a useful public announcement.

Who has time for sex and gold farming when you're grinding UBRS?

[Prokofy Neva]

GregL, it doesn't take much wit or imagination to tell that you're debating these weighty matters likely with only a few people in mind, and I'm one of them -- and that some would like to drive me off the forums. It makes some uncomfortable to be challenged at the core with many of their very closely-held tenets, and some may be wishing to find a way to have a greater "comfort level" among "their own kind". I really think you need to re-examine what you are doing when you think up things like "don't post more than 400 words" (many of your contributors might violate this, for example) or "don't post excessively in one thread" -- it's not for the sake of *improved* intellectual discourse but *sequestered and isolated* intellectual discourse. And that's not good for any field of scholarship which has profound implications for the Metaverse that all of us have to share.

If you want to stick to an excellent concept like this, "This means that we do not want to read personal attacks, insults, aggressive comment-fisking, profanity, and sarcastic sniping" -- then start with some of your own contributors and original posters who insult, snipe, and attack in their very first paragraphs. And if you mean business with something like this: "All of these are forms of speaking that tend to scare off and offend certain readers while at the same time derailing the conversation intended by the original post author." -- then that means YOU have to enforce it -- and really enforce it. Not selectively. Not against people you don't like. Not against people who fundamentally challenge some of your dearest ideological precepts.

But step up to the plate when atrocious things happen like the W-hat thread, where I challenged Mark Wallace's happy little thread about "emergent behaviour" to remind him that his "emergency behaviour" was in fact real harm -- RL harm and real monetary damage that griefer groups can cause in SL.

The griefers then had a field day, without a single editor/moderator/contributor standing up and saying "Stop it". It's what that sort of awful thing can happen so casually -- like the other recent onslaughts where my RL name was repeatedly linked with false accusations and endless vindictive polemics by another poster -- that you lose control of the situation. That sort of thing has to be nipped in the bud by a pointed comment from those who control the board very early on, and not treat it as "moral equivalency" if the other person begins to fight back. If you don't want to have to undertake the unpleasant task of aggressive intervention or even banning, then you have to be willing to set the tone. Setting the tone means immediately standing up to bullies and attackers when they appear -- not letting them fester so that those attacked feel they must reply, absent defense. If you can intervene with these values you state early enough, then the job will be accomplished.

[Prokofy Neva]

"Был бы человек а дело найдется." А. Вышинский

[Andy Havens]

@greglas: Or you could switch to WordPress and the excellent plug-in, Spam Karma, which I have found to be truly amazing.

[greglas]

Andy --

We could do a lot if we changed platforms, but we're not in this for profit, so we have a lack of energy for the grunt work...

Thanks to all for your agreement to shoot for comments of 400 words or less. I appreciate that it will be a little hard for the more talkative (typative?), including myself, to follow, but we'd really like the regular community to give a good faith effort to abide by it.

As the OP states, many of the authors here felt that a little more brevity in the individual comments would improve the flow of the discussion.

[csven]

All for it. Just a shame a temporary ban wasn't leveraged first, as suggested, during what I assume is the thread which initiated this guidance.

If I may, I'd suggest adding the following:

2. Civility extends to those not involved in the discussion.

(e.g. Don't vindictively name drop)

[Reality]

I can only say that this is a long time in coming and ask for those here to forgive this next part of my post. those that know me well off line know I do not back down from certain types of people ...

@Prokofy: Again you attribute a motive which does not exist to the administration of a site not your own. Again you assume it is all about you and that you are the target of such rules and reminders as what has been laid down here on Terra Nova.

The world does not revolve around you - there is no great conspiracy to silence you, you are no better than anyone else here. You challenge nothing at all - The things you 'think' you challenge exist only to you.

[Wanderer]

I do not post here often, but I flatter myself with believing that when I do post, I am contributing something worthwhile to the discussion -- a different point of view, a bit of insight, some unusual experience, whatever I have to contribute. In the future, however, I will not post here at all. Don't worry, you'll never miss me.

I am by nature thorough, not to mention long-winded. When I take the time to post, I don't just dash off a few hasty words. I explain my point in depth so that it is (hopefully) understandable and unambiguous. I quote sources, I explore alternatives, and I try, in the space of a post, to explain why my position on a subject is valid, and why others might wish to accept it.

I can't do that in 400 words. I'm no Abraham Lincoln. I'm just a gamer, would-be game designer, and random wanderer of blogs. Until now, I have appreciated TN because it is a community of thinkers, not just ranters. I fancied that people were actually reading what I wrote and thinking "Hm, maybe Wanderer has a point here." I looked forward to equally extensive and well-thought-out replies.

If I want "am not!" "are so!" posts, more notable for their brevity than their content (or spelling), VN and the WoW general forum are with us always. That isn't what Terra Nova is ... was ... about. It's sad to see an academic community treating thorough, well-thought-out posts as "intellectual bullying" and requiring mere thought-bites alone. That takes the concept of dumbing down discourse to a new depth. What's next, prohibition of any word with more than two syllables? A requirement to ?0$7 !|\| 1337 perhaps? You'd have every right to do that, but I don't think that it (or the 400 word limit) would raise the level of discussion here.

Anyway ... goodbye, Terra Nova. I'll miss ya.

[Thomas Mlaby]

I'm perplexed that the indications in the OP and elsewhere that the 400 words is anything but a hard cap are going pretty much ignored by those who seem to want to find a reason to be aggrieved. Why not take it as a recommendation about the virtues of concision? I, for one, won't be counting words in my posts or in the comments of those who weigh in in my posts, but nonetheless it seems to me that thinking in terms of a post that fits in my browser window (as Greg suggested) would be a useful rule of thumb.

[Urizenus]

My my my oh my, what an interesting new policy. And you know, when I read the calls for concision and the 400 word rule, I could not help but think of the following passage from Manufacturing Consent.

"CHOMSKY: The U.S. media are alone in that you must meet the condition of “concision” — you’ve got to say things between two commercials or in 600 words. … the beauty of that is you can only repeat conventional thoughts. … Suppose I get up on Nightline, I’m given whatever it is, two minutes, and I say Qaddafi is a terrorist and Khomeini is a murderer, the Russians invaded Afghanistan, all this sort of stuff — I don’t need any evidence, everybody just nods.

On the other hand, suppose you say something that just isn’t repeating conventional pieties. Suppose you say something that’s the least bit unexpected or controversial. Suppose you say, “The biggest international terror operations that are known are the ones that are run out of Washington.” Suppose you say, “What happened in the 1980s is the U.S. government was driven underground.” Suppose I say, “The United States is invading South Vietnam” — as it was. “The best political leaders are the ones who are lazy and corrupt.” “If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American President would have been hanged.” “The Bible is probably the most genocidal book in our total canon.” “Education is a system of imposed ignorance.” “There’s no more morality in world affairs, fundamentally, than there was at the time of Ghengis Kahn, there are just different factors to be concerned with.”

You know, people will quite reasonably expect to know what you mean. Why did you say that? I never heard that before. If you said that you better have a reason, you better have some evidence, and in fact you better have a lot of evidence, because that’s a pretty startling comment. You can’t give evidence if you’re stuck with concision. That’s the genius of this structural constraint."

Hey, just a trip down memory lane.

[greglas]

Wanderer --

Please don't despair. I'm truly sorry that this is your reaction to what is intended, as I explained above, as a "soft" expectation intended to discourage commenters from, as Matt puts it, spamming the board. I would hope you'd re-read the opening post and some of the comments on this thread, understand the reasons behind the policy, and reconsider your decision. The policy is intended as Thomas described and is certainly not intended to, nor likely to, imho, turn Terra Nova into a community of monosyllabic ranters. :-)

[greglas]

Hey Peter --

Always pleasant to have you participate here. So I've got that book on my shelf too and I'm curious: What do you think of Chomsky's argument? If you buy it, how do you think it applies here?

[Urizenus]

Chomsky is obviously right, IMHO. The point is that concision is not a good thing if you are interested in saying things that go against the common wisdom and want to explain why you are saying such things. It doesn't matter if you are talking about the US invasion of Viet Nam or the economies of virtual worlds. Interesting and provocative points of view require us to transmit more bits of information to articulate and defend those positions. The demand for concision is thus a tool that in a single stroke makes it harder to say something that goes against common wisdom and makes it easier to get a chorus of dittoheads nodding in support of whatever common wisdom is dishing out today.

[greglas]

Hmm. OK, well let's say you say something controversial, provocative, and counter-majoritarian in a short(ish) post and someone questions or challenges you on your comment because you've provoked their interest. Then you reply. They probe further. You reply.

I'm not describing the dittohead situation you describe, am I? If a forum facilitates that kind of back and forth dialogue, would that be better or worse than a monologue? Again, I'm particularly interested in how this might apply to the discussions here on Terra Nova.

[Bart Stewart]

No, Chomsky (as usual) is not correct, at least as regards his usual hobbyhorse -- the Right has no monopoly on mindless soundbites.

I'm sympathetic to the larger point, however. Brevity encourages declarative statements, such as the reporting of facts (even if they're only perceived facts). But exploration of an idea -- its strengths, its weaknesses, its implications -- inherently requires more words.

So it's up to the editors at TN to decide whether blogging here should be more about reportage or exploration. The form, to some degree, will condition the content.

I'd like to think we can agree on that observation without trying to use it as some kind of political weapon.

[greglas]

Bart --

Do you think a conversation between multiple participants requires that participants speak 400+ words in a single utterance in order to explore an idea? Do you think if they speak in less than 400 words in a series of comments, they can't explore an idea? I'm honestly trying to understand this.

The intent here was certainly not to encourage "reportage," we're much more interested in exploration. But form does inform content, and that fact was certainly part of reason for seeking brevity (as explained above).

Re the politics of this, I'm still not sure I grasp what the claim is there about a substantive hidden agenda (if there is one).

[Moroagh]

I'm just a reader here. Having read a bunch of comments, I have to say that a number of very constructive posts were longer and some not so constructive ones were shorter.

On the point of raising an unconventional idea in brief, then wait for others to challenge it, to then post again. The actual length posted will be the same or longer. I'm not sure that this helps actually.

I personally rather prefer that someone develops and justifies their ideas immediately, even if it's a tad longer.

Then again when one wants to develop a detailed view, blogging them somewhere might indeed be the best idea.

In academia we do have size restrictions, but the reason for them is mostly economical (size of proceeding/journal volumes) and alternative publication venues for longer developments can usually be found (review journals, book).

The beauty of online dialogue is though that there isn't inherent economical reasons for brevity.

If the goal is to prevent people from dominating the discourse there may be better approaches to achieve this. For example one could ask people not to repeat a position they have already expressed. As people to keep quoting to a minimum (only quote key passages and only when the quote is required to make a point).

In fact academic publications often have guidelines that do go in this direction of choosing how to present material, independent of length restrictions.

Anyway, on a completely different note, this is beautifully self-referential: An online community observing emerging online communities discussing it's own rules of conduct.

P.S. On the Chomsky quote, he doesn't really claim that the Right has monopoly on sound bites, he just claims that brevity supports conventional thought. May well be Left conventional thought as well. But this really is at the heart of the trouble here, even if one tries to be clear about an idea, it can be seen in many different ways ("Chomsky being right or wrong"). I'm not sure if looking at length of comments really solves this basic problem of dialogue.

[Mike Sellers]

I think the above exchange shows pretty well that you can bring up and justify controversial points, reply to them, see others' replies, and build a meaty conversation, all without hugely lengthy posts.

If the soft-400 limit begins to chafe and lower the quality of thinking and writing here, I'm sure it'll be expanded. OTOH, saying "I can't say anything substantive in that small a space" reminds me of game designers who say "I can't design with such limits!" Limits often make for clearer writing, designing, and thinking.

That said, I'm sure I'll violate the soft-400 at some point. Just not today. :)

[Robert Bloomfield]

Well, if people are going to quote Chomsky, let me add a couple of my own quotables.

One, well known in business, is this: "Sorry this memo is so long, but I didn't have time to write a shorter one."

The other is advice my PhD advisor (James Noel) gave me: People are going to devote the same amount of time to your paper that they will devote to any paper. If you make it short, you control what they read. If you make it long, they will pick and choose."

So I will try to adhere to the 400-word limit, especially since one of my earlier posts was called (by someone whose opinion I respect) "incredibly verbose."

[Bart Stewart]

Greg, as Moroagh says, it's about giving individual contributors enough space to develop complex thoughts.

A more detailed comment implies that the writer spent more time thinking about what to say. That's no guarantor of depth or value, but I suspect the odds of those things go up versus an exchange of simple, declarative statements (because that's all there's room for).

Particularly for an academic site, I'd think encouraging careful and comprehensive thought would be important. A 400-word limit probably doesn't spell the end of smart TN threads as we know them, but does it help?

All that said, I'm a fan of clarity, too. Long, rambling monologues or jeremiads don't encourage discussion. So I can see the value of asking people to try not to monopolize conversations with Walls O' Text.

Overall, then, I have some reservations about this new policy, but I can understand and respect the intent behind it. Let's see how it works, and go from there.

[Amarilla]

Actually the message is : " this is OUR blog and we use it as WE wish ; take it the way WE want or leave it ; if you ever assumed that this is academic...actually it's virtual ".
EULA .

[newbie]

any mass-media is no longer a mean of information ,instruction, education or entertainment, but a tool used for political proraganda , for advertises and for manipulation.
that's why the virtuality sux; if you wanna play a game, or wanna have a conversation , be it even an academical debacle , you have to have it face to face , the ol' good way, not on internet , in a server controlled by a stranger or an institution.
TN is dead. I doubt it ever had a chance to survive to the Patriotic Act.

[nate_combs]

Amarilla> "this is OUR blog and we use it as WE wish ; take it the way WE want or leave it"

---------------------------------------

I think there is very little OUR and WE among the TN author crowd, we're always arguing, and that's a good thing. I think most of 'em are nuts and most of 'em must think I'm nuts, just as 1 example ;-) But that is the beauty of it, we all sorta get along to push this project along. I think that is all what this comment stuff is about.

[Amarilla]

"... While those who manage the blog ..."
Try again."..I think there is very little OUR and WE among the TN author crowd...".

[Amarilla]

Dude, you cannot have any academic discussion in a blog . Such a discussion is held in an aula . If the speaker there have anything interesting to say , the others will listen even if it takes 3 hours - or 401 words . Civility in a discussion means : WE, the participants, the majority, we are deciding what is civil and what not, what is rude and what's not, what's interesting and what's not.You dont have a discussion but only between equals participants. THAT is a civility, because it's based on democracy . You don't have ANY sort of valuable real discussion in someone's home : because he/she will kick you out when he/she disagrees your opinions. The host may swear , but you may not .

The point is not about TN's explanations and excuses ;one can pretend anything about everything; the point is : why does TN feels this urge to remaind us obsolete " rules " wich TN never tried to enforce ? Why does TN suddenly wanna act like a " god ", a " GM " but in the same time pretends to be a " field of academic discussions " ?
Maybe Bloomfield , as a researcher and specialist in " behavior " can help us understand.
But that, only if TN agrees , ofcourse...

[Amarilla]

Oh, i just discovered that i can put it in less words : taboos and academia doesn't mix well; arrogance/dominance/hypocrisia doesn't mix well with the notion of ".. promoting intelligent and sustained conversations among the community of virtual world researchers and creators " , either.

[Clay Shirky]

Shirky's Law of Process: "In small groups, we talk about process only as a way of avoiding talking about people."

This looks to me like you had a situation where one or a few people wouldn't shut up, and where you were neither willing to shut them up, nor were you willing to have a future policy that allowed for editorial judgment about when to shut someone up.

Instead, you've now proposed that everyone shut up a little bit, all the time, even though many good comments, comments filled with structured arguments or detailed data, will fail the 400 word test, and you've done this in order not to seem to be solving the problem that prompted the policy in the first place, namely altering the behavior of the offenders.

And the icing on the cake, of course, is that the limit is optional, meaning it will not work on people for whom moral suasion is currently ineffective.

If you go through with this, I think you will find that you have implemented a policy designed to foist a solution onto the entire commenting population of TN, with the notable exception of those whose behavior created the problem in the first place.

[robusticus]

Hey, you know, I just saw some of Ms. Hadydon's creatures. And.... when... you can not distingish bwtewwen the spiritual and the real... it is difficult.

[galiel]

As a past violator of standards (including the two major ones promulgated here), let me be the first to approve of this post.

Standards are fine, as long as they are clear and explicit and consistently enforced. Sustaining a healthy culture in a multi-user environment is difficult, whether it is labeled an "MMO", "VW" or "community blog".

This is a good place, worth sustaining.

[Syntheticist]

Amarilla:"If you go through with this, I think you will find that you have implemented a policy designed to foist a solution onto the entire commenting population of TN, with the notable exception of those whose behavior created the problem in the first place."

Since when were the Terra Nova authors a bunch of free-speech haters? Have you any evidence of this at all? So there's a new rule to protect people from getting kicked in the face with a wall of text. So what? I wonder how many people skip over such diatribes automatically, because the point is so buried in needless waffle it's not worth the bother?

People who seem to think this blog is now a police state are talking absolute nonsense without basis.

Personally, I'd like to see the blog move to a forum format where the posts are topics for discussion, and we can work in an environment better-suited for to-and-fro discussion, like how http://www.macrumors.com works.

[randolfe_]

Clay

Well stated. This is an example of the difference between academic consensus and management. Sometimes it is just better to throw out the bad apples before they spoil the bunch. Before I run afoul of the "too many metaphors" rule, I defer to wiki on trolls.

Using this wisdom has kept our quite cantankerous real estate bubble blog afloat for some years now.

[Syntheticist]

Apologies to Clay, I didn't mean to quote you. I think you're right.

I need to get better Ctrl+C foo.