A comment on comments

The In Box blog is a place where, for better or worse, you can post your comments without registering or signing in, where you can post anonymously or under a pseudonym, and where comments appear prior to being reviewed by an editor. This is a debatable policy, and one that is frequently debated both inside NCPR, and among the people who comment here. Personally, I feel that the open speech policy is a good one, because the conversation flows freely and frequently, and any roadblocks we have imposed in the past on people who want to speak their mind have proven to slow that conversation to a trickle.

A number of problems result from this policy–lapses in civility, difficulty in sorting out the various threads of anonymous conversation, occasional obscenity and spam, etc. But the alternative, silence, is worse. In the end, few comments wind up being removed from the conversation. People in general behave pretty well on the In Box, and the many thoughtful comments add to our understanding and are appreciated.

But we do remove some comments, which has caused some readers to complain about censorship–in particular, complaining that NCPR censors views that don’t correspond with the author’s or editor’s views.

What we do remove are comments that use obscene language and/or racial slurs, make libelous or other legally actionable statements (as near as a non-lawyer can determine). And we will sometimes remove comments of a somewhat fuzzier category–those that consist primarily of attacks on individuals as individuals, rather than attacks on their stated opinions or public actions.

Some may regard this as an intrusion on their free speech rights. But there is a difference between the right of an individual to speak freely, and the right of a media organization to disseminate the speech of others in a public arena. We are accountable not only for what we say, but for what you say.

Below is an example of a comment that was removed from the Brian Mann post:
More questions about the LeRoy Douglas story in Black Brook from 1/27/10. The quoted comment from the pseudonymous writer “youknow” has the name of an individual redacted:

Brian, did you file FOIL for these letters? Also you failed to mention this is 1 small piece of property Mr. Douglas owns. This has nothing to do with the enforcement case. Also was their a verbal rescinding of the offer. If it went through [name redacted], who seems to be incapable of telling the truth, then we will never know. [name redacted] lied under oath in Federal Court, also in affidavits and in DEC court proceedings.
Brian I know you are attempting to protect your friends. But this property has nothing to do with the case against the AC and you know it. Your friend that gave you these documents in a “release” for some reason may end up putting egg on your face.

It would be easy to suppose that the comment was deleted because it said that the author, Brian Mann, would use his job as an NCPR journalist to protect his friends at the expense of the public. I did find that annoying; I know Brian and respect his integrity. I don’t know who Brian’s friends are and I suspect the commenter doesn’t either. But I would have let the comment stand, except that the commenter states, as an unsupported fact, that a named individual is guilty of a specific federal crime, perjury.

In the past, I have deleted comments from posts in a way that removes them entirely and invisibly. In the interests of transparency, from now on, I will remove them in a way that leaves behind the message “This comment was removed by the blog administrator.” That way readers will at least know when and how often we intervene in the conversation.

Let us know how you feel about our moderation policy and any suggestions you have to improve the quality of the conversation at the In Box.