Agreed, mostly. I enjoy seeing the exchange of ideas on blogs in comment sections. The people commenting and arguing with one another probably don’t change their minds very often, but those observers who haven’t publicly declared their position are free of the compulsion to defend said position when called on it and might actually think about things more.
I do support commenting policies that suit the overall nature of the blog, though. Feminist blogs that have a zero tolerance policy for anyone who engages in rape-apology, for example.
I also appreciate moderators who stomp on derails, allowing people to say pretty much anything they like, just as long as it’s on topic. For example, the fact Rebecca Watson called out Stef during her talk has no bearing on whether or not what Elevator Guy did was acceptable, and those two conversations needed to take place separately IMO. I saw someone try and derail a comment thread with this yesterday and was so pleased to see them get told that that was off topic and further off topic posts would be a bad idea.
Thanks for your coverage of this “event”, and thank you for not being one of the douchebags drowning in their own privilege.
