Hey everybody,
A month or more ago, I put up the broad outline of the comment policy thinking at the time, and we asked for your feedback. I think you’ll find a fair amount of that feedback reflected in the comment policy below.
Please share your thoughts, as we plan to finalize this on Friday.
An old boss of mine was known to say that he always wanted our input, and that he would take our input under consideration, but that it wasn’t a democracy, and decisions weren’t made by majority rule.
For 20+ years, Balloon Juice has had an open door policy. It’s been a place where you can disagree and fight and get over it. It’s still that place. The place where we can agree, or not. To fight and get over it. Or not. Not to worry, I’m pretty sure we will all still be able to tell people to fuck off, when needed. Cole certainly will.
We don’t have to be nice, but we can’t be evil.
The comment policy was created in the first place so people would understand the rules of the road and wouldn’t be randomly banned. No one is supposed to get banned out of the blue.
We’re not abandoning that. But nothing good comes of things when the rules are different for different people. Or when the rules are enforced differently by different people. Now, for real, no one gets banned until John says so.
New commenters will be pointed to the comment policy when we approve that first comment. No one will be banned or given a time-out without knowing why.
Balloon Juice will still be a place where people can disagree and where we welcome new people. John wants new people to be welcomed as part of Balloon Juice. Guessing that most of us do? But we’re no longer open for business to people who are of ill intent.
Not that we ever were before, but our process allowed some of those people to do damage on the way out, as we worked through the steps.
Why have a comment policy?
The goal of a comment policy is to preserve the community; it’s about identifying those people who seek to disrupt or tear the community down – and removing those people so the community stays healthy and can thrive. We need to have rules, so we write rules that we think will prohibit behavior that would tear the community down.
But in reality, there is no set of rules we can put in place that assholes will not try to twist or game.
To a certain extent, it’s like pornography. You know it when you see it. But of course we all see it differently!
That’s why only Cole decides whether someone gets banned or not. Only Cole.
If WaterGirl a hothead and Betty Cracker is less intemperate, then Cole always making the decision helps keep this consistent, at least. No one wants to feel like the dog who is hit at random.
New Rules?
Our comment policy has mostly served us well. We’re not throwing it out. But now it’s time to refine it.
So this time around, let’s see if the rules can be less prescriptive, and more results oriented instead. If your presence is clearly disruptive to the community, then you’re not going to have 4 chances to do the same kind of thing over and over before you’re out. We’re no longer going to grit our teeth and bear it, waiting for that person who upends the card table – time after time – to finally get their 3 strikes and be gone.
Do you need to worry about the new rules?
Overt racism, sexism, ageism; flagrant antisemitism, dehumanization of Palestinians, and attacks on Jews; homophobic outbursts, targeting of marginalized groups; trotting in here with intentional disinformation campaigns and spewing pro-Putin or pro-authoritarian garbage; personal attacks beyond a joking nature, targeted harassment of commenters or front-pagers; direct, actionable threats or calls for violence; divulging personal information about a commenter or front pager – none of that will be tolerated.
If your goal is to derail a thread, or even if your actions are repeatedly derailing threads, regardless of what your intentions are, you will be up for banning consideration. If your apparent goal is to be hurtful, that’s when you will be up for serious banning consideration. If your aim – or the repeated result of your comments – is to disrupt, you’re not going to get a step-by-step process of warnings.
To reiterate: in reality, there is no set of rules we can put in place that assholes will not try to twist or game.
If anything in that list of offenses above is in your wheelhouse, take your shit somewhere else. Extrapolate from the list above, and if you can steer clear of anything at that level, you shouldn’t even have to think twice about this policy.
There will be gray areas, which is the one thing that is less desirable about this new policy. We’ll just have to deal with them, and it will help if we all assume that John’s decisions are being made in good faith.
To help clarify where the edges are.
- Having an opinion that is different from most everyone else is not ban-able.
- Vehemently disagreeing is not ban-able.
- Having an opinion that is not just different but is the exact opposite from most everyone else is not ban-able.
- Holding an opinion that is unpopular is not ban-able.
- Being regularly annoying is not ban-able.
We’re basically talking about the equivalent of changing the laws for how we handle serious crimes. If you’re the blog equivalent of the person who sees a cop and thinks “oh shit, was I speeding?” I don’t think you have to worry too much about the new rules.
Just don’t be a dick.
Let’s talk about trolling.
Trolling is a behavior pattern. It is not a disagreement, no matter how forcefully stated. Being an asshole does not make you a troll. Being wrong does not make you a troll.
There can be an unfortunate tendency to call people trolls when they are just “wrong on the internet.” We can do better; we should do better. Sometimes this happens with new commenters; let’s give them a chance. Maybe the idea of calling out racist behavior rather than calling someone a racist could come into play here. Maybe tell someone they seem like they are trolling and see how they respond rather that jumping to a conclusion?
In Summary
Balloon Juice will still be a place where people can disagree and where we’re open to new people. John wants new people to be part of Balloon Juice. But we’re no longer open for business to people who are of ill intent. Not that we ever were before, but our process allowed some of those people to do damage on the way out, as we worked through the steps.
Process for Bans and Timeouts
If you as a commenter see a comment that you think violates the rules, send email to WaterGirl and John Cole. If the comment appears to be in violation, we’ll mark it as SPAM (which removes it from view) as we consider the situation.
If you as a front-pager believe a comment violates the rules, mark the comment as SPAM (which removes it from view) and immediately send email to John Cole and WaterGirl. Let us know whether you think there should be a time-out or the person should be banned. For an egregious first-time comment, just mark it as SPAM, rather than Trash & Ban, and we’ll see it.
If you are a person who has potentially violated the rules, your comment will be marked as SPAM (which removes it from view) as the situation is considered. Assuming you have supplied a functional email address for Balloon Juice, WaterGirl or John Cole will communicate with you about the situation by email.
If you appear to have been banned and have not received communication by email, please send email to WaterGirl and John Cole. You may have been banned by mistake, which occasionally happens!
What happens from there?
After a comment has been marked as SPAM, John Cole and WaterGirl will duke it out, I mean, discuss it. John will decide whether someone is banned, will be given a time out, or decide that the comment, while perhaps unfortunate, did not violate the policy. Cole is the decider.
Have at it!
Open Thread: Dems Bringing It
Trivia Man
Excellent outline. Thank you. The hardest part of civilization is dealing with predators, parasites, and bullies. This addresses that.
stinger
Sounds reasonable. And people will ALWAYS push the edges. Somebody has to be the deciderer!
It would be great if we could get Angry Black Lady and Planet Eddie back.
Trivia Man
My old boss phrased it as, “I’ll listen to you but when I decide which direction we ate going i want you marching just like it was YOUR idea to begin with.”
Planetjanet
Thank you.
Math Guy
I’m in.
Maybe the first time a person posts, they have to click a little box indicating that they have read the Comment Policy and agree to abide by it, just like we do every time we download new software or sign up for web-based services. That way we will know that everybody has carefully read . . . Oh, I see a problem with this suggestion.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I’ve always thought the pie filter was a great invention, providing everyone the capability to personally ban voices they didn’t want to hear.
So you have to be pretty egregious if pieing is not sufficient.
Actually it’s been so long since I pied anybody that I’m not even sure where the button is.
Edit: I guess that delicious picture of a pie should have been a clue.
Hoodie
Sounds reasonable. Make sure Mark Robinson gets a copy. He tends to get a little carried away.
Spanish Moss
Sounds very reasonable to me. Thanks for all you do to make BJ a vibrant community where we can learn things, be exposed to different points of view, and feel heard ourselves without things getting too crazy.
WaterGirl
@Spanish Moss:
I think you may have left off the L in learn things? Because if there’s earning going on at BJ, I want in! :-)edit: never mind.
RaflW
My only comment is: I’m glad someone is in charge, and that it’s not me.
Other than that, we carry on and see how this works.
Thanks WG, John & all.
Chief Oshkosh
But I don’t see anything about being “wrong.” All of you guys are wrong, and I’m right. If we disagree. If we do agree, it’s just because you’re cadging off my ideas. Except Baud. I have no idea what he’s talking about.
Anyway, back to rules. If we just had my I’m-right-you’re-wrong rule as the first rule, there’d be no need for any other rules. Right?
But thanks for coming up with a good, solid set of guidelines. They’re almost as good as my one rule, but we can’t all be perfetc. Like me
ETA: And they are a GREAT set of guidelines, with a dash of philosophy. Thanks!
Dangerman
Looks fine. Still see no pants policy, however.
jackmac
The rules are quite fair and reasonable.
piratedan
maybe this will sound trite, but there have been times when I have been wrong, sometimes passionately so and with further acceptance of facts and understanding of the context of the argument needed to apologize to those offended.
If someone, who was previously considered to be someone of good standing by the jackaltariat crosses into these waters, could there be an apology/redemption mechanism that could be made available?
I don’t plan on having to use said mechanism myself as I hopefully get wiser, but there are times when we get so far up our own alimentary canal that recovery requires some seriously as of yet performed self-reflection.
it’s just a thought… brought about by the loss of valued commenters.
Dman
“Being regularly annoying is not ban-able.”
I see Baud had some say in the new rules :-)
Don’t comment often as I am not overly confident in my ability to get my message across properly online( much better in person IMHO)
But wanted to say thanks for the blog. It keeps my informed and smiling on a daily basis up here in Canada
danielx
Does Baud have to wear pants?
UncleEbeneezer
My only suggestion is that on this ^^^ it would be extremely wise (where possible) to defer to FP posters or commenters in those communities, to help inform the decisions. Listen to Black People on figuring out what is racist. Listen to Women on what is sexist. Listen to Transgender People on who is Transphobic. And listen to Jewish People on what is Anti-Semitic. Obviously those people would have to be willing to help, since it is work and could be triggering to them. But if they are up for it, I think it makes much more sense letting the people in the effected communities help guide the decision, even if they aren’t the ones ultimately making the call on banning.
Motivated Seller
Minor suggestion: change
to
I believe this makes the rules a bit more future proofed, since eventually a certain personality will leave the scene…
geg6
Sounds good to me! Of course, I’m anti-pie. I just try to ignore the people I think are assholes. Try is the operative word here. I’m not always successful.
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Sounds good to me. And as somebody said above, I wish we could get ABL back
Poe Larity
So is trolling banned?
Tim C.
What about trolling by using terrible puns?
For example, did you hear about the German butcher that was putting Atlantic sea birds in his Sausage?
He to a tern for the wurst!
I’ll see myself out.
Lapassionara
WaterGirl, thanks for all you do to keep this place going and being a place of refuge from the craziness of MAGA land.
WaterGirl
@Motivated Seller: done!
Daniel Price
Here’s hoping that Mr Cole never has to make a decision regarding the banning of a commenter. He has better things to do.
TerryC
Thank you. Moderating a social community is absolutely necessary and very difficult.
WaterGirl
@Poe Larity: I would not answer a blanket “yes” to the question framed in that way. All trolling is not the same.
But see the part of the policy that talks about repeatedly disrupting threads.
WaterGirl
@Daniel Price: It kind of comes with the territory of owning a blog. I think Cole is stuck with that resposibility.
Mike E
I mean Mark Robinson type behavior goes without saying, but whatabout Colin Robinson? Asking for a friend.
Josie
I foresee one small problem, or is John going to start reading his email? //
Ohio Mom
@Daniel Price: As I recall, Cole has been banning people periodically all along. Not that he reads all the threads (lol) but other front pagers keep tabs on things and the news of any destructive commentator trickles up.
As long as there is no penalty for going wildly off topic, none of this applies to me so I’m good with it.
WaterGirl
@Josie: That issue has not gone unnoticed!
That’s why the emails to go John Cole and WaterGirl.
The Dying Gal
A “Hell yeah!” or “Hell no!” symbol, for the love of Dog.
The D’ying Gaul
A “Hell yeah!” or “Hell no!” symbol, for the love of Dog.
WaterGirl
@The D’ying Gaul: You do know, right, that all nyms with an apostrophe in them have to be manually approved each time?
There are instructions for fixing that in the sidebar.
Fix Nyms with Apostrophes
Josie
@WaterGirl:
Lol. Lucky you.
bbleh
It all seems very reasonable to me, and “gray areas” are inevitable, which is why we have human judges.
As to guidelines, a few occurred idly to me that may (not) be useful. Simply, for a comment to lead to timeout or banning, it should be specifically and materially injurious. “Injurious” might be defined as not just disagreeable but hurtful, “specifically” as not just broadly offensive (eg making someone feel generally “upset”) but causing an identifiable injury (eg, categorically insulting a commenter or community on the basis of race, gender identity / sexual orientation or national origin, or deliberately spreading damaging misinformation, or deliberately and repeatedly sabotaging a discussion), and “materially” as not merely disagreeable or offensive (eg mockery of an idea) but causing serious harm (eg mockery of someone’s identity). I’m sure the legal eagles — any tort lawyers out there? — would have better definitions, but FWIW…
JustRuss
I feel a great disturbance in the Force, as if half the commentariat breathed a sigh of relief.
dnfree
I’ve never “pied” anyone and I respect people’s rights to their own strongly-held positions. I’m an infrequent commenter, and I haven’t appreciated being called a “troll” immediately if I express an opinion different from the majority and someone doesn’t recognize my nym, and I haven’t appreciated being told “Fuck you!” by someone I’ve never even interacted with before. So if the new policy helps lower the temperature just a little bit, it will be much appreciated. I’m hoping that’s what “personal attacks beyond a joking nature, targeted harassment of commenters or front-pagers” includes.
WaterGirl
@dnfree: Yeah, that’s what the “let’s talk about trolling” section is about.
Unless the goal is to chase away new people and people who don’t comment every single day, throwing out troll is not helpful.
I suppose if you’re an actual, deliberate troll, it doesn’t hurt, but being called a troll by people you’ve seen on the blog for years is understandably really hurtful.
Dr Daniel Price (Saint Vincent)
@WaterGirl: While I understand that the responsibility is his, it is also heavy. I suppose, though, that assholes gonna asshole and care not that their assholery adds to Mr Cole’s burden.
H.E.Wolf
It seems to me that a lot of thought and discussion has taken place offstage. It’s much appreciated.
Thank you for taking this issue seriously, and for updating the policies accordingly.
WaterGirl
@Dr Daniel Price (Saint Vincent): Cole mostly lets people be assholes.
It’s when you’re a dick and attacking other commenters that it’s not cool.
Sister Golden Bear
@Tim C.: In honor of “Talk Like a Pirate Day”
Pirate: What ye think me favorite programming language be, matey?
Matey: umm, R?
Pirate: Aye, Tis a fair choice, but me first love is the C.
Nukular Biskits
Comments are going to go to zero now.
/snark
Seriously, one of the things I love about BJ is the open door … but no bullshit … policy. Not that you need my approval but this is sensible.
Princess
This all looks great to me and I just want to take the chance to thank you and all the front pagers, and Cole who allows us to hang out in his rec room for all the work you do keeping this place going.
EntroPi
@Chief Oshkosh: I’m pretty sure Baud is the longest term plant, and at some single day we’re all going to be at lunch, realize we are without pants, and all of a sudden see how we have been manipulated all this time…
John Cole
@piratedan: I like this idea.
John Cole
@Daniel Price:
that ship sailed 23 years ago mate
Manyakitty
@UncleEbeneezer: I’ll do what I can regarding antisemitism. (Please take that how I mean it, it looks weird to me)
Beavis C Dawg
I agree, but i am sorry it has come to this here. These are the times we live in unfortunately and no one should need to feel threatened. I comment here infrequently but I do read a lot of the posts and comments. I have only commented on one other blog emptywheel. They have a very vigilant monitoring policy as well and you don’t comment there unless you are very familiar with the subject matter.
Another Scott
It looks good. There is at least one typo – I’ll send an email.
Not to be maudlin, but those of us who have been around the Sun a few scores of times have memories of suicides. One is particularly haunting because it happened just after a rapid-fire conversation on a message board among good friends who had known each other online for years. Even those of us who could see that it was going far too far couldn’t get the guy who was determined to prove his point to stop… And he was horrified afterwards.
:-(
We cannot know what people we are talking with are going through. Everyone has different tolerances. We’ve been pretty fortunate here, all things considered, but maybe consider an emergency stop process if WG and/or JGC are not quickly available.
Thanks for all you do.
Cheers,
Scott.
LivinginExile
Sounds like a dictatorship to me.//
WaterGirl
@Beavis C Dawg: No one is going to be graded on their comments here! :-)
WaterGirl
@piratedan: Maybe a weekly or monthly “now that I’ve had time to consider this further” post? And people can chime in with whatever they want?
WaterGirl
@Another Scott:
Keep in mind that any front-pager can mark a comment as SPAM, which immediately removes it from view, and then they write to Cole and WaterGirl.
So that’s the emergency stop button you’re looking for, I think?
It’s the how and when of their ability to comment going forward, and whether they continue to be part of the community that remains in Cole’s hands, alone.
Spanish Moss
@WaterGirl: :-) As soon as I start making a profit from my comments, I will cut you in!
WaterGirl
@Spanish Moss: That seems more than fair!
BellyCat
All good policies. One addition worth possibly considering is a timeout for those who too liberally invoke the “TROLL!” label for differing opinions offered by less familiar parties. This sort of noxious behavior not only scares off good faith lurkers and newcomers, it furthers in-group and out-group dynamics in lieu of thoughtful discussion.
frosty
@Ohio Mom:
Is there such a thing as wildly off topic???
ETA: Y’know, if we had threaded comments…LOL I’ll see myself out.
piratedan
@WaterGirl: something along those lines. Just trying give people that think that they are arguing in good faith a chance to step back and reflect. It’s kind of one of those “we all have our own Truths” and when you step on someone’s lived truth it can get personal without intention.
Hell, I’ve done it and at times we jump into a thread without reading the evolution of said thread in the previous 150 comments. Knowing that I am not unique, sometimes you ARE the person that brings KFC to the Vegan voters of the county gathering thinking you’re meeting fellow astronomy geeks.
frosty
Uh oh. Haven’t been there yet but no guarantees that it won’t happen!
Beavis C Dawg
@WaterGirl: i only commented there (emptywheel) on a question of working elections as poll workers in my state. I would never have done so if bmaz had still been active. I have never done any social medial as I have always regarded it as a way to say something stupid that I would regret later.
Mustang Bobby
Thanks, WaterGirl.
Ivan X
@dnfree: I’m sorry to hear you were on the wrong end of that. When I was mostly a lurker, I’ll got my first unwarranted “fuck you” from a regular here after sharing an thought about what was going on among us commenters that was worded in such a way that was impersonal, even after they’ve long since apologized and offered many worthy comments; or having had a disturbing day and posting about it, perhaps self-indulgently, and being told by a different regular “nobody gives a shit.” I’ve since posted a bit more frequently and don’t think the same would happen now, since I guess I’ve earned some goodwill or credibility or something. (Or maybe not!)
I feel like I should be tough skinned enough to not care, but, I’m a sensitive guy, I guess, since I still remember these things.
I don’t think those things should be banworthy, but they do hurt, and while the new policy seems very well considered to me, I do question whether it’s really true whether we want new people here, either commenter or front pager. We seem to have a reflex to chase them away, and sometimes easily presume bad faith when someone less known says something impertinent or unpopular or just badly phrased.
I’d love to see us find a way to temper that, and maybe this policy will help, but it’s perhaps the same in many tight knit communities; outsiders are distrusted, and perhaps unwanted, until they are trusted and wanted. Especially near elections.
Thank you, Watergirl, for all you do to sustain this community, including your obviously hard work to make a thoughtful and workable policy.
The Lodger
@Tim C.: Let osprey.
Another Scott
@WaterGirl:
I guess so, but I was thinking about a worst case. JCG is traveling, WG has visitors, TaMara has a deadline, The Professor has a revision due, AL is working on a Covid update, etc, and something blows up at 3AM. Do we need more FPers or Assistant To The Front Pagers, especially if this place gets more popular, to spread the burden?
Maybe it’s a “we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it” kinda thing, and that’s fine. But it’s potentially worth thinking about.
Thanks again.
Cheers,
Scott.
Old School
So if I report every comment in this thread, they’ll disappear until Cole gets around to making a decision?
In that case:
“First!”
justanotherboomer
I’m just a lurker, but I’ll drop in to applaud the policy that keeps the blog a clean, well-lighted place.
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: I agree on let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. It’s never been a problem before.
WaterGirl
@justanotherboomer: Welcome to commenting!
WaterGirl
@Old School: lalala I can’t hear you!
SomeRandomGuy
@Another Scott: As a person who is *extremely* good at not-dying of suicide, I can say that no one shock *does it*, so, participants should be gentle on themselves, but, I can also say it should be a reminder that someone really might be hanging on by their fingernails, and, yeah, personal digs really do *hurt*, like, “none of these people will ever love or respect me again.”
Don’t say “but that’s not rational,” because, of *course* it isn’t – to someone who isn’t depressed. The truly horrid thing about depression is, it changes your *perceptions*. “None of those people will ever love or respect me again,” can only feel *real* if you’re depressed.
There are concepts of fighting fair, but they don’t get much play on the internet. And I *get* that, I had to try to develop a rhinohide to engage in online discussion groups. But it’s rare that you can’t make your real point using fair fighting techniques.
For example, I was once being a big, fucking, hairy, nuisance, not that y’all would have known that, without a picture of my hirsute appearance. I was trying to get through to people that what a lot of them seemed to be describing was bigotry. Well, I finally realized if *anyone* would listen, I’d lay it out, impersonally. That gave me a chance to be the moral scold that I felt I had to be, but, without driving it into someone’s face to try to make my point. (What? I was trying to be a moral scold. The truth shouldn’t hurt, even if it’s awkward.)
Did it work? Well, I definitely tried to stop driving that particular idea, so, in that sense, it *did* work, right? It satisfied me. Because I didn’t want to hurt any person – I didn’t know any of you, why would I want to hurt any of you, other than to maybe shock your sensibilities a bit? So, you see, it controlled the one thing in the conversation I had semi-perfect control over: me.
It’s good to think about moderation, and jumping in to help, but remember, always, you *can* control how you express your emotional state, and you can always pause and question: what do you really want? Are you throwing in insults? Are they helping you do what you *really* want?
(NB: you have good self honesty if you can say “yes… god damn it, yes, I want to insult the f out of John Cole! Soon, Cole’s Law will be inely sliced cabbage reshly dressed!” And maybe that means take a break. It’s okay to want to punch your riend in the ace, metaphorically speaking. When you’re a young child, it might not even be metaphorical, which is good, because, wow, try explaining *that* to a young child.)
SFAW
I was perusing the new rules/policy, things seemed OK, until …
Oh well, I might as well just “self-deport” now, and get it over with. Dang.
Another Scott
@SomeRandomGuy: Very well said.
Thank you.
Cheers,
Scott.
No One You Know
Amen. I really lost it once– someone kept insisting on the brilliance of their script about sexual harassment being OK if it was being done to a Republican, twice– and after Trump store the presidency with Russian money and EC chicanery.
I’ve behaved myself since. These guidelines would prevent that entire situation from happening again.
I want to thank y’all.
Senator Ted
All perfectly reasonable. As someone predominantly lurks, a handful of comments over the several years I’ve been here (the name Senator Ted comes from Stevens’ comment that the interwebs were a “series of tube” back in ’06). I’m mostly commenting now so that if I’m now marked as a first time commenter, which would be completely understandable, I can get that out of the way. Cheers and thanks to the whole team that make this site what it is.
WaterGirl
@Senator Ted: Thanks for poking your head up!