In comments, one of my favorite “Alas” comment-writers, PG, writes:
Good point about the dangers of proclaimed “safe spaces.” I got some nasty name-calling when Heart linked a post I wrote that was sympathetic to transgender folks, and when I tried to respond, she blocked my comments as being an retread of arguments that had already been dealt with on her blog. The idea seemed to be that neither she nor her readers should have to put up with hearing an argument that they had dismissed already. If people want to run blogs or even certain posts as “safe spaces” where they won’t have to hear opposing viewpoints, I think it is good manners not to link those opposing viewpoints and misrepresent them; otherwise, the people whose views have been misrepresented ought, in the interests of fairness, have the opportunity to respond. I notice that in general, when the comment section on a post at Alas is limited or asks readers to be respectful, the post itself is about something personal and is not an attack on another blogger’s post such that the person whose viewpoint is under attack is forbidden from responding in the comments.
Actually, I disagree. I don’t have much hesitation about limiting a post’s comments when criticizing another blogger’s views. For instance, if I was disagreeing with Glenn Sacks on the subject of rape or domestic violence (I have such a post in the works), I’d probably make it “feminists only” — not out of fear of Glenn responding inappropriately (Glenn is always polite), but because Glenn’s audience is mostly comprised of misogynistic assholes, and rape and domestic violence isn’t a topic that it’s helpful to have misogynistic assholes flood the comments on. In fact, it actually limits discussion, because the presence of misogynistic assholes on a discussion of rape or intimate violence shuts other people up.
But what about Glenn’s opportunity to respond? Glenn has an opportunity to respond — on his own blog. (Even in “feminists only” threads, I don’t delete trackbacks from relatively reasonable MRAs and anti-feminists like Glenn, or from people I’m directly criticizing, because “Alas” readers should have the opportunity to go over to their sites — if that’s what they choose to do).
I like having (select, smart, polite) people I disagree with — right-wingers, anti-feminists, even possibly those who don’t like comic books — post on “Alas,” because I think knowing that I’ll face comments from people who aren’t inclined to agree with me helps keep me intellectually honest. But that’s just how I prefer to operate. Others might prefer to get their opposing views someplace other than their own blog, and that’s fine too.
All moderation decisions encourage and limit different discussions. If you make your site a safe space for one group or discussion style, you’re simultaneously making the space unwelcome — either implicitly or explicitly — for a different group or style. And if you decide to have no limits at all, that just means that those who feel unable to post without a safe space, will be shut out. There is no such thing as a discussion that is in practice welcome to everyone.
And that’s something I like about the internet. The internet has effectively infinite space for discussion, each of which can embrace a different group, a different style, a different idea of “safe space.” (There remains a lot of bias about which writers gets linked and read, but that’s a subject for another thread). In the end, an unlimited variety of limited discussions creates more substantive freedom of speech, for more people, than unmoderated spaces can.
Thanks for starting with sugar ;-)
I don’t think being able to respond to a misrepresentation of one’s views on one’s own blog is sufficient, because lots of the people who read the misrepresentation won’t read the response to it. It’s sort of like having a newspaper that doesn’t run corrections of erroneous items about the president, on the premise that whitehouse.gov can run its own damn corrections to inform the public.
For example, on the post linked above, uppity biscuit commented, The very fact that “Invidious” was used in the title said a lot. Right off the bat the author, by use of that loaded word is saying that females calculated to create ill will or resentment or give offense, are hateful. If I respond to that on my own blawg, explaining that I was using “invidious discrimination” in the legal sense, which is different from the dictionary.com sense, the vast majority of people who see it will say, “Duh,” because my regular readers are familiar with legal terms (just like Heart’s regular readers are familiar with the terms of radical feminist discourse). If I respond to it in the comments of Heart’s blog, I have the opportunity to inform people who aren’t familiar with those terms of how I may have been misunderstood because of a difference in interpretation of vocabulary.
Maybe Heart doesn’t have any obligation to grant me that opportunity, but I feel sort of unfairly slandered if I don’t have the chance to explain myself when I see people misunderstanding me. Even if it were just being able to post a link or trackback for Heart’s readers who did have an interest in understanding my viewpoint before dismissing it.
When I had the discussion with the AutoAdmit guys, I didn’t moderate even their comments that seemed directed toward hurting me by “outing” me, because I felt they had a right to defend themselves from my criticism on my blawg, though they have a website that gets insanely more traffic than my blawg does, where they could have rebutted my argument to their heart’s content. But I don’t want to post to their site because it is a very ugly environment, so the discussion would have ended at that point instead of continuing through several semi-civil back-and-forths on my blawg.
It seems fair to give those who are criticized a spot to reply in the same space where the criticism was published. I don’t mean that as something I would want to impose legally or technologically (e.g. by making it difficult to block trackbacks on a post that included a link to the trackingback site), but just as a matter of debate etiquette. However, I realize that’s biased by my own liking of the internet as a place for discussion among people who may disagree, whereas people who use the internet differently won’t consider debate etiquette to provide appropriate norms.
I thank you, Ampersand, for helping to craft this here forum. Obama promised “I will listen more when I don’t agree with you” which I thought was a great thing to say.
If we’re all shouting at each other we can’t learn anything, and if we all hole up in our own comfortable corners we can’t learn anything either!
I think the moderation policy and practice here is fabulous.