Friday, November 14, 2008

(Eraser-phobic?) Why I rarely delete comments

From an exchange between a reader and me early today in the Real Time Comments open forum, which drew an unusually large (119 and counting!) number of responses:

Anonymous@1:06 a.m.: Monitoring the forums is like baby sitting. Just look at this thread today. If only the higher ups monitored the forums more, then maybe they'd understand.

There's a reason I require comments to be approved on my blog. Yes it discourages comments but I'd rather keep out the garbage and have a few patient, intelligent posters than a thousand idiots.

Jim Hopkins@1:39 a.m.: I realize these threads sometimes get long and kind of out of control. But I really do moderate each one, and I read every comment. I err on the side of not deleting comments because this is the only site where employees can speak freely; I don't want to do anything to discourage that.
I'd rather have all those comments here (in this open forum), instead of the way it was before -- cluttering up posts where the comments (generally) stuck to a single subject.

Please post your thoughts in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write gannettblog[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the green sidebar, upper right.

[Photo of eraser: About.com chemistry]

1 comment:

  1. I'm glad to see you leave up the homo and old fart-type comments. Those could say a lot about the outcome of the company's diversity initiatives!

    When I think Gannett, I think hostile work environment, not tolerance or diversity.

    ReplyDelete

Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."

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