Hate Comment of the Day & New Comment Policy

I had this little gem of a hate comment land in my inbox (I receive all comments in my inbox and yes I do read them all)… in response to a recent post.

This is from Todd August:

F**k You Shane. There’s no other way to say it. You are an a**hole bigot and that’s a fact. Equality soon will be law of the land through the SCOTUS and the ban of gay youth in the BSA will be history in about 3 weeks. deal with it. Oh, and Jackie Robinson would be disgusted with you. 🙂

Edited for vulgarity.

Todd has been banned.  I know some of you may think Caffeinated Thoughts is a free speech zone.  It mostly is.  But since zero tolerance policies are en vogue I thought I’d implement one myself.

If you…

1. Use profanity.
2. Engage in a personal attack with me or anyone else.  (This means for you pro-LGBT folks – you use the words bigot, hater, etc… you will be banned.  That isn’t making an argument it’s just smearing people who disagree with you.  We want rational arguments not people emoting.)
3. Comment off topic (spammers)

You will be banned.  Period.  It doesn’t matter what side you are taking.  Personal attacks like this one will be saved and highlighted with your name in future posts (I hope that I don’t get enough of these to make it a regular feature, but I want to highlight the “tolerance” of some on the left).

What Todd doesn’t realize is that he lost the debate at the very first word.  If you have to resort to tactics like this it means you don’t have an argument.  As far as there being “no other way to say it” sure there is, pick up a dictionary.

I’m implementing this for a couple of reasons.

1. It encourages comments.  People will be more apt to comment when it is a safe place.
2. I don’t want people to be turned off by the blog because the comment section is out of control.
3. It allows for substantive, robust debate.  I don’t care if you disagree with me, just don’t attack me or use profanity.

If you don’t like it then create your own blog and rip me a new one.  I remember a guy who became a cyberstalker who I banned.  He ended up writing a blog at DailyKos and linked to me in order to “flame me.”  Hey I appreciated the traffic… please be sure to click through on the ads.  Anyway, my point is this – I pay the rent here, so if you don’t like the rules – well tough.

Also because you leave a comment does not mean you are entitled to a response from me or any of my contributors.  I’m a busy guy.  I get tons of emails.  So I’m not always able to respond or sometimes I don’t believe it is necessary.  Also don’t think I’m going to engage in a lengthy back and forth with you.  There are people who comment and some of my contributors who will do that.  I just don’t have the time.  My feeling is if I’m writing a ton in the comments section it is taking time away from writing.  Sometimes questions that crop up in the comments section will spark a new post.

All that to say those who comment in a respectful manner both friends and faithful opposition alike I appreciate your decorum and tact – this post really isn’t addressed to you.