Mensch tracht, und Gott lacht

Monday, October 24, 2005

Comments Policy

A club is a place where people can comfortably discuss whatever they wish, in the company of others who share their delight in ideas and display good manners. To ensure that rotten cads do not tromp about our common room in muddy boots, scatter the newspapers all over, drink excessive quantities of our liquor, and spit tobacco juice on the furniture, we are instituting the following comments policy and have placed it in the informational sidebar for the site:

Comments

The Reform Club is a place where serious thinkers discuss crucial issues in a comfortable setting, with the maximum amount of wisdom, intellectual passion, and civility. Comments by visitors are quite welcome.

All commenters are guests and are expected to act accordingly. Comments not in a spirit of comity will be removed without explanation or apology.

We trust that this policy will make your visits to the Reform Club even more edifying and enjoyable.

6 comments:

James F. Elliott said...

Your definition of comity appears to be highly suspect and subjective. I would appreciate, for my own edification, a definition so that I can phrase my comments properly. Apparently not being rude is no longer a threshold.

James F. Elliott said...

It's their blog. They can delete all they want. They pay the freight for us to talk, we're only guests.

So quit yer bitchin. If you don't like the way they do it, there are gazillions of other blogs out there that you can post on instead.


Yes, like I've said, they have every right. I'm simply wondering what the threshold is, since it was once rude or off-topic writing and now appears to be something entirely other. You're saying it's okay to have a blog about intellectual debate and then have vague and subjective thresholds that decide what it is? I would hope people would hold me to some sort of standard, or at least ask me to make my standards clear.

James F. Elliott said...

And now TVD's deleting comments that are completely reasonable, if contradictory to his premises, and locking threads. Heh.

James F. Elliott said...

I'm more than willing to knock off the personal deconstruction if it means having a shot at honest discourse, myself. And hey, if they want to, they can dish it out. All I require is a little intellectual honesty and consistency.

James F. Elliott said...

I imagine we'll see this blog go away once they have a backer for a magazine. =] I'd subscribe and write letters, so long as it didn't cost more than, say, my Harper's subscription. I mean, if I had to choose between The Atlantic, Salon, TNR, Harper's, Esquire, or Wired and TRC, well, TRC'd get the boot, know what I'm sayin'? And truth be told, I much prefer TRC to NRO or The Nation.

Matt Huisman said...

Lets face it compared to 99% of the web this place has been as polite as a little girl's tea party.

I agree completely. I don't mind having the nuc-u-lar option of censorship around, but I haven't seen that much here to warrant it's use.