Observations from the Sheriff’s stoop; A revisitation

This post is originally from February of this year (when our comment policy was actually new), but we’ve received a request from a reader to re-post or revisit it. I was hesitant when first approached about doing this, however after reading through many recent threads and “sleeping on it”, it seems to me to be not only a good idea, but a necessary one. Particularly after seeing posters that have been around for a while referring to the comments policy as “new”. Thanks for the suggestion Carolyn, and the kind words on the article.
Ken

P.S. Yes, I know the primaries are over.

With the primary season in full swing I am sure everyone here has noticed the increased level of inflammatory tombstone passion exhibited by proponents of the candidates involved. This was not unexpected, and while it is a good thing to vet our candidates and air our positions on those candidates, it is not a good thing for it to devolve to a childish level .

That said, it has not gone unnoticed that there has been an increase in the amount of derogatory rhetoric of an increased personal nature directed at posters. In plain language, personal insults, attacks, and a wagon load of name calling, all of it conduct unbecoming of folks that fancy themselves mature adults. Well it has gotten to the point where it has become disruptive to the community here at the Rightscoop, which is the reason for this post.

When I first “stumbled” across this site, after quite a bit of surfing about looking at different forums and blogs, I thought “this is a nice place, perhaps I’ll hang here and check it out”. The size of the community was modest, but the threads were active. Unlike many forums I looked at where the most recent post was nine months old (I’m sure most of you have seen those forums), it was still an “open” forum as opposed to many that have closed their registration, allowing for no new voices to participate. Since that time the traffic here has exploded (figuratively) and “Scoop” was working very hard to maintain and build the community here, while providing content that was relevant, fresh and interesting. He “recruited” some of us as moderators to help “keep the peace” and allowing him to focus on the content. Then things around here “took off” as I am sure many of the long time “residents” will recall when the Rightscoop broke into the ranks of the top 20 Conservative blogs. Traffic here has increased exponentially with that, as a result Scoop brought more contributors and moderators on board to help with the workload, all the while maintaining the sense of community here. I for one think he has done a fantastic job and deserves one heck of a lot of praise for that.

This brings me to the subject of moderation. When I started as a moderator here, we were going for a more “relaxed” passive form of moderation. Only banning those who were blatant serial troublemakers and then only after multiple cautionary warnings and as a last resort. This worked well for a while, but as the site’s popularity and notoriety (among those on the left side of things) increased, it became clear that moderation of the site would need to step up to a more active form of moderation. This site probably has some of the most active moderation of any forum or blog on the web, as in that I’m sure posters have noticed that, we always seem to be around whether “lurking” or actively participating in the threads. We have opinions and points of view just like the rest of you and we enjoy a good exchange as much as anybody else does. In performing our “duties” as moderators we try to be as fair as possible, recognizing that discourse of a political and spiritual nature can be vigorous and invoke strong passions. We have granted leeway to many of the longtime posters as well, sometimes admittedly probably a bit more than we should have. As a result we are going to “tighten things up” just a little and strive harder to be more even handed in our approach. Make no mistake here, it is still our policy “to suffer no troll to live”, period, exclamation point, end of story.

A few things to mention here to cut down on the “I didn’t know” excuses.

Moderators are fairly easy to spot here by the blue colored header over their comments as well as the blue star that follows their screen name. If someone with that header warns you about something, ignoring what they have to say is ill-advised, as is getting belligerent in response, neither is conducive to the longevity of one’s posting privileges here.

On the subject of posting, it is a Privilege not a Right. I am sure most here have seen posters whine how we as moderators are violating their 1st Amendment Rights, in response I will quote a favorite artist of mine, “Excuse me? First Amendment? Son, the first amendment protects you from the government, not from me. You can say whatever you want too out there, but if you come within reach of me, I’ll exercise my right to give you a good ol’ country @$$ whoopin’ is what I’ll do”. Yes, contrary to popular belief, we do have a sense of humor.

We have noticed an increase in the use of “off color” or “blue” language, We are “requesting” that y’all dial it back a notch or three. If you feel that strongly about something that you feel the need to express with those type of “colorful metaphors” at least have the courtesy to “disguise” it with symbols. Otherwise use your “big people words”.

Likewise, the use of derogatory, insulting, personal attacks on other posters, we are likewise “requesting” that these be dialed back/ceased. We are adults here, we would ask you to conduct yourselves as such. To quote one of our moderators “Attack the idea, not the person”.

What we are striving to accomplish is to keep our community here from devolving into the type of places that other blogs/forums have become, like the Blaze or even Hot Air, where constant personal attacks are the order of the day instead of a place for an exchange of ideas, open discussion and civil adult debate. We hope that you all share that goal.

I would encourage everyone who posts here to check out the new “rules” page Scoop has put together. You can find it in a link above the “write your comments” box.


Comment Policy: Please read our comment policy before making a comment. In short, please be respectful of others and do not engage in personal attacks. Otherwise we will revoke your comment privileges.