Posted by Orin Kerr:
Good Advice for Commenters:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_04_05-2009_04_11.shtml#1237333836
I usually try to enforce our comment policy in part through warnings.
If a commenter is crossing the line and being uncivil but I think
there is hope that he'll change his tune, I try to respond by pointing
out the uncivil comment and reminding the commenter that comments must
be civil. A while back, [1]Anon321 chimed in with some good advice
about how to respond to such warnings:
As should be clear to most commenters by now, the surest way to
get banned is, after being warned, to quarrel with the warning,
accuse the blogger of improper motives, whine about unequal
standards, and generally try to turn the discussion towards the
subject of banning. If you get warned and don't think you deserved
to, just accept the fact that you're playing in someone else's
sandbox, say you're sorry, and/or let it go.
That's good advice. After blogging for more than five years, and
moderating comment threads for much of that time, I've developed a
sense that there are two basic kinds of commenters who might be
uncivil. The first is the commenter who recognizes the value of
civility but sometimes gets excited or can be provoked. The second is
the person who thinks civility is basically silly, and that we're all
best off if we can speak as bluntly and directly as possible without
mincing words. To the former person, a civility warning is a reminder
to "play nice." To the latter, a warning is cover for censorship,
evasion, and hiding from the deep truths that only harsh words voiced
bravely by that commenter can communicate.
My sense is that a warning tends to separate these two groups. The
former group "gets it," and tries to comply. The latter group plays
victim and tries to turn the warning into a debate on the precise
standards for commenting and the fairness of the process. The trick is
that the latter type of commenter is not someone we'd like to have
commenting here. There a lot of blogs out there, and there are
certainly places for such people to comment. But it's not our style,
and therefore not the style of the small corner of the Internet that
we're trying to host. As a result, playing the victim and trying to
make the issue the banning (rather than the incivility) is usually a
clear sign that the commenter is in the latter group: It ends up
making it pretty likely that such a commenter will then be banned.
Of course, a number of my co-bloggers have reacted to these problems
by just giving up on comment threads entirely. I can't say I blame
them: editing comments and responding to the objections of commenters
about the editing process is really unhappy work. But I haven't
entirely reached that point yet, so I thought I would flag anon321's
good advice about how to respond (and how not to respond) if a blogger
warns you to be civil.
References
1. http://volokh.com/posts/1237317675.shtml#549675
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