While we are happy to have people read our posts and to discuss the points raised therein, we would ask people to remember that personal attacks and abusive comments will not be tolerated. There's been a recent uptick in such occurrences, and I'd like to nip this in the bud.
That is all.
Worthwhile Canadian Initiative 
*Insert ironic personal attack here
I’d rather not.
People should understand that we are in the business of offering free pizza: we don’t charge admission, and we don’t accept advertising.
When someone offers you free pizza, you don’t throw it in their face and and scream “Where are the fing sun-dried tomatoes, ahole?”
That depends on a number of things:
1) How valuable the sun-dried tomatoes are
2) How valuable the pizza is to you without the tomatoes
3) The probability that doing so will lead to you getting sun-dried tomatoes versus the probability that it will lead to the end of the free pizza
Matt: “3) The probability that doing so will lead to you getting sun-dried tomatoes versus the probability that it will lead to the end of the free pizza”
Precisely.
Matt: on the off chance that you are being serious (I hope I’m missing your irony), No. It depends on whether you are prepared to act politely or not.
WCI is one of the few blogs I read where the comments section is as thoughtful and insightful as the articles themselves. Thank-you for insisting on respect for your writers.
I just want to chime in and say I love all of you. Stephen, Frances, Nick, and Mike: you all have taught me so much, and not only have I learned more about economics, but I have become a better person. You four have broken down ideological barriers in my mind and confronted my groupthink and confirmation bias.
Thank you.
Echo Rachel’s comment and those of D.I Harris. Hopefully, personal attacks will disappear. If not, a solution I’ve seen work on active blogs is to hire a part-time editor to keep an eye on comments. (Richard Florida did/does this on Creativeclass.com for example. As a former guest blogger there, I appreciated the editor removing or editing the nasty parts of comments on occasion.)
Wait a minute, there’s a web site called “creativeclass.com” that is not using the name ironically?
So, the problem is that there’s almost no acknowledgement here as to why discussion may be uncivil and why, when talking about the well-being of people, uncivil discussion may actually be the most appropriate mode. When the ideologically powerful—and economists are among the powerful no matter how they may individually feel—call for civility, well, …
I consider uncivil the posting of lies and nonsense, as well as being unconcerned with the truth of one’s statements. So naturally I think of many orthodox economists as being engaged in incivility and, thus, appropriate targets of mockery.
First, I want to say that although I’m not visiting this blog as often as I would like, and do have minor disagreements with some of you guys at times, I find this blog extremely interesting and would be quite saddened to lose the pizza because of a few people whose social skills are somewhat lacking. This is one more instance I’m afraid of the kind of free-riding that threatens much of the good stuff in this world.
This being said, I would be a bit surprised if, with a few clear guidelines, you had problems finding a few good samaritans among your students and/or readers, willing to incur some cost to police your blog. I sure would volunteer a few hours here and there. Evolution did provide us with a few tricks in our public goods bag…
One more point. Actually, I’d say what is even more saddening is that some valuable ideas are bound to be lost somewhere along the line when those who could help us understand their point of view choose instead to obscure their ideas with aggressive rhetoric. It’s just too easy to attack those who disagree with you with… how do you say “procès d’intention” ? In fact, the more one cares about an issue, the more care one should take not to signal one’s own fear of being wrong. Which is all that being impolite amounts to, really.
Please keep it up guys, the pizza is excellent. I still haven’t been able to appreciate blue cheese, but I’m slowly reconciling with macro. Thanks for that and all those other great toppings.
Geez. I come to this site almoste very day, and many of the comments are just as valuable and insightful to me as the original post.
That being said, there are sites that I visit that have been forced to turn comments off. I’d hate to see that here, but at the same time, it’s better than nothing.
Robert: you have your own blog where you can vent your spleen. If you think we’re mistaken on some points, fine: tell us where we went wrong. But if you can’t make the distinction between being wrong and telling lies, then you will not be posting here for long.
It’s not about “venting spleen”; we are at a point where the world needs constant reminding, from the largest platforms possible, about who (among others) brought us to brink of catastrophe and quite possibly over it and still cannot see. And the very same people have some of the larger bully pulpits…
Also, this and this.
Ths discussion between Matt, Francis Wooley and Tomslee in the first few posts here brings to mind something I read recently from Mills. The quote is not in front of me, but it is to the effect ~ prices are determined through both the effect of markets and custom. Many have tended to focus on the market effects, but neglected the role of custom ~
The Pizza analogy is about markets, “whether you are prepared to act politely or not” about customs.
@Mandos – I would argue that the necessity of constantly reminding the world of “who (among others) brought us to brink of catastrophe” requires a great deal of civility, if only for the purpose of effectively communicating the point. One of my quibbles with activism, as someone who has been a committed (if currently lapsed) political activist, is that there is often too much emphasis in what we have to say, and too little recognition of what the people we are addressing actually hear. Communication is a two-way street – we must engage and respect our audience, or they tune us out. Having the most brilliant message in the world does no good if we sabotage our own message with a disrespectful presentation. What is called for is passionate civility.
Unless the purpose is solely to disrupt – eg, you think the pizza is wrong for some reason, and want the pizza shop closed down.
John
John
The very turn this comments section has taken is illustrative and sad. I love this blog, but, more and more, I am unlikely to read through the comments, for the very reasons outlined. Which is quite a shame, as the comments often are top notch.
Good luck in your policing, Stephen et al.
The problem is that calls for civility have often been used as silencing tactics. One of the things I have been trying to emphasize is the “social capital” held by practitioners of dominant discourses (even if the source of said dominance is not, e.g., their demonstrated predictive power). It means something different when Stephen Gordon calls for civility than when I do, and different when I do and when e.g. a homeless advocate does.
These sorts of calls for civil discourse would ring a lot more true if they were accompanied by a real acknowledgement of the dynamics of this situation, but they never are.
Notwithstanding, it is my standards that will be enforced here. You may do as you will on your blog.
This is a popular position to take on well-trafficked blogs, but it always brings to mind the old Anatole France quote,
It’s truly amazing how many things to which that quote applies. I think is basically the bite-sized refutation of the very concept of “economic policy”.
If you’re asking for special dispensation to be a troll in the service of your beliefs, the answer is still no.
This ends the discussion, Mandos.
For the most part, these types of discussions revolve around age differences. The older the blog owner the less likely they get the internet and the more likely they are to find spirited disagreement to be uncivil.
Then maybe this blog will also serve as a place where people learn how to conduct themselves in adult society.
Well yes, that’s the common retort. But I’d say it’s more akin to a paradigm shift that people are unwilling to see or accept.
Abuse is a paradigm shift? Maybe for Nazis.
See what I did there? I made ironic use of an internet meme – not bad for an old fogey who doesn’t ‘get’ the internet, eh?
I’ve been blogging for more than five years; I know what works and what doesn’t. What we have here works. And I’m very protective of it.
Robert S. Porter: this whole thing started with comments on a post about women making up only 15% of Wikipedia editors. For International Women’s Day, maybe you should read it and reflect on who is being excluded from your Internet by “spirited disagreement”? I do think most readers here can tell the difference between spirited and mean-spirited, even through our bifocals.
The “paradigm shift” is for the definition of abuse. What you see as ‘abuse’ and demand apologies for doesn’t even come close to the definition of abuse elsewhere. And I don’t agree that a strict policy enforcing some artificial notion of civility is really meaningful in the end. It doesn’t actually raise quality. You are simply enforcing a particular notion grounded in a previous generation which stifles the dynamism of the internet. Yes of course completely off topic or direct attacks are not productive but calling someone “sexist” doesn’t necessitate the level of outrage seen here.
To me it’s exactly like peoples’ aversion of cursing. This ancient notion is enforced with great gusto but it doesn’t actually make any discussion inherently better. It really is a generational issue whether you like it or not.
I aplogize for feeding the troll.
Again, a misunderstanding. The older generation tends to label anyone who deviates from the proscribed norm as a troll. (Just like Godwin’s law is really separate from a meme). A troll is someone deliberately distrupts a different topic to anger the other people.
You might not agree with my stance but that doesn’t make me a troll. Indeed your accusation is really a mean spiritied ad hominem designed, something which you previously decried. But the difference is that I’m ok with the the comment standing. Disagreement is ok. Even disagreement with name calling.
I usually don’t comment on blogs because I don’t have anything useful to say. FWIW, this blog (including comments) makes me want to take at least some basic economics classes.
I do not agree that a perceived lack of civility is a generational thing. I’m in my 20s and feel that name-calling, abrasive language, and rudeness really do take away from dialogue. Of course, I’m a woman. 😉
Robert, the OP was a statement of policy, not a negotiating position. If you find it too restrictive, don’t post here. That’s all you need to know.
Dr. Gordon, then why even have comments? If you don’t want people to challenge you then just start a website, no need for a blog.
Which part don’t you get? The site is here for intelligent debate about economic topics of interest to the posters. And thanks, in part, to policing of offensive behaviour, Stephen has created a place that ranks far above almost any other economics blog on the web in terms of signal to noise ratio. You can still get away with “spirited debate” (I assume you can sense the “spirited” spirit of the present comment). But behaviours (e.g. lying invective) that have destroyed the comment sections of many comparable blogs are not tolerated. And if you do have some bile to spew, and you think it raises the quality of debate, there is no shortage of places on the web full of people who agree with you. Go there.
I think you’re just scared of the competition. There’s a reason Marginal Revolution’s comments are more dynamic.
For someone who has never commented on any other WCI post, you seem to have a lot to say about our commenting policy.
Why don’t you participate in some of the discussions and see just how much our policy cramps your style?
I would, but philosophical disagreement isn’t taken kindly here and I don’t play with graphs.
In that case, I haven’t a clue why you’re spending your time on this thread. Seriously: dare to articulate a philosophical disagreement on one of the regular posts. See what happens.
This is interesting: http://www.slate.com/id/2287739/pagenum/all/
It is, indeed, interesting. But if you decide to ban anonymity, I’ll be gone. I don’t like anonymity, but don’t have a choice. Anyway, that’s obviously my loss, not yours. But there are a lot of good, respectful anonymous commenters here who might feel the same. Just saying.
Yes, I don’t think we’re there yet. Although I could see that major media outlets that receive comments in the thousands and who don’t have the resources to monitor comments closely might use a ban on anonymity as a way of blocking trolls. Of course, it’s a crude screening device: it allows people who are happy to be a public jerk, and it excludes the many productive commenters who have their own reasons for not using their names. WCI has many commenters who are both anonymous and insightful. Too many to risk losing at this point.
It just occurred to me that some WCI contributors may have day jobs where they have to answer to bosses whose decisions we trash. These people are the very last people I would want to exclude from the comment boards – we may be their only way of staying sane!
Scott Sumner seems to have a white list. First time you comment it might take hours before your comment appears. After that, it’s instant. Seems almost perfect.
People like Manjoo are incredibly privileged and arrogant, and the people whose comments he most wants to see are actually the people who have nothing particularly new or interesting to say, which pretty much describes outlets like Slate. Some people face seriously negative consequences for expressing a minority opinion under their real names; Manjoo thinks that this is an acceptable price, and that’s all we need to know about him.
Stephen et al,
If my opinion were at all relevant it would be strongly in favor.
You might try disemvowellling rather than deletion for some of the comments. Removing the vowels means that you don’t automatically read the content as your eye passes over it, but that you can almost always reconstruct it with a bit of effort. There’s two advantages over deletion. The first is other comments referring to the offending comment make more sense. The second is that, since a disemvowelled comment can be reconstructed by someone who cares, it is possible for people to see that you are in fact removing only comments that deserve it.
Disemvowelling has been used with reasonable success both on BoingBoing, which is high-volume and has quite a lot of obnoxious commenters, and on Making Light, which has a generally well-behaved community.
[I usually don’t post under my full name, but in this context it seems appropriate]
Hmm. Worth keeping in the tool kit; it may come in handy for cases where a comment has a productive contribution mixed with the snark.
I wonder if this explains semi-random comments that appear sometimes – apparently it’s only non-English language blogs that are targeted however: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks
Many Americans speak languages other than English. Of course they’d never use it against their own citizens. Except when they use it against their civilian bosses:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/another-runaway-general-army-deploys-psy-ops-on-u-s-senators-20110223
A JAG officers life is never dull.