Hi all, Jamie here with a little bit of blog management.
We've gotten a troll on the comments here, and after asking the members of this blog's Facebook community for their opinions on things, the decision was made to moderate all comments. I'm somewhat surprised, now that I think about it, that it took this long to get a real troll under our bridge, but it's happened and it won't happen again.
I'm a believer in free speech, without a doubt. But I'm also a believer in appropriate speech. An ignoramous who was simply trying to bait cyclists while accusing them of ignoring the law (which he obviously didn't know, as he proved to us) was making comments that were designed to start fights. And we don't need that here. I like to keep things positive and helpful on this blog - even when I get going and go off on a rant, as sometimes happens, I like to spin it to a positive direction by the end of a post.
Starting a flame war isn't going to help anyone, so we're moving back to full comment moderation. Nothing negative will make it out. Constructive criticism is one thing but this was not that.
Thanks to all the folks who chimed in with opinions on the Facebook page, I really appreciate your candor and support.
People, not speed.
We've gotten a troll on the comments here, and after asking the members of this blog's Facebook community for their opinions on things, the decision was made to moderate all comments. I'm somewhat surprised, now that I think about it, that it took this long to get a real troll under our bridge, but it's happened and it won't happen again.
I'm a believer in free speech, without a doubt. But I'm also a believer in appropriate speech. An ignoramous who was simply trying to bait cyclists while accusing them of ignoring the law (which he obviously didn't know, as he proved to us) was making comments that were designed to start fights. And we don't need that here. I like to keep things positive and helpful on this blog - even when I get going and go off on a rant, as sometimes happens, I like to spin it to a positive direction by the end of a post.
Starting a flame war isn't going to help anyone, so we're moving back to full comment moderation. Nothing negative will make it out. Constructive criticism is one thing but this was not that.
Thanks to all the folks who chimed in with opinions on the Facebook page, I really appreciate your candor and support.
People, not speed.
I've had this problem on blogs before. I felt the same about "freedom of speech" but the "anonymity" of the internet encourages some real stupidity. All bloggers should enable moderation of comments--it's safe practice, and even newspapers do it. Good luck going forward.
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