Reading the Comments Section

Photo by John Cameron on Unsplash

I joke that one of the downsides to having a blog is you have to read your own comments section.

There’s a comment sitting on my Manzanar post that I had to do some heart searching about: Do I moderate this comment or not?

I’ve made the decision to leave it up because from my perspective the person who made it is letting his whole ass hang out on the internet: I’m letting him show his colors on my blog.

Other people might make a different decision, to protect other readers from potentially harmful things being said. It’s a tough one. What he said was openly and disgustingly racist, and other things on the person’s blog make it clear that this person is not going to let up.

So I’m leaving it up because nothing can warn people away from somebody like that better than their own words. Unless, of course, somebody gets upset and asks me to take it down.

I have a comments philosophy. I don’t say policy, because that makes it sound like a set of rules. I’m slightly more flexible than rules.

So I’m going to list it out here.

Comments I Always Hide

Medium gives the option of hiding a comment so nobody has to see it.