Regarding Comments

Days Until Bush Leaves Office = 534

My esteemed fellow blogger desmoinesdem over at Bleeding Heartland has put up an interesting post regarding political versus non-political blogs, and was kind enough to mention iPol in the course or discussing how and why some blogs moderate comments.

I left a comment on that post, but thought it would be as well to include it in its own right here, for the benefit of readers who may have wondered what is the iPol editorial policy regarding comments.

Other than spam (i.e., "click this link for the truth about Barak Obama!"), the only occasion upon which I will not post a comment submitted on iPol is when the comment is a personal attack against another person, like another reader or fellow blogger. This has happened only twice, I'm happy to say.

Beyond that, I've never screened out negative comments about myself or something I've posted - take a look at the comments related to my interview with Dennis Kucinich for a good, healthy sample of comments who (to put it mildly) disagreed with me.

Where I feel commentors have, in my opinion, missed the point, or simply gotten it wrong, I will respond with a counterpoint, but, again, that's all done in the open, where readers can see the comments and judge for themselves.

I feel this approach strikes the best overall balance between preserving healthy debate and exchange of views, while keeping the troll factor to a minimum.

Disagree? Feel free to...well... leave a comment!