Saturday, January 29, 2005
Open thread.
Whew. OK, I think I've fulfilled my quota of prose for the weekend, and I will now turn my attention elsewhere. Specifically, hand-rolling a new Linux operating system for one of my recent acquisitions. Yes, here at Cynic HQ, we're all about open source and whizbang high technology, almost to the point of personal injury.
You have my permission to be intensely jealous. Again. :-)
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6 comments:
Censorship...ain't it great?
Don't be such a dick. Deleting somebody's comments from your own blog doesn't constitute "censorship" using any reasonable definition.
From what I've seen, CC has made it clear that Gatsby is welcome to write whatever he wants ON HIS OWN BLOG. And CC has even provided the link to that blog a bunch of times.
Given that Gatsby has his own blog and can write whatever he wants over there whenever he wants, there's no censorship going on.
CC is right -- you people really are a bunch of whiners, aren't you?
Defenders of censorship; aint they great?
Like CC pointed out, you mean like your friends over here? The ones who delete postings and ban you permanently from their site just for raising an issue they don't want to talk about?
CC was right. You guys just avoid every issue he's ever raised. And I'll bet you'll avoid this one as well.
From CC:
Oh, man, I really didn't need to wake up to this, did I? To my anonymous defenders: I appreciate the moral support but, really, you do realize that you're most likely just yelling at Mr. Gatsby, who is now dumping shit on this blog anonymously so I don't delete it. Whatever.
In any event, it is true that simply deleting someone's comments from one's own blog really doesn't constitute "censorship" in any meaningful way. These days, censorship typically has a much more aggressive and all-encompassing definition.
For instance, if you're offended by a book, it's not censorship to refuse to allow the book into your home. After all, it's your home and you make the rules.
On the other hand, it is clearly censorship if you demand that the local schools and libraries remove all copies of that book so that no one else can read it either. In the first case, you're making the choice for yourself. In the second, you're presuming to make it for everyone else and, yes, there is an obvious difference. But try to explain that to some of the regular right-wing wanker visitors to this site.
Even more amusing is that, just yesterday, I posted a perfectly obvious example of how the right treats anything even remotely resembling dissension or a contrasting opinion -- that is, what happens to those opinions over at Free Republic. Did you notice how many of our conservative visitors tried to address or defend that practice?
Zero.
As of this minute, that post still has not a single comment. After all, what could they say? Folks saunter in here, moaning about censorship, but they sure as hell won't go near that article since it shows just what kind of hopeless hypocrites they are.
(It's amusing that the conservative critic in this set of comments thought it was appropriate to accuse me of censorship when the article was just a short one about a Linux-based PDA I have. I mean, if one wanted to bitch and moan and cry like a little girl about censorship, it would have made at least a little sense to do that over at the article about Free Republic. But, as I mentioned, the freepers who pass by here are clearly treating that posting like Superman treats kryptonite. They won't go near it because they know it will make them look like idiots. So what do they do? Rant on about censorship when I'm talking about cool electronic gadgets. Need I say more?)
At this point, maybe I need a more wide-sweeping comments policy. I'm still going to delete anything posted by Gatsby or McHue, and it may be that I'll start deleting entire sets of comments that try to prolong that discussion. Is that censorship? Fuck, no. As McHue once said, if it's his blog, he gets to make the rules. So, my blog, my rules.
I will be as accommodating as I can. If you have a point to make that's relevant to the article whose comments section you're posting in, by all means, knock yourself out and leave a note. I will absolutely not delete comments just because they disagree with what I wrote. If you have something relevant to say, perfect.
But if your entire contribution is nothing more than "You suck, CC!", well, yeah, that's going to be deleted. And if that inspires you to run around, high-fiving your conservative friends, and hollering "Censorship!", that's fine. I really don't give a shit. As I've said more times than I care to count by now, what any of you do on your own time and on your own blogs doesn't interest me.
Is there any way I could have made any of this clearer?
From CC:
In that case, I apologize. And one of the reasons I didn't delete those other comments is that, since others had already replied to them, I left them to retain the flow of conversation and the context. But since the point has been made, I may very well delete future comments along those lines if they add nothing to the dialogue. My blog, my rules.
And I'm leaving your comment here for an obvious reason -- since I accused you unfairly, you deserve an apology and it deserves to be public.
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