Wednesday, May 14, 2008

The curse of the moderator......on or off?

Alex Wilcock has had a bit of a go at me this evening for leaving my moderator on having lit the blue touchpaper and then swanned off for the day. Well Alex, it has to be said it is a while since I have upset you, so I guess it was gonna happen sometime (!) and I take your point. But, it tends to be when I am saying something controversial I get in as much trouble with comments as I do with what I said originally. But, given I am on a major swan off tomorrow until Monday night, to the wonderful city of Belfast, I will risk it. On the understanding that all commentators refrain from the temptation to drop me in it by making defamatory et al comments. Deal?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have to confess I leave it on pretty much all the time..does this make me a bad person or a horrible censor...?? I hope not....to me its just a sensible thing given how the internet can be...

Alex Wilcock said...

Don’t worry, Darrell – I know Linda (though I’m usually less grumpy when I see her in person!), and my point was because I know she can be quite combative… And that if you unleash a broadside where you’re likely to stir up a mass of comments (as it turned out there had been!) it’s only fair to give those comments breathing space. That’s fairly unusual in a Lib Dem blog, but I thought Linda’s last post was one that threw down the gauntlet for a fairly lively exchange of views! So thanks for listening, Linda, hope I wasn’t too grumpy, and I hope you enjoy your swan to Belfast :D

But back to Darrell. I’ve been reading, enjoying and largely agreeing with your blog over the last week, and you don’t strike me remotely as a bad person – and assuming you’ve not been blocking a mass of comments, not a horrible censor either. With most blogs, most of the time, if we’re lucky enough to get comments they’re fairly genteel (probably one of the reasons my own preference is not to moderate; only one death threat in two years), so it doesn’t make a lot of difference if there’s a small delay before they pop up. However, on occasion I get quite combative and controversial, and it seems only fair to me to let people hit back – and, knowing Linda and knowing she’s more than able to stand up for herself, I wanted to suggest she do the same after (as she puts it) lighting the blue touch paper.