i have also noticed that they have been censoring a lot of comments. i think this is an unfortunate policy on so many levels.

I completely agree, but as with most things that people think are a result of human volition, this is actually a software issue. Shawn changed the default not to not show comments so that posters have to turn them on. I forget most everytime. I was going to write him about this.

Free speech is a perfect entre for dissent.

As someone quite involved in the blog world, I have to reject the premise of the name of this thread. It is not censorship when the blog editors eliminate comments or disallow them. It is editing. Censorship is where you use the power of a police state to prevent others from expressing themselves - eg, by shutting down their blogs. Editing is where you decide what goes in your own publication - journal, newspaper, blog, whatever. Journals have been accepting and rejecting submissions for publication since forever, and have never felt obliged to publish every submitted article in the name of free speech. This is editing, not censorship.
awr

I have to disagree. Censoring is just that. It can be done by a blog owner or an emperor. Deleting someone's comments with which you do not agree is censoring that viewpoint, if not actually the person. I think everyone would agree that deleting comments that include ad-hominem, foul language, or other malicious (or commercial) statements is warranted, but even this is censoring.

Ah but Michael. I can tell you, as someone who manages many many of these online forums and email lists and the like, that unless you can control the culture of a venue, you might as well not open it. It is just a fact. Every valuable venue (and that means this one too) must must must control else it becomes worthless for everyone. This is because of my own 2% rule. 2% of the would-be commentators are out to make trouble, wreck conversation, troll around, vent and abuse, and otherwise reduce rather than increase the value of the media. These are teh same people who litter, spray graffiti in bathrooms, stick gum in water coolers, vandalize property, and the like. There are just people like that, and civilization must protect against these people else the 98% are not free to create, build, converse, and grow. It's the wheat and tares problem. Now, a secondary question is where you draw the line, and that can be tricky. Sometimes it is too tight and sometimes too loose. As soon as you establish principles and rules of thumb, there is a commentator who is between the lines. It is also a learning process for moderators. But if you think about it, the responsibility here is on the right shoulders: the owners. If the owners are too strict, the value of the venue falls; too loose, same thing. So it must be carefully calibrated, and fallibly so. I know we've dealt with this here many times. I've deleted posts of good friends, and even banned people with whom I had a working relationship. I don't like making these decisions. No one does. It isn't easy. The accusations fly and people can be astonishingly mean and insulting. My own impulses are hyper-liberal in this respect, but reality keeps hitting me in the face.

with the risk of repeating myself, i think its very important to reaffirm how important the nlm is to us all. we may all quibble here and there but its contribution to the sacred must not be underestimated. Shawn should be commended for the excellent service he provides us all everyday.
i have my issues with nlm but i never forget this.

no doubt it takes a thick skin to be a moderator. jeffry, you certainly have it, shawn, bless him, has it too and i most certainly do not. if i had to endure what you guys have to deal with id have been permanently committed a long time ago.

Fr. Ruff,

In the case of Pray, Tell, your comparison with a scholarly journal misses the point of your liberal, eirenic and intellectual claims for it, which can't be reconciled with a policy of removing comments that question those credentials. So, too, the editor of a print journal decides to include letters or not within the cost and time constraints of journal production; those constraints don't apply to a blog and its comments board. There is no need to modify and remove comments as you do (including those that mention this practice) and reasons of integrity not to. In this context, your persistence in the habit does indeed look like censorship – arbitrary use of your position to silence those with whom you disagree.

What a shame we can't have this discussion on your own blog, and how ironic it is that we are having it on a comments board that hasn't trumpeted its commitment to dialogue, but just got on with it.

Shawn's quite tolerant, but the axe fell when I suggested a post reminded me of a scene from Life of Brian (that one where the Judean People's Liberation Front gets into a stand-off with the People's Front for the Liberation of Judea).

I tend to stay away from blogs. They are little more than opinions, and like the old saying goes, everyone has one. Sometimes blogs can be uniformly worthless. Why folks get so worked up over them is beyond me. Reading about the Church Fathers, or one of Pope Benedict's excellent books, is much more rewarding.

Generally my rule is never "censor" for ideas -- all points of view can be expressed -- but do delete or ban to enforce civility, manners, good citizenship etc.. Now, that's easier to enforce in a secular settings. Religious ones are a bit different - there is a real problem in promoting heresy and the like, and that fact opens a can of worms.

Ah I see. Sorry I misunderstood. Must have been tedious reading a response to something you didn't say.

Occasionally I have learned wonderful things in comments on blogs. Very occasionally. Usually I find that com boxes tend to deteriorate after about five comments into the commenters attacking each other, often entirely off the original topic, with religious blogs being the worst. Sadly I rarely read comments on NLM or Fr. Z's blog anymore for exactly that reason.

On my own blog, I regularly remove comments are inappropriate. And if I think a topic will bring on "the usual suspects," I disable comments. Hey, it's my blog after all.