It’s summer. And the silly season. There’s a shortage of real news, and our general attitude to that is generally not to get too hot and bothered about anything that does not deserve it… Occasionally, if the opportunity presents itself, we try cutting our teeth on a few new things…
To that end I’ve been spending more time with Google Plus prepping for the #DigitalLunch and a few projects I hope to have up and running for the Autumn. So my apologies if my presence here has been less than it should have been…
It seems, from the length of some our more popular threads that our thin summer diet is getting some of our regulars in the comment zone.. Two, the normally urbane gentile BangorDub has taken to his own blog to suggest that his Yellow Card was an attempt to censor him (oh and his contribution was taken off line)…
Another, apparently a unionist in the case, took his grievance to Politics.ie to gripe about Slugger and me personally (the thread does actually get a little more interesting after page three or four, though I have to confess some comments made me wince, others laugh some even both at once…
I’ll admit one long term fault in my management of the Slugger community, and that is absentee moderation… Sometimes things are just let slide almost always, believe it or not, because they’ve not been seen…
Every now and then, I’ll have a draconian lockdown, just to remind regulars (who, somewhere deep inside I feel should not need reminding) that there are rules to commenting here.
Those rules are not bound only by civil law (which are quite illiberal in regards to free speech), but those ‘governing’ good conversation. We try as much as possible to encourage good conversation by blogging good material. But occasionally, people who disagree with one another will see red.
Our moderators are not infallible. I will always happily hear appeals. But this site is for discussion and engaged debate, not just the swapping of witty one liners We don’t do proforma arguments of either the five minute or the full half hour either.
Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
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