I was planning to write a blog today and suggest once again that Mr. Javid allow us the ability to control and delete the comments in our blogs and noticed that Shazdeh beat me to it! But that’s ok I’ll write mine as a poll question and ask that you please vote Yes or No to this poll question:
Do you want the ability to control comments in your blogs?
Please use the comments section below and cast your Yes or No vote in the subject line. You can add your rationale in the body of the comment if you wish (or write your own blog) but please vote and I’ll tally the votes later this week and provide it here. Mr. Javid has provided a shabdol-azimi tarof that he’ll consider it for future but having a poll and some votes would help him decide one way or another.
This suggestion would not apply to Articles, just Blogs and News items since we have the ability to edit and/or delete our Blogs but not Articles and this is clearly stated in the procedures when you sign up and I think it is ok.
It is true that i.com is Mr. Javid’s house and he can do whatever he wants. However, we “rent” the blog section (also known as the belog section 🙂 from him and we “pay” him with our contributions. So I think it is only fair that we decide who should be our “guest” in our “rented apartment”.
Should Mr. Javid tell us; let this guy stay in your place for a while and the guest may have more guests of his own so prepare for that as well and send me a flag if something goes wrong?
Obviously something will go wrong and I think we can all agree that things certainly do go wrong and the problem is that Mr. Javid does not see the wrong as some of us do. It depends what your definition of the word “is” IS! He says that personal attacks will not be tolerated but if the “guest” gift wraps the attack, it’ll be tolerated. Here are some examples, some made by a self-proclaimed guilty party:
– You write a piece about being Iranian-American and want to discuss the loyalties between the two countries, when the first comment you receive lashes at you for being an “exile”.
– You are an Iran Iraq war veteran and want to write a piece to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the start of the war and discuss your memories and Islamic Republic’s behavior during the war with fellow Iranians when an internet trolls asks you for the detail of your service and if you don’t respond he’ll throw a tantrum and calls you a fraud and more.
– You want to write a piece about Bahai’s participation in the constitutional revolution when a self-proclaimed Bahai basher lashes at you for having such thoughts.
Now if we’re given the ability to control the comments in our blogs, like other sites do, some of the above bloggers in those examples may choose to keep those comments. Not everyone is the same and one size does not fit all. However, we will know that the blogger had an option and made a choice to allow the “gift wrapped” personal attack or an irrelevant or off topic comment to stay.
The attackers have a choice to say whatever they want in response to a particular blog in their own space and their own writing in a separate blog if there is dying desire to do so. No one is stopping them. Mr. Javid will have overall control of the comments or close a blog for further comments as he does already.
I should also mention that I wouldn’t want the comment control option if the IP address of the bloggers is identified as a result. Other sites (Blogspot, WordPress or Huffington post to name a few) allow the commentators IP addresses to be shown but in the past i.com’s admin has stated that the IP address can remain hidden and not disclosed.
The argument that Mr. Javid provides is to be the “bigger person” and “ignore” them. But why should we? Why should we be “treated” with an “anti-Iran” comment by an internet troll? What did the bloggers in the examples I provided do wrong? All they did was to contribute to this website in good faith. The guilty parties are the ones being rewarded by getting a free pass to do this again and in more blogs.
I sincerely appreciate Mr. Javid’s work and responsibilities and I think he’d admit that since going to an all registered forum i.com has become much better and his own workload (on anonymous comments staying in his approval queue) has been reduced by at least 80%. So let’s take this other step and make it better and easier. i.com can do better. At least tell us why not? If it is democracy or practicing it, well there are laws under democracy and the most important part of the democracy is the rule of law and not applying it selectively.
This blog got longer that I wanted to so I leave you with the poll question once again with a Yes or No vote option and we can discuss more if you like. Please vote!
Do you want the ability to control comments in your blogs?
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Update: Oct 3, 2010
Let’s keep the voting open so others can still vote. I’ll keep the voting open until we are free at last! Free at last! Thank god almighty we’re free at last, to delete comments in our blogs!
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Update: Oct 5, 2010
This blog was blocked by Mr. Javid apparently because some users couldn’t sit still! You see if I had the option to control comments in my own blog I’d have deleted the comments that caused this blocking by the Editor. To all who voted NO and worried about censorship, take a look at the end result of this one example. Censorship for ALL not just a few users. I once deleted a numerous commented blog of mine which made some unhappy. Having my blog blocked here is there a difference?
Anyway I’m eliminating two other users’ votes because they couldn’t sit still either or as Mr. Javid would call it who couldn’t “ignore” it 🙂 To those who’ll say the voting was a sham and no one should be eliminated, etc., I’d say take it easy! Final tally is 7 YES and 23 NO.
Oh well at least I got to say the last word!
