There has been a pretty good debate going on in comments about the method I have chosen to allow comments on this blog. I allow anyone to comment and in any manner. They can comment under their name, they can comment under a pseudonym or they can comment anonymously. Unfortunately the cover of anonymity gives some people license to be nasty, engage in personal attacks, spread deliberate misinformation and many other unsavory practices. Still I have made a choice to allow unmoderated discussion. I do receive an email of each comment that is made. I have a choice to allow it to remain or to delete it. I don't delete very many.
Here is my feeling about the comments,...
...I think most people are smart enough to decide for themselves whether or not a comment is credible. Certainly, if the comment is anonymous and does not back up a charge with some sort of verifiable fact or reasonable argument for the position taken , you should ignore it. I do. I have found that to be the best way to reduce the number of stupid, nasty comments. If the comments are just ignored, the commenter quickly tires of the exercise and stops commenting because they are not getting any reaction which is, I believe, what they want. I could just delete them but then I get a bunch of comments that say, How come you deleted my comment? In fact, I get those "How come" comments even when I don't delete the comment. Go figure. On the other hand, I get many anonymous comments that are thoughtful, provide good arguments and even some good information. That is what I would like to preserve if I can.
Blogs are a new and evolving media and there are not a lot of good options for moderating the comments. I don't have the time or inclination to spend my time reviewing and passing judgment on what others say here. That does allow some people to take advantage of their anonymity to be rude idiots and I have come to accept that as part of the blog. You may disagree with that decision. All I can offer is that we each have to make the decisions on what you choose to lend credence to and what to reject.
Just to give you an idea of the relatively small numbers of people who read here, I get about 400 unique visitors a day. In the past week, I have had 2,564 unique visitors including one from Ambato, Tungurahua, Ecuador (searching for Cristine Scabbia)and one from Tysoe, Warwickshire, United Kingdom (searching for wind turbines in Dartmouth).
Monday, April 13, 2009
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8 comments:
Bill
Your blog has given most, if not all people, the opportunity to express their thoughts and feelings. This is a good forum for most, if not all postings. This has been informative, and I enjoy the exchanges thats taken place. I can decide what is true and that which is not true or fabrications. Keep up your good work on this blog and the select board. In your discussion with fellow board members, or consultation with your fellow board members, I've never hear you spew a word such as stupid, idiot, so forth.. I wish Nat Dias had more control over her limited vocabulary.
Bill, When are Joe and Lara going to come forward with their plan to sabotage the executive administrator search?
The executive administrator search is going forward under the direction of the very capable committee that was appointed to oversee the process. That committee will vet the candidates and select a few for consideration by the Select Board. If the committee feels that they are not being allowed to complete their task unfettered, I would expaect them to say so. The committee has not made that complaint because there is no basis for doing so.
Joe Michaud has gone around the search committee's back and has been in contact with the company that the search committee hired for recruiting. Joe is attempting to taint the process with undue influence.
Many People have been in contact with the company doing the recruiting because they interviewed department heads and town officials. At their request, I was interviewed for about one hour.
I too enjoy this blog and agree it has been very informative. I can also just ignore the people that are just plain rude or trying to start rumors.
I am one of the people who were "anonymously" attacked for having a differing opinion from someone else and was told I was stupid because I didn't agree.
I don't feel you should take away the anonymous aspect but maybe a registered blogger name so people can address each other with more than a time. I did see that Barry Walker felt his name was being used by someone, but as far as I have seen Barry never puts just his first name, so I figured it was someone else named Barry(how crazy of me).
Bill thanks for a great source of info and great debates too!
Unfortunately Bill it is a shame that as a Select Board member you are only hearing about this on a blog. Give Joe Michaud a call and ask him if there is a plan in the works to expand the search committee.
Bill, how about entertaining , with your fellow board members, a user fee for those who use the padanaram bridge??I'm not sure if it's lawful but it seems to be practical. The town has a user fee for everything else. A fifty dollar user fee sticker could be placed next to all the other town user fee's. The town beach sticker, the transfer sticker, the apponagansett launching sticker, the trash pick up fee ( PAYT) I don't expect you to answer this foolish post, but it's has your attention. Hmmmm
Don't expect to be re-elected, if you should dare to bring this up at a select board meeting. As a man from the North end of town, how many times have you crossed the bridge during a one year period??
Just the thought of this bridge fee makes me laugh.(:)Ho....Ho....Ho
There is just something about laughing that seems to make everything right...
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