I dislike editing comments from contributors to this site. I have done so recently to try and remove at least some of the personal attack – from more than one contributor. The trouble is that it is a slippery slope – both ways. You don’t edit and a wad of comment ends up being ‘nasty’. You do edit and you ‘destroy’ the point that was being made amongst the name calling?
And then this morning I was emailed the link to Prof Bob Carter’s speech to the Melbourne Rotary Club last week in which, perhaps tired of being called a ‘climate skeptic’, he has labelled belief in human-induced climate change ‘Hansenism’.
When is name calling OK? Can it be a useful short-hand?
Anyway, perhaps this is just the excuse I need to stimulate discussion about how to ‘moderate’ this site. What should the rules be?
When I edited a post some weeks ago the angry ‘commenter’ emailed me asking for ‘the rules’. I lamely replied something along the lines that “I edit out the personal attacks when they don’t progress the argument”.
Your suggestions?
Perhaps you know of a site with some ‘good rules’ we could borrow?
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.