It seems that if I take my eyes off the site for a day or so comments start to get out of hand. This is not a new issue — it’s been happening from the beginning from time to time. The most recent comment crisis is, if I recall correctly, the fifth such disruption.
As I suggested when I last made a call for support, I’m establishing a forum specifically for those who support the site. The problem with entirely open comments is that it’s a simple matter for anyone to come in and start a fight, regardless of whether they support the publication or not, and moderation has its limits, the most important being that it is performed by human beings who are often harried and forced to make snap judgements without sufficient context (and sometimes without sufficient sleep).
So, those who have supported the site with donations will be given the keys to a new forum specifically for them, and will have free posting privileges with moderation only in serious circumstances. I’ve actually thought about extending this to the entire site, and only allowing supporters to post any comments at all, but we’ll see how this works in the meanwhile.
For now, anyone who has donated is free to join the new forum on request by email or PM on the forum. I’m going to be spending much of my forum/discussion time there, because I want to hear what supporters have to say, and without them this site would be a shadow of what it is.
So if you’ve made a PayPal donation at any time and are registered on the forum please let me know what your username is via PM or email, and I’ll look it up and match your email to the PayPal email/account (be sure to let me know if that’s different). If you sent a check or money order, simply let me know who you are and what your username is — verification will not be a problem. If you are a supporter who is not registered on the forum, I’d be happy to do so for you if you’d like; simply contact me through the contact form and send me your email and desired username.
The new forum will be private and all information entirely confidential. What is written there stays there — this is to encourage candid conversation. For the rest of this year, simply having made a donation of $10 or more at any point since the site opened will suffice to be added, and by early next year we’ll work out a structure for keeping it going through 2011.
I’m going to match the accounts to the new forum by hand and by myself, so please be patient. I’ve already created a new usergroup, set the permissions for that group to the forum and conducted some tests, and it will be open as soon as I start adding users. While it should be a smooth process in the large majority of cases, there will inevitably be a couple of glitches, but rest assured that I will work with you to make sure every qualified user who is interested gets access.
I’d like to add as many supporters as possible — the more we have to start out with the better and more lively the discussion will be. So, even if you are not a regular commenter, feel free to have me add you anyway. As I wrote before, I’ll be spending a lot of time in there, so it will be a good place to provide some feedback or suggestions for the site in general.
