Comments policy

From today, I'm reinstating the comments facility on this site. Here are my reasons and the way I'll manage it.

I gave up having comments a long time ago, on the grounds that my blog was beginning to look like what we now know as the threads at "Comment is Free". (If you want to know what that means, then see here.) I'm a near-absolutist on the issue of free speech, and I strongly defend the right to express (for example) racist opinions and Holocaust denial, and indeed to be a racist and an antisemite. But I see no libertarian requirement whatever for me to be the publisher of such opinions. I do not have a monopoly of the communications media or of the means of law enforcement. You don't have a right to say anything you like on my site, any more than you have at my dinner table.

There are established and high-quality blogs that have never had a comments facility: Andrew Sullivan and Norman Geras, both of them friends of mine, are cases in point. But the way that online newspapers and commentary typically now operate is with comments enabled. CiF is in my view unusually afflicted with nutters, and it's just a risk a site runs. Typepad, whose software I use, allows a blogger to screen comments before adding them to the site, and this is how - for example - the comments policy at Daniel Finkelstein's Times blog operates.

It's not practical for me to do this, however, as I am the sole author of this blog and I'm not able to check it during a working day. Accordingly, comments will be posted directly to this site without pre-moderation. There is no necessary reason that they will stay there, if it enters my head to remove them for some reason. Those criteria are broadly encapsulated in The Guardian's own talk policies. (I exclude the first part of point 2, however: "Please respect other people's views and beliefs." It's reasonable to exclude obscenity and abuse, and I will do; but it's not reasonable to require respect for any old rubbish, even where I am the author of it. I also - contrary to point 4 - will allow comments not written in English provided I can understand them, in deference to this magnificent observation appended to a characteristically fine piece on CiF by Agnès.)

Comments

[Ben Sixsmith]

An admirable decision, Oliver.

I can almost hear the distant hammering of keys as a thousand medialens posters grind into action.

[Anonymous]

I concur with both of Bens points.

Perhaps if you find allowing comments to be a positive experience you can persuade Sully to follow suit.

Good luck anyway.

[matthew]

Yes, good luck with this. I frequently want to criticise what you have to say, but there's no point if it's all drowned out in low-level abuse.

[Chris]

>There are established and high-quality blogs that have never had a comments facility: Andrew Sullivan and Norman Geras, both of them friends of mine, are cases in point.

You've inadvertently omitted the word 'respectively' from before 'cases', I think.

[Mark]

Good news - well done! There have been countless occasions when I've wanted to comment on something you've posted!

[ortega]

Thank you!
I'll try to show restraint.

[Roland Hulme]

A surprising but very admirable move.

[mesquito]

I'm glad you've started to allow comments, as this is one of my favotie blog-stops. However, I can well understand your reluctance. Let's hope it works out, but if it doesn't, I understand in advance the reasons why.

[Alan]

Big mistake.

[Citizen Sane]

A very interesting move. I fear, however, that you should be prepared for a tsunami of ill-informed and intemperate babble bordering on abuse.

I wonder if the racist faker David Irving or the estimable Professor Chomsky will pop up in the comments from time to time?

[Tom Hayton]

I think it's a good idea but it would be better to have some form of moderation if you could find the time. It's pretty easy to do with the typepad interface.

I had to do this after someone started trying to post text ads on my site without clearing it with me first.

[Roland Hulme]

Moderation be damned.

Delete SPAM if you need to, after it's been posted, but moderation slows down debate and I've known a certain blogger (who shall remain nameless) who neatly snips out bits he finds disagreeable or embarrasing from comments.

If you moderate your comments you might as well not have them at all.

[Sean Pelette]

Glad to have the opportunity to comment here.

I see no contradiction in being a near-free speech absolutist and requiring a minimum standard of civility in a forum that one is providing.

[Tom]

Roland- I agree- what I meant by moderation was the moderation function on typepad, which allows you to look at the comments before they go up. I do this on my site because I've decided not to let people abuse it- even temporarily. This is distinct from editing the comments, which is ridiculous. I'd say they should go up in their entirety, or not at all.