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Meta: On MoA Moderation
MoA commentator Karlof seems to be pi**ed because some comment he tried to post here did not appear. As he writes at his own blog:
I provided what follows in a comment made to the current Iran thread at Moon of Alabama, but the site owner trashed it for some unknown, unexplained reason despite its obvious vital importance to understanding the events surrounding this war. What follows are a portion of Lavrov’s opening remarks that relate to the topic followed by an excerpt from the first Q&A that’s then followed by the most important question posed:
[1684 words long quote from Lavrov’s press conference]
The blog software Moon of Alabama is running on has, like others, functionalities which somewhat protect against being overwhelmed by spam comments. The system will filter comments following certain criteria into three buckets.
Most of the comments entered at MoA will be published without further review.
– Spam:
Comments which come from known spam addresses or include advertisement for certain products will be deleted automatically. Each day there are some 50 to 100 “Buy Viagra” or similar comments that fall under this criteria. This part of the system is astonishing reliable. That’s why I rarely review the comments which are being filtered at this stage. They simply vanish.
– Moderation:
Comments which:
- exceed a certain length
- include more than 5 links
- include certain swearwords
- come from certain IP addresses
will be withheld from immediate publishing for review by the moderator. Karlof’s comment, which included a lengthy Lavrov quote, was caught by this filter.
– Manual review:
Twice a day I scroll through the comments to sift out those which I find inappropriate, grossly off-topic, or generally dislikable. Some I delete immediately without further ado. If I find multiple questionable comments under one username I will check the IP address the comments are coming from and put it on ‘moderation’. Future comments from that address will be reviewed before being published.
I will also review the comments the system has held up and put into the moderation bucket. Some I’ll delete immediately without further ado. Some may be published after I have checked the context in which they were made. Others may be shortened and published.
The criteria by which I do these reviews are subjective. Here are some general hints, in no particular order, of what I dislike:
- Looong quotes. This is the web. Dear Karlof, a text that is freely available on the web and can be linked should never be quoted at length. Provide a summary and a link. Thanks.
- Snappy one-liners. Commentators who offer nothing but these will be banned.
- (Repeated, off-topic) advertisements for the commentator’s own blog.
- Off-topics designed to divert attention from the subject of a thread.
- Attempts to overwhelm/derail a thread with a myriad of comments.
- Taking unreasonable positions designed to provoke.
- (Ab)use of multiple usernames by one person.
- Personal attacks on other commentators.
- Factually false statements.
- AI slop.
I do spend about an hour per day to moderate the comments at this blog. Still – a lot are passing that probably shouldn’t. Given the current number of comments I would probably need three hours per day to do this consistently. That would exceed my capacity.
Please bear with me.
Through the almost two decades in the English speaking geopolitical blogosphere, I have been banned a lot of times and in different blogs/forums, may be, I notice now, because I do not usually read the blog´s guidelines, since I come from one blog to another, depending on the day, after having read a lot of channels and sources and I do not have so much time left.
First time I was banned I felt it like a slap, especially if my post has been a long one, which at the time costed me a lot to do, since English is not my mother tong and I write it with not so much academic bagage but out of the years of hearing, reading and writting.
With time, I went accustomed to get my posts banned and downplaying the issue.
Normally, If you read a lot of info through the day, you may thought that what you are going to convey it is imprescindible for the world to know. May be you have not read anyone in the comments section, which you read whole through, conveying that side of the issue,,,,
The sometimes unbearable truth for our own egos, it is not.
Through the years, I have been also the other side of the comments section, moderating, and eventhough when I did such ungrateful work I was still some a lot more childish and innocent than I am now, I always hated censure and found not so few mods who did not mind trashing a comment without giving them a damn, in an unconsidered way for the commenter.
It was in fact a disagreement on moderation with another mod which got me out of the moderation team of that not less famous than this one blog.
The comment in question did not break any rule of moderation, the old commenter posting with an old slow computer ( that I knew out of reading the comments…he was a regular….) posted his comment ( which had been trashed by the Briton quite unconsidered newcomer ) again in my slot, and thus I published it, finding that it fulfilled the moderation rules and was a long one in that regular commenter style. In the end, it did prevail the criteria of the newcomer, and I quitted moderating.
That was an unpaid work I was doing for a long time, at night, even stealing sleep time, and that I did even with a broken elbow….I must say that I felt myself sent to the trash without much care….Through these years I have got to learn that this is the anglosaxon way….trashing humans without much care….
I found other mods in the team who just didn´t care trashing comments without much caring, to my request on such lack of care, one of them, a chinese, told me that “it was just a blog”…..well, but it was not ours… I considered the responsability given to me by the owner as huge; well, in fact, I have conducted myself so through my whole life, finding that in not so few times I had put way too much effort…..Also, I have always found, in every field of life, that some people, if given a bit of power, use it…. and with malice….that is unavoidable, as we witness now in higuer spheres, how this kind of people are ruining the world….
With all, that blog kept going on without me…. until it was closed by the owner….
Through these years, I have grown accustomed to relativice everything, especially things that are not on our hands or over which we have no power to change….. And that have worked fine with me.
Thus, I would recommend Karlof growing a thicker skin, if he has not done yet, and considering that none of us are imprescindible, in spite of our hard responsible work….What is more important is doing our best and rest aside knowing that.
It has been a great consideration that “b” took the time to publish this discharger…..
Apologies if this post feels very long.
Posted by: Ghost of Mozgovoy | Apr 5 2026 9:39 utc | 113
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