If you have been following this blog, you know how the number of comments has exploded in recent days. This fury of discussion caught me off guard. I was beginning to wonder if anyone ever read my posts, and then all at once I have total strangers posting their opinions. This has caused me to accelerate my learning curve on responsible blogging.
First, I want to sincerely apologize to the leaders and members of Crossroads for not being more knowledgeable on this subject. I should have set up this blog to be fully moderated by me. By failing to do so, I allowed others to post comments that were disrespectful and misleading about our church and our leadership. While I did delete those comments, I should never have allowed them to be posted before I had a chance to screen them.
In all honesty, I did not want this blog to be simply my thoughts alone but also to provide a forum for dialogue about some of the principles and issues that we are facing as a congregation. However, I failed to take into account that some people do not understand how to have a respectfully discussion without engaging in personal attacks or causing dissension. I am not saying that everyone who posted a comment did that, only that some did. This reflected poorly on the church to anyone who might be considering visiting our congregation and reading my blog.
Dave Nance and I had an opportunity this past week to attend a two-day conference. It was excellent and applied to many of the challenges our congregation now faces. However, one of the speakers said something that hit home with me in reference to this blog. He said, "The internet is the social lubricant of our time". He said that for decades alcohol had been the social lubricant that caused people to lose their judgment and say things that they would not normally say to someone. Today, he said, social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, have given people opportunity to say things that they later regret.
While I am still committed to this blog being a conversation, it will now be a moderated dialogue. Comments will seen by me personally first before they are allowed to be posted. You are free to disagree, question, and offer other points of view. You must do it, however, in a respectful manner. Personal attacks will not be tolerated in any form. If you don't like the rules, then don't waste your time and my time commenting. In the interests of fairness, I have deleted all comments, including my own, so that we can start fresh.
1 comment:
I moderate all my comments, and it works well. If a comment doesn't contribute to the discussion, I don't post it. I have also not had much debate on my blog because I have found that the the best way to strip away all offense is not to take offense. When you are not defensive there is no need to defend yourself. For instance, one time I wrote a book review on amazon. Someone posted a comment saying that I had not reviewed the book and just posted a summary. At first I felt heckled. Who is this person to criticize me. Instead I posted a reply. Thanks for the feedback. This could help me improve my writing. It could have turned into an argument as sometimes does in the 2.0 world. I think humility is an important component of being a blogger. You might also benefit from writing a comment policy on your blog. I have seen them before. They usually say something like: "Comments that add to the discussion are welcome and will be approved at the discretion of the blog moderator."
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