I'm finding its application to be extremely heavy-handed. Andrew corrected a poster's comment that referred to Hillary as a "wench."

Come on.

What's the deal now with the following
TPM Comment Policy
management wrote up:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/faq.php#1

?

Before the upgrade, you had a link to it over the comment entry box (Their writing was pre-announced for months with a couple of well-commented-on threads by management, then one day that link appeared without any management announcement, and no one ever really paid much attention to them because of that.)

The link to them is gone now. Are they thrown out now or should members still cite them as the rules? If it's the latter, shouldn't they be easier to find?

Also, if you don't want to bothered with people using the "report abuse" button for the kind of thing you articulated there, you should make it clear it's for very narrow abuse and that's why you took those off prominet display and aren't citing them.

Personally, I think expecting people to use the legalistic mumbo jumbo filled "terms of use" as guidelines is being quite unrealistic, they won't use them unless they are the type to pour over legal documents for ways to get back at someone (and only a couple of those types could drive you crazy.) It will work much more efficiently for you if you are clearer and much simpler than the "terms of use" page. You want to be flooded with misunderstandings of what's abuse and what's not, nevermind.

"- that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, false or inaccurate, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable;"

What is allowed? I especially question "vulgar, obscene .. false or inaccurate .. otherwise objectionable". While I personally try not to be vulgar and/or obscene, I'm certain I've been inaccurate at least a few hundred times and have no doubt others have found me otherwise objectionable.

No... seriously. Why the button? What exactly prompted this? Do you really think this is helpful? Putting this cute little "tool" in the hands of everyone in here? Has there been an inordinate amount of genuine, serious abuse? What form is it taking? Have you been unable to handle "disputes" thus far without it?

"otherwise objectionable" is quite vague. The word "wench" was apparently objectional last night, and if that's an example of "otherwise objectionable" material, then I'd have to say I find the policy stifling.

And I'm sorry that at least one poster seems to have decided to not post any longer as a result of actions taken last night.

It would have been a good idea to announce the new changes and how they were going to be instituted rather than seemingly springing it on out of nowhere and publicly chastising somebody simply because some folks didn't like the mention. It seemed to come out of nowhere and was handled poorly.

Maybe there has been an ongoing discussion of the changes coming and such talking place here however I think there is a fair number of folks here who don't frequent the Cafe, but rather remain in in Election Central or Muckraker so they'd never even know this announcement exists. Also this announcement came after the first action of increased moderation, and public chastising.

When a report is made, is the reporters known to the administrators? Also if an action is taken and a post removed is those who reported it recorded to make sure it isn't a case of the same people reporting everything on one person?

Are we allowed to report ads that we find objectionable?

I remember there was a commenter on Election Central who would just constantly spam entire blog entries in his comments followed by a link to said blog at the bottom (and it wasn't even his own blog). I could have used the "Report Abuse" button then.

I don't particularly mind the button itself, but this sudden drive to enforce the rules which hadn't been enforced very much before, and with no forewarning or consideration, just seems capricious and arbitrary. I accept that Management is just trying to keep things running smoothly, but this kind of thing violates basic Internet Common Sense: if you suddenly change up the policies under everyone's feet, you will piss people off. I would have thought you guys would know better than that.

By the way, in another thread Greg Sargent replied to someone's comment by saying it was "idiotic." Now whether that was warranted and justified or not is another matter entirely, but when Greg gets away with calling someone's argument "idiotic" and yet Tena gets censored for calling Hillary a "wench," I get seriously confused.

I miss Tena.

I guess you have to pay to play. You can produce an ad that links to all sorts libelous, defamatory, false and inaccurate information, and if you have the cash TPM Cafe will run the ad. The rest of us have paternalistic Terms of Use.

Here's a fun toy that purports to analyize the nature of this site:

The analysis indicates that the author of http://www.tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/ is of the type:

INTP - The Thinkers

"The logical and analytical type. They are especialy attuned to difficult creative and intellectual challenges and always look for something more complex to dig into. They are great at finding subtle connections between things and imagine far-reaching implications.

They enjoy working with complex things using a lot of concepts and imaginative models of reality. Since they are not very good at seeing and understanding the needs of other people, they might come across as arrogant, impatient and insensitive to people that need some time to understand what they are talking about."
http://www.typealyzer.com/index.php?lang=en

;>}

It would be more useful, perhaps even productive, if there were an EDIT "button".

I have been here from almost the inception. I must say that Tena is by far my favorite commenter. Funny,smart,quick witted and a little foulmouthed. I like that as well. I'm pissed that you had to go and run her off.
I have been coming here for ever and hardly ever comment but I think you just shit in your own bed.

.

Wow . . .

I guess I’ll have to carefully watch out where I crap in the pond ‘round these parts.

I personally find this whole idea of a “Report Abuse” button not only “abusive” but totally “otherwise objectionable” as outlined in the "TPM Comment Policy."

And with that said: When the hell are the old Café personal blog archives going to be made available?

I demand my humble work be released from being held “hostage” on some cold hard-disk …

And I feel slighted that I haven’t been added to Claire Wilcox’s “Following” list… yet ...

~OGD~

*Paddlin’ furiously ‘round the Café since June 2005*

At a blog that I used to frequent, the moderator had a filter that would change "questionable" language to something else, for instance, if someone typed "c*nt," it would post as "nice girl." It was an amusing and unexpected solution to some, er, emotional postings.

The intent came through, but it was somehow softened by the implied ridicule.

Perhaps that would be a more equitable solution.

The abuse button shouldn't be necessary, but it is. It should be used sparingly if at all. It's main use should be to limit personal insults among members of the café or to limit sabotage and harassment, not to limit debate or content. It is like a bartender having a bung starter behind the bar or a bouncer at the door in case the patrons start to fight.

Lila,

Re:
Though of course-- feel free to aggressively argue the ideas themselves...

Along those lines, just a suggestion. The following is the terminology that I and several others that I worked with in stints as moderators on another forum found works well, it registers easiest with the greatest number of people. It's based on verbal abuse = attacking and trying to hurt the person, not the person's argument. Insultfests are best broken up by saying attack the argument, not the other poster. It's amazing how much difference it can make in the civility of a forum if people learn to say "your argument is idiotic," rather than "you are an idiot." The whole personal resentment and vendetta thing mostly vanishes if people learn to do that.

P.S. You do have a small problem in that a minority of your contributors set the wrong tone by using insults toward public figures in their posts, and have also insulted in reply to commenters in their threads, even when the commenters actually are properly attacking the contributor's argument and not the contributor.

And here's the other problem with this idea of moderation: people post here all the time. 3 in the morning EST, on the weekends, etc. TPM is not going to, I'm assuming, keep staff in the office 24/7 to moderate the comments. Which is why, I imagine, some of us are still talking on this thread, but mgmt seems to have left. Which means it's going to be extremely difficult to enforce with any level of consistency. Threats, stalking, that's not acceptable. Calling political figures some "colorful" names? I'd say that's within the realm of coffee house chatting.

Is there going to be any follow-up on this, or is it just going to fall off the first page of the cafe and be forgotten?

I would much rather see an "ignore user" button than a "report abuse" button.

Also, I see this as fixing something that is not broken. TPM doesn't seem to have a problem with commenters being rude. Anyone who has frequented other blogs knows this. The TPM community is different than others, including HuffPo and DailyKos. I mean, where else do you find people like Tom Wright? There is a level to the discourse here that keeps people involved.

HusseinTenaX apparently "referred to a female politician as a part of the female anatomy." What exactly did she call Clinton? I am really trying to figure that out...

Here is a list, tell me when I get warm:
Ovary
Fallopian Tube
Uterus
Cervix
Vagina
Bartholin's duct
Labia
Clitoris
Breast
Areola
Nipple