Civility, Community, and the Registration Protocol
Several months ago, we posted the following message on civility:
Second, the registration process also permits commentors to identify themselves, as they see fit, in more detail. The registration interface includes a profile page in which Blackprof readers may describe themselves and their interests more specifically. The greater we come to personally know one another, the less likely we are to interact in ways that disrespect the dignity one generally accords acquaintances. Anonymity is inconsistent with community. It is thus our hope that the profile page will reduce anonymity and in so doing enhance the decency of our community.
Finally, we are continuing to work on ways of improving our readers' experience with the blog. We are exploring ways of facilitating greater interaction among the members of our community, in addition to evaluating potential improvements in the user-friendliness of our webpage. In this light, please let us know (by posting a comment to this thread, for example) of any issue that might improve your experience with the blog.
Blackprof is one of the more open-ended intellectual forums on the web — particularly as it relates to blogs hosted by academics — and that liberality reflects our desire to facilitate a broad, robust, and intellectually unpredictable set of conversations that might enlighten us all. But we do reserve the right to edit comments or delete them entirely if they are devoid of substantive significance and amount to nothing more than offensive name-calling. We do not exercise this authority lightly, as our general view is the best way to meet distasteful speech is either with silence or more speech. But sometimes comments cross the line and require censorship for the broader good of the group. For these few extreme comments, we might not become aware of them as fast as some of you might like — we do have full-time jobs, you know — but we will do our best to ensure our forum is as free as possible from the kind of personal, ad hominem attacks designed to assault identities rather than ideas. And, ultimately, the best means of achieving this goal is if each one of us accords to our fellow members the civility and respect we would appreciate for ourselves.
We also announced that we were working on technological means of implementing this policy more effectively. The new registration procedure is designed in part to facilitate this goal. First, it enables us to more quickly identify and censor those comments that breach our civility norms. This permits us not only to more effectively eliminate offensive individual comments, but also to completely ban commentors whose posts uniquely disrespect the integrity of our community.Second, the registration process also permits commentors to identify themselves, as they see fit, in more detail. The registration interface includes a profile page in which Blackprof readers may describe themselves and their interests more specifically. The greater we come to personally know one another, the less likely we are to interact in ways that disrespect the dignity one generally accords acquaintances. Anonymity is inconsistent with community. It is thus our hope that the profile page will reduce anonymity and in so doing enhance the decency of our community.
Finally, we are continuing to work on ways of improving our readers' experience with the blog. We are exploring ways of facilitating greater interaction among the members of our community, in addition to evaluating potential improvements in the user-friendliness of our webpage. In this light, please let us know (by posting a comment to this thread, for example) of any issue that might improve your experience with the blog.
Comments
Excellent...!
Posted by: Dragon Horse![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.blackprof.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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September 26, 2007 04:39 PM
Speaking of anonymous bozos, I think having a profile page is a good ideal.
Posted by: edunn![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.blackprof.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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September 26, 2007 05:59 PM
Yeah, I'm with you on this. I don't mind someone making fun of me (as long as it's funny). Most of the put-downs, however, are puerile.
I beg you to change to Blogger; Typekey is such a bad program that I believe it pisses posters off to the extent that it causes nasty comments to be posted out of frustration with the program.
Posted by: Mr Fungi![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.blackprof.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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September 26, 2007 06:02 PM
test
Posted by: T-shirts101![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.blackprof.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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September 26, 2007 11:58 PM
Maybe I'll start reading the comments again.
Posted by: P6![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.blackprof.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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September 27, 2007 12:50 PM
click, click...clickety...
Whew! I'm not banned!
And please don't switch to blogger. Go to Worddpress or something upscale like that, if Typepad is unsatisfactory.
Posted by: The Sanity Inspector![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.blackprof.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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September 28, 2007 11:34 AM
Prof. Jeffries: Come up with a dollar figure. What would it take to speed up the upload of the comments? I want to make a donation to achieve that.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.blackprof.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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September 29, 2007 11:08 AM
I'm not sure I like having to give up all my info just to post random comments on a blog. I do very much appreciate this forum, though, so I suppose I'll persevere.
Posted by: TheConqueror25![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.blackprof.com/nav-commenters.gif)
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October 1, 2007 08:55 PM