Speaking of Comments

I'm wondering how other folks deal with comments.

Back during the whole "prime candidate" exercise debacle, I was forced to make my comments moderated. With all of the bad (and unjust and completely avoidable) press the Foreign Service got after the press was allowed into a town hall meeting that was meant to be a forum for folks to air their concerns about the possibility of directed assignments to Iraq, I started getting some really negative comments. No matter how much we tried to get the truth out that we were stepping up to the plate and volunteering for Iraq, and that Iraq was the only embassy fully (and some might say excessively) staffed, the public was intent on believing we were afraid to serve in danger posts (that perception remains even though it has NEVER been true). One anonymous poster commented "wimps and weanies" literally dozens of times. So I stopped allowing comments to be posted to the site without my approval.

I approve almost all comments. I have a couple of exceptions. I do not approve unfounded attacks on the Foreign Service. Those are the most common negative comments I get, and they don't happen all that often. Civil disagreement, I am fine with. But I won't allow the service of the men and women of the Foreign Service to be denigrated.

The second exception is one that I had not yet had to deal with until my post about African American ancestors. So I now don't allow racist (or homophobic, though that has never happened) comments. Even if they try to cloak themselves in "facts." (Document it, or don't say it.) That kind of nonsense is not appropriate in polite society, and I don't allow it here.

Those are my lines in the sand. What are yours?