Comment Moderation

Since I turned on "allow anonymous" and "moderate all"...

It seems like there have been more comments than before.

There's been hardly any spam.

The few jerks whose comments I had to routinely delete after they were raging pricks in the comments have stopped trying.

That's the up side.

The down side is a couple of people I've been trying to engage and debate also gave up.  Perhaps they felt they would not be allowed past moderation?

If you're being polite and staying on topic, your comment is going to be allowed.

If I tire of the debate on a given post, I'll just just shut off all comments rather than memory holing the comments I disagree with.  Not too different, but you'll be able to tell going in that we're done talking about it for now.

Debating with people I disagree with is a form of learning.  You might even convince me I'm wrong, you might not.  I might convince you that you are wrong, I might not.

We might even convince others to come to our side, we might not.

One thing is for certain: call me an idiot (or other insult) for taking an opposing view guarantees that you have no voice here.  Opening with insults and derogatory names is an admission that your position has no validity and should be ignored.

In short, calling me an idiot is a concession that I've won because you can't advance your argument on its merits.