New comment policy
With yesterday’s My Prayer, for the first time I can remember in two decades of blogging, I put up a new post with the comments section completely turned off. I did so because I knew my nerves couldn’t handle a triumphant interrogation from Trumpist commenters about whether, in the wake of their Messiah’s (near-)blood sacrifice on behalf of the Nation, I’d at last acquiesce to the dissolution of America’s constitutional republic and its replacement by the dawning order: one where all elections are fraudulent unless the MAGA candidate wins, and where anything the leader does (including, e.g., jailing his opponents) is automatically immune from prosecution. I couldn’t handle it, but at the same time, and in stark contrast to the many who attack from my left, I also didn’t care what they thought of me.
With hindsight, turning off comments yesterday might be the single best moderation decision I ever made. I still got feedback on what I’d written, on Facebook and by email and text message and in person. But this more filtered feedback was … thoughtful. Incredibly, it lowered the stress that I was feeling rather than raising it even higher.
For context, I should explain that over the past couple years, one or more trolls have developed a particularly vicious strategy against me. Below my every blog post, even the most anodyne, a “new” pseudonymous commenter shows up to question me about the post topic, in what initially looks like a curious, good-faith way. So I engage, because I’m Scott Aaronson and that’s what I do; that’s a large part of the value I can offer the world.
Then, only once a conversation is underway does the troll gradually ratchet up the level of crazy, invariably ending at some place tailor-made to distress me (for example: vaccines are poisonous, death to Jews and Israel, I don’t understand basic quantum mechanics or computer science, I’m a misogynist monster, my childhood bullies were justified and right). Of course, as soon as I’ve confirmed the pattern, I send further comments straight to the trash. But the troll then follows up with many emails taunting me for not engaging further, packed with farcical accusations and misreadings for me to rebut and other bait.
Basically, I’m now consistently subjected to denial-of-service attacks against my open approach to the world. Or perhaps I’ve simply been schooled in why most people with audiences of thousands or more don’t maintain comment sections where, by default, they answer everyone! And yet it’s become painfully clear that, as long as I maintain a quasi-open comment section, I’ll feel guilty if I don’t do this.
So without further ado, I hereby announce my new comment policy. Henceforth all comments to Shtetl-Optimized will be treated, by default, as personal missives to me—with no expectation either that they’ll appear on the blog or that I’ll reply to them.
At my leisure and discretion, and in consultation with the Shtetl-Optimized Committee of Guardians, I’ll put on the blog a curated selection of comments that I judge to be particularly interesting or to move the topic forward, and I’ll do my best to answer those. But it will be more like Letters to the Editor. Anyone who feels unjustly censored is welcome to the rest of the Internet.
The new policy starts now, in the comment section of this post. To the many who’ve asked me for this over the years, you’re welcome!