Thursday, January 14, 2010

A Note on Comments

by Andrew Gillen and Daniel L. Bennett

A recent comment in this post spurred us to explain our approach to comments.

To date, CCAP has never censored our comments section.

For awhile, most of the comments came from a single individual, who didn’t think too highly of us. Attempts to engage that person in the comments section often degenerated into ugly name calling and attacks on our character on his part, and a waste of time on ours, so we instituted a policy of not responding to comments.

As we started getting more comments from a wider variety of people, this policy had the effect of making our blog less interactive than it should be. So within the past few months, we’ve lifted the internal ban on commenting. We encourage you to post topic-relevant comments and we will do our best to facilitate an interactive discussion.

A remaining issue is whether we will start censoring comments. While we do not currently plan to do so, if the level of spamming continues to grow, and if certain people continue using our comments section as their personal graffiti wall, we may have to revisit that decision.

4 comments:

Overlook said...

I applaud you (CCAP). I believe the free exchange of ideas can take place in a civil and responsible manner. While I don't think you need to respond to every comment, I do believe together, CCAP and the public will both benefit as we try to generate ideas to continue to raise awareness; and generate solutions that will take hold and change Higher Education by improving it. Even if it is one person at a time.

You can bet I'm sitting here thinking: "I hope nobody screws this up." What a great opportunity.

Again, I applaud you!

capeman said...

I guess I'm the honored individual. I gave up because the blog was so boring and I got tired of the constant insults to institutions and personnel in higher education -- especially public higher education -- coming from people who had worked or studied in -- public higher education. I realized it was a waste of my time.

SpeedDude said...

Always approach your work with a "beginner's mind". In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are few.

Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our privacy with the last honesty and truth.

Unknown said...

I'm clapping for your great idea !

Keep Going !

:)

college degree