Dear patient readers,
Please read this post in full before commenting.
We are reopening comments on this and some recent posts. While we do very much appreciate your thoughtfulness and insights and therefore would very much prefer to keep comments on, the bottom line is we see no alternative to becoming more bloody-minded about enforcing our site Policies.
While we did miss the input and even camaraderie, the comments section has recently become negative value-added overall. Some regular readers confirmed our sense that comment quality had nosedived after the Trump inauguration. We’ve had earlier periods of toxicity so severe that one drove off our then most seasoned moderator, Jules. This recent period seemed worse. And as we regularly point out, you do not see the comments that we don’t allow to appear.
When we turned comments off, we did not indicate that we would restore them. We need you all to take to heart the notion that if the members of this community cannot individually, and enough of the time, collectively, engage in civil, reasoned, as-factual-as-possible-given-the-tainted-information-environment discussions, we will have to shut comments down permanently. Barring unforeseen events, we will have another four years of Trump, with the broad-spectrum derangement that implies. The site writers cannot endure the time sink and emotional drain of meme amplification, bickering, bad faith arguments, and personal attacks and still turn out high quality posts at our needed rate. Even vastly better resourced sites than ours have cut back on comments. The Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal open them up only on about half their articles.
One of the most disturbing patterns in the Trump era is celebration of cruelty and the destruction of institutions, an almost apocalyptic fervor about burning things down. We have antidotes and bird songs and plantidotes and stories about helpers because the world is already brutal. Civilization is, or ought to be, an exercise in reducing the pain level. I am the sort that feels a small pang every time I see a shuttered storefront (and in NYC, a regular trigger was landlords jacking up rents; they doubled them in my area in the early 2010s). I think of the loss of livelihoods. And I know well from my time in consulting how hard it is to make very large institutions function passably well, and how it is even harder to start and build new enterprises into big successful entities (success measured in other ways that looting and ramping asset prices).
So when readers cheer the prospect of mass firings, and justify their glee with the idea that workers at the CDC or USAID were up to no good, that criticism is misplaced. Over the weekend, Alexander Mercouris described the giddy atmosphere at the 2022 Munich Security Conference, where the participants were spoiling for their fight with Russia and were savoring the taste of victory. I see similar giddiness now.
As KLG has pointed out, many CDC staffers are doing real science. And as for USAID, as Clive pointed out long ago, it’s almost impossible to work in a stable middle class job that does not make one a participant in some sort of unethical or exploitative activity. Think of what has become of the health insurance industry, or most of finance, or the many vendors jacking up prices over what is justified by cost increases (new data suggests that eggs go on that list). And as with the financial crisis, does anyone seriously expect the perps, the policy-makers, or the leaders who designed and implemented the shifts in programs and priorities that took institutions away from their original missions to becoming tools to support the power structure, to be the ones who suffer? It’s the beneficiaries of the value-added services and the non-officer-level employees who will suffer.
Along with such schadenfreude are big upticks in tribalism and black-and-white positions, both of which work against the central mission of the site: critical thinking. Another more prevalent and draining pattern approaches gladitorial combat: commenters who persist with arguments after it has become clear their aim is to win and not to get at a better approximation of the truth, or, even better than that, improve our collective knowledge. Some of the big tells of this behavior include shifting ground, lack of evidence (especially links), failing to providing substantiation when challenged, broken record, and whataboutism. Engaging with these commenters becomes an exercise in “don’t feed the trolls.” That’s not a good use of site time.
It has been troubling to see some of our particularly sound and well regarded commenters start to go rancid, as in start to regularly make comments that are much less informative, and also more emotionally charged or otherwise overly-dogged than their old high standard. The most common trigger is when a new topic becomes so important that we report on it regularly, and our take, or the emerging consensus of the readership, is contrary to strongly held beliefs of the commenter in question. As past examples, we’ve lost very valuable contributors over Brexit and the Ukraine conflict. The warning signs include failing to discriminate between solid and tendentious information sources, not recognizing the limits of their knowledge, making unduly emotional comments or rebuttals, and yet expecting the same level of deference as in their established area of expertise.
While feedback and informed input are essential to this site, comments policy has always been an exception to our egalitarian orientation. Lambert and I have moderated over 2.2 million comments at Naked Capitalism. Both Lambert and our moderators have substantial comments moderation experience independent of Naked Capitalism. In other words, it is pretty much impossible for any of you to have the moderation experience to second-guess us. Despite the increased contentiousness of discussion on the Internet, this site until recently has gotten kudos from readers and experts in journalism as a standout in terms of the consistently high quality of debates here. We would prefer for this high standard to continue. We hope you do too.
If we are to have a comments section that adds to our shared understanding and sharpens the work of site writers, the least restrictive solution Lambert and I have been able to come up with is much stricter enforcement of our Site Policies (posted below). Stricter enforcement means we will do something we have heretofore been loath to do: rip out violating comments that somehow get through. Note that this will require us to remove benign responses, since otherwise comments nesting on that post will break. So we apologize in advance for collateral damage.
Be warned: When we ask a commenter to read the Site Policies before commenting again, only to have them respond with a speed or in a manner that makes clear they did not do so, that’s a site violation, and a fast track to being moderated or blacklisted.
The purpose of this site is to promote critical thinking. If you read our Policies, you will see that the basis for moderation decisions is conduct. Too often, those who are unable to defend their views fall back on bad faith argumentation, which leads them to rationalize having been moderated or banned as being due to their opinions, as opposed to bad behavior.
We are going to be in zero tolerance mode until readers understand that this site is not the place for mere personal opinion. There are plenty of places for memes, sheepdog-style talking point-driven commentary, singing in chorus, dogpiling, and other forms of thread-jacking: Kos and Reddit come to mind, along with social media generally. We’d rather have 50 thoughtful comments (such as links to articles or topics that weren’t included in Links) than 250 that consist largely of noise. Please keep in mind that we can also be held liable for comments. We have found that this is not merely theoretical.
If you aren’t happy with this outcome, as Barry Ritholtz would often say, GYOFB.
Our Site Policies state that commenting constitutes acceptance of our Policies. They also state that all moderation decisions are final. They point out that we do not have the bandwidth to deal with reader question about the status of their comments. E-mails on this subject will not be read or answered.
Again, please read the section of our Policies on comments in full, which we are reproducing below.
Comments Policy
The comments section has become an important feature for both Naked Capitalism readers and site authors, due to the general high caliber of the discussion. That in turn results from having commentors who are engaged, thoughtful, adhere to high standards regarding the quality of information and analysis, and who steer clear of abuse or intellectually invalid argumentation strategies.
The comments section is a conversation hosted in Naked Capitalism’s space. That means that commenting is a privilege, not a right.
You are invited into our space because your comments are often at least as informative as our posts, and they can be funny too. You keep us on our toes and graciously correct our all-too-frequent typos and broken links. However, in order to keep the conversation civil and informative, we have found that we have to establish and enforce guidelines.
We welcome comments and will accept any reasonable or constructive comment that contributes to debate and stimulates conversation, including strong criticisms. We prefer to keep the comments section as open as possible, but Naked Capitalism is not a chat board or a forum. The site’s administrators spend a considerable amount of time in the review and maintenance of the comments section, not just in moderating comments that hit our moderation tripwires (see Moderation below) but also by engaging in comments on a frequent basis, often to keep discussions from going off the rails.
Readers who run afoul of our standards are subject to the loss of comment privileges. The overarching requirement is that you comment in good faith to advance your understanding and that of other readers.
Our Goal is to Promote Critical Thinking
When in doubt, consider this quote as a guideline:
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.
-Harlan Ellison
Typical violations:
1) Engaging in broken record: Repeating the same point, especially when it’s been refuted. That includes taking an argument that was rebutted on one post and repeating the same argument on another post.
2) Not reading the post: Evidently reacting only to the headline of a post, or not reading through to the end.
3) Bad faith: Deploying any of a long list of rhetorical tricks that are all about winning, as opposed to conversing. As former debaters, Yves and Lambert know these tricks well. Don’t use them.
The most common is straw manning, as in misrepresenting what a post or comment author said. That includes speaking on someone else’s behalf.
4) Insulting your hosts and fellow commentors: These discussions take place in Naked Capitalism’s space. So don’t throw your drink in your host’s face, whether Yves, Lambert, or any poster.
5) Rude and offensive language: Naked Capitalism is read by a wide audience, and if your comment includes offensive or inappropriate language, it may be deleted. For example, please avoid “bad language” that’s more than mildly vigorous – no body parts, please! – and avoid racist ranting.
6) Ignoring Site Policies after having been instructed to read them. When we ask a commenter to read the Site Policies before commenting again, only to have them respond with a speed or in a manner that makes clear they did not do so, that’s a site violation, and a fast track to being moderated or blacklisted.
6) Ignoring Site Policies after having been instructed to read them. When we ask a commenter to read the Site Policies before commenting again, only to have them respond with a speed or in a manner that makes clear they did not do so, that’s a site violation, and a fast track to being moderated or blacklisted.
Other violations include but are not limited to: ad hominem attacks, hogging bandwidth, assignments/demands (asking/telling post authors or site admins to Do Something other than fix typos or broken HTML), sock-puppeting yourself, link-whoring/using comments to promote your work, thread-jacking, concern-trolling, jailbreaking, acting as a self-appointed moderator and/or complaining about moderation policy, agnotology or other forms of making stuff up, tag teaming, and a high invective-to-content ratio. In borderline cases, such as recidivist smarminess, we may fall back on the platypus rule.
Even though we aim to tolerate many points of view, provided advocates remain civil and factual, there are some issues on which there is no other side. Israel’s genocide is one of them. We will not publish any comments that advocate for genocide and ethnic cleansing and will rip out any that manage to get through.
Filtering and Moderation
WARNING: The Internet is a hostile computing environment. Always copy your comment before pressing the Submit button. That way, if your comment does not appear for some reason, you will not have lost it.
Spam
Naked Capitalism comments are filtered for spam using Akismet. We have no control over Akismet, and sometimes it acts like Skynet.
Akismet operates algorithmically. If you act like a spammer, Akismet will classify you as a spammer and throw and keep throwing your comments into the spam bucket, which is so overwhelmingly full of genuine spam that we won’t have time to fish them out.
Therefore, don’t train Akismet to think you are a spammer! Don’t post duplicate (or very similar) comments, because that’s what spammers do. And don’t post with more than four links.
Naked Capitalism operates a complex system of automatic tripwires to protect the blog from abuse.
If your comment triggers a tripwire, it will be routed to our moderation team and not posted for public view until it has been checked. This may take up to 24 hours, depending on workload.
“Why hasn’t my comment appeared?”
Most comments appear immediately, but because we have implemented caching to improve site performance, your comment may take as long as two minutes to appear. So wait, and refresh your page. Otherwise:
1) “We don’t know.” Akismet moves in mysterious ways.
2) “We don’t know.” WordPress has an intermittent bug that causes some comments to vanish into the ether, including even those of site administrators.
3) “Your comment triggered a moderation tripwire.” See “Moderation” above.
Unfortunately, even commenters in good standing hit those tripwires. Your best course of action is to do nothing and wait until our team can clear the moderation queues, at which point your comment should appear.
4) “You have been put in moderation.” That means your past comments have violated these Policies or violated our catchall rule of “Don’t be an asshole.” We may reverse the moderation status later. However, be warned that being in moderation is a step away from being blacklisted, aka “banned”.
5) “You have been banned.” See “Banning” below.
Please do not write us to ask why a comment has not appeared. We do not have the bandwidth to investigate and reply. Using the comments section to complain about moderation decisions/tripwires earns that commentor troll points. Please don’t do it. Those comments will also be removed if we encounter them.
Banning
Anyone who violates this comments policy may be banned from commenting on Naked Capitalism. Banning may be temporary or permanent.
In some circumstances, we may send a commenter an email at the address provided. If this leads to a constructive exchange, the matter may be resolved without further consequences. However, comparatively few provide valid e-mail addresses, which therefore results in the moderators taking harsher action than might have been necessary.
Temporary banning: We may ban a commenter temporarily, and find on review of their subsequent comments that the violation was an outlier. We will then restore their commenting privileges. WARNING: We invest a lot of time thinking through these decisions, far more than you might imagine. The quickest way to convert your temporary ban into a permanent one is to complain about moderation policy.
Permanent banning: Once a commenter is permanently banned, their comments are never reviewed, and they can never comment at NC again. If you test us by trying to jailbreak, we may expunge all the comments you have ever made at NC.
Keyword banning: The inclusion of certain words will lead a comment to be routed directly to our Trash folder, irrespective of the status of the person who provided it. So don’t take it personally if a comment does not appear upon occasion.
Expunging Comments
Our strong preference is to be as light touch as possible. In the early days of this website, we would remove only exceptionally offensive comments. However, due to “exceptionally offensive” having become the new normal in some circles, along with the need to demonstrate to readers that we are in low-tolerance mode as far as rule violations are concerned, we are less restrained in removing out-of-bounds comments.
Unfortunately, the nesting feature of our comments section means that if we remove an abusive comment, we have to painstakingly remove all replies, or else nesting will fail on all subsequent comments on that post. So please don’t feed the trolls! And don’t take it personally if we disappeared your comment as a result of exorcising a bad thread.
Our decisions with respect to individual comments and the status of a commentor are final.
Sanity Clause
In commenting, you have given us the unrestricted right to reproduce your comment, including your user name. Naked Capitalism reserves the right to edit, delete, move, or mark as spam any and all comments. Naked Capitalism has the right to bar any individual or group of people from commenting. Naked Capitalism has the right to turn off commenting for any or all posts.
Commenting on Naked Capitalism is deemed acceptance of these policies.
I was already wondering what happened to the comment section. Thanks for keeping this one of the very rare high quality sites of which the comment section is always interesting and informative. Keep up the good work!
The comments are half the reason I read NC. Good to have them back!
Yes!
I missed RevKev’s takes, always informative.
Here is a suggestion. Could you mark comments which you think are unhelpful ? Something like community notes in twitter. You could also compress such comments into one line and allow users to uncompress them to reveal the full content. Lets not become censors.
As for USAID, its fun when you are not the victim of anti democratic actions or regime change. What you do to others will come back to bite you one day. It might be a long time, but youll know.
Thanks for trying to help, but upranking and downranking by readers has repeatedly proven to be destructive at other sites. Trolls and propagandists use it to promote or discredit messaging so as to advance their agendas.
As an interest group administrator/moderator on Facebook, I have to say that this essay is a jewel. Please, never take it down. I am bookmarking it for future reference.
Thank you for all your work on keeping the site productive and valuable.
I’m sorry you had to resort to draconian measures to curb abuse on this site. Let’s hope the trolls have moved on to browner pastures.
Was wondering yesterday mid morning what I’ll do with some extra time on hand. Grateful and very much appreciate the ability ( and yes a privilege ) to post a comment yet again, and welcome the above policy listing which lays it all in basic, bare bone terms.
Critical eye on the prize, staying abreast of the pulse…it is why I stay. My partner is a huge fan of the tip jar, thus I read while he is resting, or such. I thank you, again.
No argument from me about tightening the rules about posting comments so will have to watch my own here. It’s going to be a very long four years and the last coupla weeks has been like living in a psyops campaign which in a way it has. Truth is, I have missed the people here and it is good to hook up again. Comments are far too valuable to lose through control issues.
Thanks Yves, especially for the reminder as to the rules and quirks of Skynet etc which can catch out even those of us who aren’t seeking to make trouble. Whilst I’m on record as saying it might be best to shut off all comments to preserve the sanity of moderators, I admit I missed comments and hoped some way might be found to restore them.
FWIW I’ve observed worrying trends over 20 years of social media commenting: I was teaching health economics/medical statistics to med students in UK as far back as 1998 and was deeply disquieted that increasing proportions of people showed knowledge that was “deep” in a specific area but frankly not wide (in terms of having basic literacy and numeracy rules of thumb that would enable some minimum level of discourse and debate). I was as guilty as others, in that I had to discard my Cambridge Economics education almost entirely and start from scratch, drawing on things like “how a balance sheet works” (for MMT) learnt in those superbly boring 2 years as an actuary etc. So I’m hardly a saint here.
I think various social factors have led to phenomena such as YouTubers just shouting louder and louder over time, or “straying beyond their lane”, where they don’t know what they don’t know, and a need for a thick skin has unfortunately sometimes caused failure to recognise that they don’t have a wide enough pool of knowledge. The accompanying piece about Chinese growth, and the reminder of the warning by Kuznets about GDP (now decades old) is what I remember when in a “glass half empty” mood: I spent decades learning fundamentals about the need for at least interval (and preferably cardinal) properties of happiness scores if any of those perennial news media pieces purporting to “better compare” countries are churned out are not, in fact, total nonsense. I’ve tended to simply not click on them increasingly as long-COVID induced periods of brain fog make me too tired to engage. I do recognise how I might easily become too thin-skinned, however, and engage in online fights so I (perhaps thankfully) self-censor. But too many YouTubers etc who should know better are unfortunately contributing to nastier argumentation. All you can do is what you’ve said already and I hope it works out OK.
It hurt to have the Comments section yanked, though it’s understandable given the rise in enthusiastic punching down among some commenters. Sign of the times, sadly…
Very many thanks! Well, I have a comment, which is to mention that this is an outstanding site in which all of the above the line authors consistently produce posts of remarkably high quality, or who add very salutary and useful observations about posts which have been produced elsewhere. Given the relative paucity of sites like this, Naked Capitalism is something of a godsend and a very valuable public service. THANK YOU!
I am also glad that specific mention has been made of the extensive and intensive gaslighting and narrative management by the MSM which has been going on over the last few days in response to announcements made last week, the consequences of which are likely to entail a large and regressive transfer of resources in Europe from welfare/investment to the military in response to a real or imagined external ‘threat’. If this threat is not actually all that is being claimed of it, then there is an increasing likelihood of ever greater repression in order to prevent or suppress a predictable reaction against such forms of narrative management. Thus, by degrees, so-called ‘democracies’ risk becoming the very thing which they claim is threatening them.
I will try to live up to your excellent and salutary directions if and when I post comments again, and I apologise in advance if I should fall short of them. Thank you again!
The gaslighting has been going on for so long I think some of us are in need of longer breaks from all Internet use. I am grateful for the break in comments here as it allowed me to get some time and perspective back.
I only speak for myself, but suspect others may relate to it … the last straw for me was Trump’s evil ethnic cleansing plan for Gaza. I did have enough self-awareness to realize I could not comment on that without devolving into rage.
‘Combine that with over 8 months of lying about a “ceasefire” that never came, by Blinken and the Biden administration, that was never questioned by the MSM … followed by the rollout of Musk as a Rasputin dismembering government with random precision, and it is understandable if some of us lost our stuff. This site and a few others were a godsend to at least allow some dissent and freedom of expression.
That comes at a cost to Yves and co. Glad to see comments back. I will refrain from kneejerk commenting and stick to more objective reasoning, while recognizing that there are certain topics where the Goebbels-style propaganda from the MSM and government is so bad that it may be best to just let others better equipped tackle it.
If you aren’t going crazy, you ain’t paying attention, but you then drive others insane with your crazy.
It has become increasingly difficult to not spew out my own growing rage on others and then become the problem. I don’t know how to not become that problem aside from taking deep breaths, rereading what I just wrote, and trying to see from the other person’s perspective.
“First They Came”: deals with themes of persecution, guilt, repentance, solidarity, and personal responsibility. Federal workers at least received notice, the children of Palestine did not.
Is it possible to add a “well said” or “well argued,” button to the comments? When I read something that puts the facts together in a way that creates a new way of thinking about a topic, I would like to quickly recognize it. No pressure, just curious.
This is an appealing idea. Many times I’ve wished I could recommend a comment. However, there is the potential downside of encouraging groupthink. Perhaps it’s better to let virtue be it’s own reward.
The long history of the use of up and down voting systems on other sites is they lead to gaming. Parties with agendas boost or trash depending on what policy/party line they are promoting
If you want to praise a comment, perhaps a short reason why would help (as in for instance, evidence, turn of phrase, etc). That gives specific feedback to that poster and readers generally as to what makes for a particularly valuable comment.
I agree. Like buttons (and similar) also give the incentive to try to author comments for the likes, which eventually works against NC’s purposes as described above. I’ve seen how certain commenters on some Substacks learned over time to author for max likes since that’s what moves comments up the default sort order and it’s often worked to the detriment of comments generally (though not always). And there’s a hobby forum I take part in that has like buttons and I feel the effect on how I participate. I wish I was not so easily nudged but I have to admit it.
Yves, many thanks for this most constructive suggestion.
Just wanted to say a big thanks for allowing comments again. And a bigger thanks to you and Lambert and all others that work on this site. It’s my oasis from the world, I don’t know what I’d do without NC, I’d lose whatever sanity I have left.
I’m sorry you had to deal with comment drama and rule breaking!! I hope everyone takes the guidance to heart going forward and follows it.
Wishing you peace!
Could be the reason Moonbats have always been attracted to Mish’s site(?)
“Please keep in mind that we can also be held liable for comments. We have found that this is not merely theoretical.”
Important point! Thanks for reopening.
Turchin: A recent Goldman Sachs report[xiv] estimates that 44% of legal work can be automated—lawyers will be the second worst-hit profession
Between unemployed lawyers scraping lichen off rocks, and AI agents gish-galloping the justice system, this is a vital point. Irony and /s can be misinterpreted in a critical thinking environment, regardless of good intent.
The information sphere has already become nearly toxic. I had yesterday an argument with my wife when commenting an article on Trump deportation policies published at El Pais. I am not entering into the details of the argument but I signaled her that the reporting included bits which indicated bad faith including news bits that were patently wrong or invented, but served to the general purpose of “Trump is evil” subsiding in the article. Not that I am a Trump defender, by any chance, but I would demand a more serious approach from an outlet which wants to describe itself as serious and trusty.
You see that in MSM outlets, then come and here at NC where it is demanded that commentators behave much better than these outlets and I totally agree with such demands. Because it is important to keep it/us sane and not fall to the low standards that are now so pervasive in the mainstream information sphere.
Thank you (the whole NC team) four trying to keep this place sane.
I want to thank you for the hard work that you do which I believe has improved my own critical thinking. I was sad when you stopped the comments though I understand it.
I think that aside from promoting critical thinking, you also promote meaningful empathy. You make a strong effort to understand and explain what’s going on and that’s with people in mind. For example what you write in this post about closed stores and livelihoods.
Cheers. This site is an anchor for me. But I have to admit that over recent months I had come to worry that exulting in the pain had become the site’s own editorial stance. (Certainly Lambert has sometimes bent in that direction, to my eyes.) And while I think that a stance of withering condemnation toward the Dems and Republicans can and must be maintained, I find it hard to indulge in anyone’s pain.
Hence my own consternation at times, in knowing that–precisely as Yves puts it above–many of my dearest friends have operated with USAID-funding, as members of an NGO-industrial complex begun by the likes of a post WWII Lester Thurow and others, vaulted forward by the neoliberalism–shot through with notions of Western (implicitly, white) superiority–by Blair and Clintion. . . just as I also know, from quite direct experience in places like Jamaica and Grenada, how the CIA has sometimes operated cheek by jowl with such young idealists, one of whom–at a point not so long ago–was me.
These times call for discernment of an ever higher order, and NC helps me to keep the blade sharp. Exulting in pain is PRECISELY the line, I agree, that we need to draw here. The world and West require radical change, but–alas–they also need bandaids.
Indeed. Some might also recall the fate of the magazine ‘Encounter’, which was deliberately established by the CIA and MI6 in 1953 so that there would be a ‘loyal’ Left-wing publication which would support the Trans-Atlantic agenda of the time. Incidentally, its main British sponsor was C. M. ‘Monty’ Woodhouse (later, and briefly, the 5th Lord Terrington), who had been responsible for much derring-do in Greece during WW2, worked at Chatham House and later had a luckless run as a Tory politician before establishing himself as one of the finest Anglophone historians of modern Greece (though with his book on Gemistos Plethon, he showed that he could easily turn his hand to the middle ages). In 1953 Woodhouse had just played a large role in the coup which overthrew democracy in Iran.
The initial editors were the poet Stephen Spender and Irving Kristol (this was before the latter had begun his march to the hard Right). In 1963 allegations of CIA funding were revealed, but brushed aside. However, in 1967 these allegations resurfaced, and were found to be credible. With the war in Indo-China at its height, Left-wing attitudes towards the US were not nearly as sympathetic as they had been in 1953. Spender and his assistant, the distinguished literary scholar Frank Kermode, resigned. ‘Encounter’ then staggered along until 1990, but its reputation had collapsed, and it never recovered.
Funny that you mention Encounter. I am polishing up for republication an interview I did with John Berger in Paris in 1993, in short for for Publishers Weekly (now in its entirety in Paris Review). He talked about the way Spender called his first book ‘evil,’ and the book was subsequently withdrawn, by publisher Secker & Warburg, who happened to be the publishers of Encounter. Berger remains an incredible, essential read; Spender was a blip.
Thank you. The absence of comments only further highlighted how vital a part of NC they are. It was as if I was outside of the community and the gate was closed.
Thank you
I recall how Techdirt swore by their comments system so perhaps it’s time to invest in upgrading the system overall instead of relying on a few overworked and tired moderators. IIRC, their point is that users that are logged in (and they still allow anonymous comments too, btw) can mark any comment they wanted with one of three tags: insightful, funny or abusive/trolling/spam (a single blanket negative flag for all three). The system hides the ones that have enough negative flags and sorts the ones that were marked positive higher by default. Other sites use simple upvotes/downvotes system. I’m not for or against it but it’s one solution of combating the decline in quality.
Thanks but we have thought about this long and hard and this is not a matter of technology. I don’t mean to sound tart but please don’t second guess us. There really is no alternative to moderations.
1. Unlike NC, I have never seen any independent party cite Techdirt as an example of excellence of comments. Our main objective is not to get rid of worst actors (which is necessary) but to foster top quality. It seems as if their objective is low cost in getting rid of abusers.
2. Other sites with political content have quickly had their ranking systems gamed. In our experience, ranking systems produce bad, not good, results since they allow various narratives to be promoted.
3. We are not willing to require users to log in. I am very privacy conscious. I not even willing to give my e-mail address to MSM sites to get access to full articles for free. I would never in a million years register at a site so as to be able to comment. I am not about to subject readers to disclosure requirements that I am not willing to submit to myself.
Yeah, I had a thought that NC’s lack of login system is likely due to some non-technical considerations, now I know what they are. We can only hope that after this very politically charged moment of history passes, the submitted comments will return to “normalcy”. Though in all likelyhood, it looks like this moment will go on for at least four more years…
I find the comment section here to be a valuable addition to the articles. That’s because this community has many thoughtful and informed comment contributors who add real value to understanding the issues being discussed. Hopefully this comment holiday drive home your point to those amongst us, who abuse and degrade this resource you’ve built and provided. If not, well, I will still be reading the posts. It’s not worth degrading the quality of the writing and the comments, to say nothing of the general quality of life for the writers and moderators, just so that comments stay open. So thank you to all of you. And to the fellow readers and commenters: let’s not spoil this rare and valuable resource that’s been provided to us.
NC really has the best comments section that I’ve come across in my wanderings, and I’d hate to see it end. I very much appreciate the additional personal insights, experiences, and expertise that readers often bring to the stories we see here– it’s difficult to find this level of engagement elsewhere on the web.
Thank you, Yves, Lambert & the rest, for restoring comments, DESPITE the vast amount of extra-effort it requires. Thankfully, over the years, my personal “net balance” from NC comments has been very positive. NC is a space for clear, critical thinking and promoting sanity; those who refuse to play by these prudent rules should go elsewhere.
Thank you for giving the comments a chance. I truly hope that this decision works out. Like many others I find a lot of value in the comments but at the same time have seen enough of how comment sections in general can get to understand why one might not want to put up with it.
My sincere thanks to Yves for the restoration of comments. I was fully aware of the necessity of closing comments and support her actions. It’s her blog, and I can’t fathom the ceaseless effort required to maintain such a high quality resource, nor the amount of writing, reading, and research she must do. Every day, week after week.
But here I wanted to applaud how well her paragraphs describe the ongoing disintegration, the “celebration of cruelty and the destruction of institutions” that is ongoing. Lately I honestly can not even bring myself to read many of the Links that describe this institutional destruction, which years before would have left me seething, but now, simply deeply saddened. I also find increasingly that I have little to add to these discussions. I feel as if what is happening to the US is — for want of a better word — unreal, like watching a horror movie, and I often find myself simply tuning out, not out of apathy, but to avoid becoming ever more demoralized or jaded. I am very glad to have the comments back because so many of them are not just bright, or witty, but also very uplifting — in reading them, along with Yves et al.’s initial commentaries and summaries, I find logic, hope, and a map out of this mess. For all this, I am very grateful (leading to a Tip Jar visit).
I will add my thanks to all those above for restoring the comments. One of the nice things about the NC commentariat is that we have people commenting from all over the world who can bring added perspective to what’s being discussed in the articles. When a specific country’s affairs are being discussed you can often count on a resident to pipe up and give their view here.
“When a specific country’s affairs are being discussed you can often count on a resident to pipe up and give their view here.”
This has been so helpful for my understanding of this crazy world.
It is only 2nd to the intelligent and thought filled essays and news choices by you, Ives and Lambert and Conner too.
I’ll be heading to the tip jar soon. This is my “go to” site for info.
It’s great to have comments back at the best site on the Internet
I have gained so much knowledge from the diverse cast commentators
The absence and Yves erudite warning made me realize what a chore it is to maintain them
Thanks for all you guys do
Thank you to Yves and others for giving us another chance to behave ourselves!
Glad to have comments back. The site felt naked (pun fully intended) without them. Over the past week, I found myself reading the site far less than usual. I’d support having to log in to post comments if that would make it any easier on you guys.
A couple of years ago, I decided to write down a few of my own rules for critical evaluation/thinking that I’ve had for a long time. I didn’t get very far, but what I did produce was a table with two columns. The heading of column A was “Just because…” and the heading of column B was “…it doesn’t necessarily mean that…”
So for example a pair of entries in Columns A and B would have been
[A Just Because…] I believe and feel that b is a bad or corrupt person
[B …it doesn’t necessarily mean that…]
—b is wrong about everything
—b is guilty of everything they are accused of
—if b and if c are enemies, therefore c‘s actions and statements should all be accepted as ok without further investigation.
I am 71 years old now and I believe that I started to internalize this stuff (however imperfectly) because of a junior high math teacher (I can still see her somehow reassuring frown at some statement one of us would make).
I know that these habits of of thought helped to inoculate me from Russiagate and helped me to navigate a lot of the confusion surrounding Covid,
An added benefit to having this mindset is that I make fewer and shorter comments.
Thank you for this. I might add another sub-rule:
We don’t have to respond to every infuriating or poorly thought-out comment from others. Ignoring them is an option. In fact, it might be the best option – cast not your pearls before swine, as Matthew said.
My goal when posting comments is to inform and advance the discussion from my areas of expertise. Sincere thanks to Yves & other administrators for you invaluable contributions to our understanding of the ongoing collapse of late stage capitalism/imperialism facing the hard reality of ecological, resource and economic limits.
Thank you Yves. I found myself with more free time, but really missed the comments. I am not going to post anything going forward that is not in your guidelines. I was guilty of frivolous post. I am trying to be more of an observer in this weirdest of timelines.
Thank you. Like others I have visited the site much less when comments were off, and really missed the ability of our expert community to comment on the links, and to put them in a proper perspective.
It’s incumbent on all of us to make the system work, and I imagine we all have personal guidelines about what to post and when. Mine are very simple: do I have anything original and informed to add, and, if in doubt, do I think my experience and knowledge entitle me to legitimately disagree with the authors of a link or with somebody else’s comments? By contrast, whataboutism, invective and reflexive carping or flag-waving, among other things, can spoil a site very quickly, so I hope the management will be tough on violators.
re: freedom of speech Germany
I was drafting a comment to Connor´s entry “How Much More Is Europe Prepared to Lose?” with the intention to point out First Amendment Rights to be another achievement we might be losing in Europe, when Matt Taibbi´s latest hit my inbox.
Taibbi among other things linked to a piece by CBS´s 60 Minutes about German hate speech laws. Just what I was writing about.
I would like to share CBS here because as part of my clumsy comment to Connor´s entry it might get lost to NC´s readership. And in fact you might find it entertaining as I did.
After all censorship is huge in Europe, especially Germany and it won´t go away. And as freedom of speech limits reporting it plays heavily into how future geopolitics of Germany and Europe will develope.
Policing the internet in Germany, where hate speech, insults are a crime | 60 Minutes
13 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bMzFDpfDwc&t=74s
p.s. It is interesting how harsh Taibbi commented CBS. For me as German it was totally revealing to hear each one of these German idiots speak in the piece this openly. Actually they resembled a lot SNL caricatures of Germans of the 1990s and 2000s. Why doesn´t Taibbi see this? Or is it just me. I for sure could not take any of these authorities seriously.
Anyway I was thankful for it, because the mere info offered is enough to discredit German conduct totally. Besides there is so much buried in the form, in the details, the way those individuals express themselves and look at the reporter (long blond hair, blue eyes, speak like a robot? You couldn´t cast ´em better for a show).
Whether or not the producers of 60 Minutes secretly understand this (I bet some of them in the studio do) I can only guess.
To quote one German prosecutor in the end: “We are prosecutors. If we see a crime we want to investigate it.”
Speaking of hammers and nails, is he.
Taibbi preview only:
https://www.racket.news/p/cbs-loses-its-mind
https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/43815560/what-next-sam-kerr-be-matildas-captain
A female of Indian descent charged in England for calling white male police officer ‘white’ and ‘stupid’.
Lovely intersection of colonialism and blue privilege. The matildas should name her captain for life!
Thank you for bringing back comments and once again for taking the considerable trouble to run an orderly comment section. Speaking from the commenter side I believe most of us see the comments as an opportunity to contribute and show support and not just spout off. To me the virtue of this particular comment section is that it does allow debate and debates of course are not just about rhetorical tricks but an attempt to get to the truth of the facts themselves which are often in dispute.
But you make the rules and we are here to follow them or, as you say, go elsewhere. Nobody is debating that.
Thank you for restoring comments. I especially missed the comments that added useful links into the discussion.
I wish there were some way to bring more civility to discussions in the larger world. The present chaos in interpersonal relations combined with the chaos of the climate, the economy, and the polity, bespeaks a frightening breakdown.
My thanks to Yves and those behind the scenes who make this wonderful site function. I truly missed my daily dose of comments. After hitting up the links section, the perspectives provided by the commenters is indispensible. A day without Rev Kev, DJG, Amfortas and many others is a like missing a day at a 21st century version of a fin-de-siècle coffee-shop, discussing the news and politics with friends over caffè americano e cornetti.
I liken NC and its commentariat to the politiques of 16th century France, who often worked behind the scenes to keep France together and were despised for it. (The statesman and philosopher Michel de Montaigne counted among them. He survived, despite being Catholic, by maintaining resolute neutrality.) My hope is that the USA and the western world in general are not descending into the fanaticism and blood-lust that existed in 16th century France. Will the Proles be able to stop the Inner Party before it’s too late?
By trying to make sense of the situation around us, we try to choose appropriate courses of action for ourselves and those close to us. Surviving in dark times requires clear-headedness and and the ability to share important knowledge with those around us. NC and its commenters help provide the raw material for the absolutely necessary critical thinking process. I salute and thank Yves for managing this vital information lifeline.
I don’t often comment but do learn a lot from other people’s comments on this site, (especially the regular contributors) so just to thank you for the tough slog of moderation work you do to maintain the high quality of discussions. It really is appreciated.
I also rarely comment (and haven’t commented at all since a comment appeared under the same user name that I had been given/was using), but treasure the wit and wisdom of most that do. Since comments were banned, I have been just briefly checking in (which freed up a lot of time!). Happy that comments are back, and hoping they survive; Naked Capitalism is diminished in their absence.
Many thanks for bringing back the comments.
While I missed the comments section very much, I think regular breaks are a good idea to take the pressure off the NC team, and a reminder to all of us to stay calm and endeavor to keep up the high standards set by the site.
Perhaps it might be a good idea to impose occasional “comments holiday” or “cooling off” periods when people are getting too emotional? I think everyone can benefit from that every now and then.
also appreciative of the return of comments, but think you provide a good suggestion PK – the time without comments provided a bit more reflection – i thought it was going to last a bit longer – a brief contemplative cessation of comments, off and on, may be of value – surely we all appreciate the value of the ability to comment much more after this brief period without –
The comments section is the reflection of society, which is in great upheaval right now. Ours is an age of psychological warfare primarily, and physical warfare when that fails, and that is coming from those with the most power over the last century or so. The psychological as failing; cracks have been appearing for a number of years now, culminating in the 1st election of Trump, and building through the 2nd. No need saying it started in the Trump era, implying it is the Trump supporters, ignoring the vitrol directed towards them in mind and actual livelihood.
This is for you, S. You need to develop a thick skin, and a wide view. I don’t expect this to be posted, as a number of my prior ones have not either. Yours has been a valuable site, particularly post 2008, so thank you for that. The Mother Hen aspect is the downside…
Yes, society is in upheaval. Allowing that ambient aggression to permeate this site would be a shame. I salute Yves’ determination not to let that happen.
Thank you to Yves, and all the people who comment here. This is my first comment, and probably my last, but I want to register just how much this site enhances my understanding of our complex and worrying world. The comments are an important part of that educative process.
Thank you Yves, its wonderful to see the secret sauce back on the menu. I look forward to once again spending far more time here than perhaps I should, but not caring in the least what others about me might think of it. There are so few places these days that I can count on to be both educated and entertained. All I can really add is huzzah!
Thank you Yves. There are so few places these days that I can count on to be both educated and entertained. All I can really add is huzzah!
Good to see comments back, but I understand why they may disappear again.
Hopefully, a message of appreciation for an author is within the guidelines (yes, I did read this post and didn’t see it mentioned, but may have missed a nuance.)
At the end of KLG’s recent post The Engineering Ideal in Biology and Its Utility or Disutility he gave a shoutout to Iain McGilchrist and his magnum opus The Matter With Things, and a negative review of Robert Sapolsky’s free will book. McGilchrist is an amazing polymath. Sapolsky has occasionally had something to say but his book Determined was a weird wandering of unfettered sophistry.
So thank you, KLG, for a thought provoking essay and promoting someone whose ideas I believe could help our world (McGilchrist).
Thank you! :-)
Was a nice essay.
After reading some of Nick Lane’s books (Life ascending, Oxygen, etc.), AJ-Z seems like a hack that is fishing for speech fees from the very rich that want to extend their soma…, despite evolution that chose a different approach for perpetuating life…
Iain McGilchrist is indeed a good deed in a naughty world. For those daunted by the length of his written works, there are a fair few videos on the Internet where he talks about his ideas. A recent lecture at Darwin College Cambridge is a decent introduction if you have an hour to dedicate.
Please read the Policies. They explain why comments go into moderation
We also explained above that if a comment gets through that should not have, we need to rip out all replies too, so benign comments will be collateral damage. But if we don’t, comment nesting on that post will fall apart.
Thank you for the return of Comments! Not wishing to break any rules, I do want to say a word in favour of ‘whataboutism’. This used to be called context, something the McResistance didn’t want to hear about. So a newspeak word was coined, to render ‘context’ doubleplus ungood.
Joining in the general rejoicing and adding a brief reply to Alex above.
As I understand it, ‘whataboutism’ isn’t really adding context. It’s more often an attempt to deflect or divert an argument by pointing to another example of bad behavior that is intended to nullify the original critique.
Thank you, Yves. I really really missed the comments. And I realized that, probably since the Trump election, and certainly since January 20, I had been skimming through comments until I found a name I recognized as ‘reliable.’ So, yeah, things were getting a bit … demented.
I especially missed the occasional article that the site’s hosts would toss out for critical dissection. Wolves taking down an elk are as bunny rabbits, compared to incisive incisors of NC’s cadre of knowledgeable commenters.
Thank you. Great comments about the comments!
Being a political atheist, I also became frustrated at the emotional and often irrational, partisan silliness that Elections Inc. always dredges up, and NC is no exception. Even the most brilliant, educated and intelligent people can fall victim to emotional manipulation, and get caught up in the Discourse Dictatorship of the mass media cartel and Techno-Feudal Overlords.
I agree, the promotion of critical thinking is of the utmost importance, especially now. Politics can be viewed as conditioning the masses into acting against their own interests. It is based on emotion, not reason. Even if one tries to only state facts, the frustration in dealing with others who ignore facts can quickly turn into vitriol, sarcasm, and hostility. I have fallen into that trap as well.
On another note: I saw this recently and I though of Yves. This book looks fascinating, and will likely confirm what has been discussed at NC for some time. Virtue Hoarders: The Case against the Professional Managerial Class https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuIb4j_hxSw&t=4s
Hi JJ, I’ve read Dr. Liu’s book, and recommend it — you can easily read it in one sitting. Thanks for the link to the interview, this I hadn’t seen.
Not to add to the comment load, but in one of my COVID communities, someone has been banned from at least one group because he’s working as a defense contractor, because that’s what he has to do to survive when academia didn’t work out and he couldn’t get work abroad with his degree. This person is certainly upset about this, and fearful that others might learn of their employment situation.
Good news indeed, I really missed the comments!
Thanks, Yves. I am especially moved by your remarks on current giddiness at destruction. I fear the analogy between war and what the new administration has set in motion may get less analogous and more real. When the proxy war in Ukraine was starting I was amazed at the attitude of people I knew. It reminded be of the blood lust that many people openly expressed in Bush 2’s first term after 9/11. The potential for violent tribalism is frightening and dangerous and I fully support your efforts against it.
Echoing Marshall Massey’s post upthread (@7:42am) – ….” I have to say that this essay is a jewel. Please, never take it down.” After a (thankfully) few previous incidents of being compelled to shut down Comments I’d dare say that our esteemed hostess took some extra time composing this post to make sure that the Commentariat (especially ‘newbies’ desiring to participate) understands the considerable drain of time, $$, and mental wellbeing that goes into maintaining “The BEST Commentariat” (can you trademark that? ;^). In a nutshell, mind yer manners and do what you can to improve the “signal-to-noise ratio”. And if something that you read really resonates, then drop a few ducats in the Tip Jar- as a musician I can’t begin to say how much that acknowledgment means- above and beyond the cash value. Or think of it as ‘paying it forward’.
Live long and prosper, NC!!
Good news indeed, I really missed the commenters.
I sincerely hope you are able in the future to tamp down the trashy posts without disabling comments.
Has consideration been given to the pre-moderation model ( nothing appears until it is judged appearance-worthy)?
That is actually a fair point. I have not wanted to go there due to resource demands but it is an option. It would make explicit that the comments were being moderated and reviewed. That might be a better fallback than having comments open only on selected posts, as many MSM outlets now do.
If it leads to higher resource demands over post-printing moderation, then that is a problem. I have never run any kind of blog . . . not even the least little one. So I can only speculate.
So I wonder if . . . pre-moderation might lead to people whose comments seldom or never appear at all giving up and stopping commenting, which would lead to an eventual reduction of resource demand? And people who had some less-than-worthwhile percent of comments considered worth letting appear might be quietly silently banned without announcement? Some fair and reasonable percentage, whatever that might be? If half of someone’s comments are good and the other half are not let through, might that condition that someone to stop righting the “other half” kinds of comments to begin with?
We do have regular and valued commenters like Aurelien, Colonel Smithers, and AG whose comments wind up in mod 100% of the time for reasons we do not understand. They put up with having to have comments liberated with good humor. So hopefully commenters who saw that happening would put up with the delay. Admittedly, sometimes it is mighty fast but depending on the time of day, can take a while.
But those who were impatient would stop trying, along with a portion of the onew who were having none or only some of their comments approved.
The upside would be making explicit that this is a moderated site, even though we try to be minimalist about it. Readers seem to labor under the misapprehension that we can or should allow all comments to appear. As indicated, they don’t see the flatly abusive and troll-bot messaging we trash. They also do not understand that we are not protected by Section 230. We are liable and without saying more, this is not theoretical.
We have long regarded Barry Ritholtz as the web standard for blogs when he wrote this:
The last time we had to close comments down was shortly after 1/6. Trump is highly polarizing and is extremely good at triggering shows of loyalty and emotionality among his followers and opponents. We are getting a disconcerting number of comments on both sides of the Trump equation that have the form of being at a higher level due to the articulateness of individual sentences but when you read the logic, it’s tribal, with no substantiation of their belief. The argument amounts to “Things will be better or terrible” with no actual logic as to why. Mind you, we are and remain extremely interested in evidence of Trump actions doing good or harm, but this particular genre of comment is not that.
This might as well be the strong form pro choice v.pro life debate. It’s a matter of faith in Trump or not. These at their foundation are arguments over personal beliefs. They are not resolvable and take time and energy from issues where debate can flush out new information, analysis and ideas.
Thank you so much for bring back comments, and for all your work on this blog. It is truly appreciated.
having observed, on occasion, over days and weeks leading to the decision to terminate comments, it felt like much ado about nothing. no doubt viewership plummeted in the absence of the commentariat. to be honest, the primary commenter who reacted angrily, heavily, immediately, judgmentally, to many long-time readers, was the host. the site is less open to critical thinking than it advertises itself as, and seems it would prefer to become an echo-chamber for those who generally share the host’s opinions. there are indeed more open forums and a freer exchange of ideas and aggregated links elsewhere.
Thank you for restoring the comments.
It became clear during the comment-free period that globally shutting down comments wasn’t a feature originally contemplated in the design of this blog. Problems included:
1. The need to shut down comments on posts individually, with no ability to do so all at once
2. Comments on new posts being on by default, relying on authors to remember to switch them off
3. The ‘Recent Comments’ widget on the homepage highlighting any activity at all, even on older posts.
#3 was the real issue and (I suspect) the reason for the comments whack-a-mole game that ensued. Readers seeking out older, non-locked posts to comment would probably not have been a big issue if not for this. As it was, any activity at all was automatically highlighted on the homepage, attracted responses and became the new focus for traffic.
I don’t know how much or little of this list is supported by the WordPress feature set or possible customizations, so I can’t say how easy or hard any of them would be to do. but removing the Recent Comments widget is one possible design change to consider – ideally by making a configuration option to show/hide it, but failing that total removal would be an option. I do occasionally find it useful but wouldn’t miss it all that much if it disappeared.
I appreciate some readers might object, but if the process for shutting down comments is difficult, error prone and/or painful, that all comes out of limited staff/volunteer time and adds to the total overhead of having a comment section in the first place.
Thank you Yves! And in complete solidarity with the thoughts you have expressed above, and those you asserted when you turned comments off. ✊ Here’s to an even better commentariat going forward!
Thank you for restoring comments. I understand why you turned them off and hope we readers won’t force you to do again. I second all the above comments and just want to add that your posts and our comments have been vital to my mental health. My friends and relatives almost all believe what the New York Times and Rachel Maddow tell them with the result that I’m very isolated. The comments section vicariously provides me a community of like minded folks. I just wish I could meet them in person.
Thanks, you guys, for having the courage and dedication to restore comments on NC. Obviously it would be much easier to just leave them off, and the NC team shows tremendous professionalism and good faith with its readership by being willing to take another chance on them.
As a technical professional, my mind immediately goes to technical solutions to any problem. I think you are farsighted and wise to instead appeal to the good faith of the human beings who comment here. Ultimately, if civilization is going to survive, we need to find ways to get along, and learning to participate in a civil discussion is vital training for all of us.
It struck me when reading the above that strictly as a way to reduce the workload on NC staff, it might be effective to enable comments selectively in some fashion. If only half the posts had comments enabled, say, then presumably that would cut the workload in half for the overworked moderation team. This seems like it might be a good and easy approach to making the existence of comments more practical.
Welcome back, everyone.
I find the comments add nuance to the subject–many of the commenters are well informed on whatever issue is in question.
During a recent hospital visit I was talking with a young nurse. I told her I’d heard her large hospital was short 400 nurses. She said many nurses were leaving the field. I asked why — pay too low? Could be better but the real problem is abusive patients, wears us out. I reflected our culture has deteriorated in that people feel more free to express anger and frustration than was the case in the past. Tolerance is a lost concept. Sad.
A deep thanks to the NC team for doing this hard and underappreciated work. And to the commentariat, I missed ya.
Thank you, Yves, for restoring the comments, and for managing the site that you, Lambert, Conor, Nick and the moderators and other people involved do so well.
I have learned a lot from your introductions and the posts here, and from the knowledgeable commentariat, one of the best on the Internet as far as I am concerned.
Thank you, everybody.
Comments here are a welcome addition to so many informative and interesting posts. I am sorry the stress of monitoring the burden of less than thoughtful ones has affected the hard working staff. I hope having that realization hit home will cause those responsible to mend their ways, as this site is one I very much appreciate.
Thanks to you all.
Just want to say that NC remains (IMO) the very best part of the internet and the commitment to genuine critical thinking, and sane discussion are big reasons why. An oasis in a deteriorating world.
Much appreciation to our hosts!
Does it make any sense to start our by limiting comments to those whose email address matches an email address submitted with comments that were acceptable in the past?
You then email that previously acceptable commenter at the historical email address with the link to the article and the comment supposedly from them and ask for confirmation by whatever mechanism is most manageable.
You accept new commenters when some of your current regular commenters have vetted them. I’m guessing your regular commenters would be happy to contribute some time.
Thank you.
After a long 2-year convalescence I was preparing to contribute again to NC when the comment section was pulled. I enjoy the site contributors. I recommend it to all my contacts no matter their political, religious affiliation, or prejudices. I am sure not all appreciate, and more than a few refuse to read outside their ideological borders. For the past 25 years I have read more than 6 hours per day, many sites, looked at many comment sections, and NC is the best. In the past few weeks, I have read the vitriol on so many sites that were previously absent. I will not be surprised, like Project 2025, if this is not a coincidence.
Where is “flora”? Is flora aware that we are back in business?
I was wondering the exact same thing! 😀
I’ve been a longtime lurker here (7-8 years? lost track), but since 2020 I’ve lost much of my enthusiasm for current events. This site has been my only go-to for “news” since then, and in recent months everything has been so depressing to me that I’ve been coming here mostly just to read our commenters — flora, IMDoc, RevKev and many many others. Oh and NYCterrist who I met at Yves book-unloading going away party on the UES lo these many years ago!
I have truly missed reading you all and very happy I will still be able to!