Mailbag!

I've decided to start a regular feature here at Markadelphia in which I showcase a submission from the new contact form. I got this one last night.

Dear Markadelphia,

I live in Idaho and use your site in my class at the college where I teach as a shining example of the drivel peddled by the left. It's a private college so I can say whatever I want to in class without fear of the PC Cops banging down my door. I'm very active in the Tea Party and spend most of spare time volunteering to take our government back from the statists who have overtaken her. 

I don't have time to comment on your site but I wanted to let the three morons who comment on every post you put up that they are being most effectively played by you. They could be using their time like I do and actually making a difference. Blog comments don't make any difference. No one reads them. No one cares. No one is going to change their mind by reading a blog comment. It's quite a little Venus Fly Trap you are running here. While they are wasting their time in comments, you are out teaching hundreds of children every year. 

This will be my only contact with you as I will now turn back my attention to stopping you and your ilk in a more substantive format. 

Fuck you.

Big Jim Slade

Obviously a Kentucky Fried Movie fan and I always love being called a statist and a shining example of blah blah blah but he does make a good point. This would be why I allow open comments:)

Hmm...

Yesterday I put up a post about how I'm only going to engage in comments if people have something new, interesting and not adolescent to contribute. The posts with the most hits since then? The ones with no comments.

In addition, our hit rate for the site overall seems to have doubled as well with very few people reading the comments section of the posts since then. My post about the comments section got the least amount of hits and the renewable energy and soldier posts got the most.

Best blogging decision I ever made...

Time For A Change

This time of year brings with it reflection and a desire for change. When I started this blog eight years ago (after four years of it being an email list started on the day after the 9/11 attacks), September has always been when I have felt the most like shifting gears and trying something new. This year it's clear that the comments section is what is most in need of change.

One of the first things they tell you when you start your own blog is to engage in the comments section. With only 150-200 regular readers, it makes sense that most don't comment, given that only a few people comment on much larger hit sites.  I've always tried to spur discussion but I've noticed that the posts that get the most hits are the ones without the long comments threads.  This is largely due to the fact that the same 3-5 people leave comments. All of them are migrants from a right wing gun blog (the one that I was recently asked to leave by vote) and they...well...they are complete dicks. There's just no sugar coating it anymore. I've tried to be fair over the years with them but they play a never ending childish and dishonest game that has left me completely disgusted.

I've decided after a few long threads in the last couple of weeks that it is a waste of time to engage these people any longer. If anyone has been reading these threads (and my stat counter shows that it's the same 6 people, btw), it's painfully obvious that nearly all of their comments are ridiculously adolescent and employ troll tactics that would not be allowed on most message boards and blogs. Their primary goal is to insult, scream, mouth foam, and denigrate anyone who doesn't agree with them. When the facts don't, it's instant rage that would dwarf a teenage temper tantrum. I get the fact that they see blogs as a place they can "win" because their ideology certainly isn't winning in the real world (see: outside of the bubble) but their willful ignorance, granite intransigence, and moonbattery has gotten so bad lately that I have realized it's utterly pointless to have discussions with them. In so many ways, this is the very definition of the Right today.

Their comments range from dick to asshole to 12 year old bully to psychotic mouth foamer unmoved by facts and undeterred by new information. They are so insecure that they have to stick together (despite obvious disagreements) for fear of losing the purity of MARKWRONG, MARKLOSE, never once questioning each other and having any sort of real debate with multiple sides. Odd, considering they bemoan collectives. Yet they are the ones that buy into the myth (again, 12 year old bully) that more people against one means a "win."

More frustrating (and highly immature) is their refusal to accept that they are the ones at fault combined with their insistence that I am actually the problem. Honestly, it's like I'm talking to my seventh graders in every discussion now. One need only look at the comments after this post to illustrate this point. There will be cries of "chicken" and links to Brave Sir Robin videos as well as long paragraphs which essentially amount to "No, You are!" It's the same shit over and over again and I am terribly bored with it.

Now, I'll always allow comments to be open and will continue to allow people to post their views (minus spam, of course) but I'm pretty much done with leaving comments unless I see some change. I'd rather spend my time writing posts then put up with the crap from these 3-5 individuals. Another reason for this change is that whenever a long comments thread develops, my hit count for that post goes down. People just aren't interested in hearing what these asshats have to say. I don't blame them and I'd rather have more people read my blog.

I understand now why Nikto rarely comments. He has always told me in the past that it's a waste of time. Indeed. I love a good debate and have certainly grown from a few of these discussions but now it's time to move on. And maybe the comments section will as well. Maybe some new commenters will start leaving comments. Maybe these 3-5 commenters will change and leave something new and interesting in which case I will respond. I sadly doubt that will happen, of course, given their hostile fear of progress and total lack of people skills. Obviously, they don't get along well in the real world and that's why they spend so much time posting here.

Without me around, I'll admit that it will be mildly amusing to watch them yell at air, kind of like the guy on the street you see pushing a shopping cart, listening to his short wave radio and screaming about communism.

Isn't that where they came from anyway?