A Small Victory

What if I promise to behave in the comments but misbehave in the kitchen?

Nothing like making naughty salads, by gum!

Hmm...my magnum opus of rants, the rant to end all rants, is still on the Kim thread, so I guess I didn't break the rules.

Bully for me!

It's too bad you get so many comments, because the comment queue script would be a godsend to you right about now...

Gregory,
And what a rant it is!

"I am intrigued by your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter..." :)

A Small Victory without comments would be like a Lambourghini stripped down and on cinder blocks in a back alley somewhere. You can't do it, Michele! Think of the children!

Although this takes time, it's pretty funny to edit people's comments. That way "I hate everyone" can become "I love smurfs." You can mark them as [edited] to retain your credibility. You've made it clear what you won't tolerate.

There's an MT plugin that I think is called "DisEnvowelment" that allows a subtle, effective, and plausibly deniable weapon. Enter the IP of the commenter, rebuild the page their comment is on, and the comment is left in place, but stripped of all vowels.

Common insults become "fck y, mthrfckr, t sht nd d"

Gosh, must have been some weird server glitch.

Photodude...That would be interesting.

Michele, please keep comments. I think there are a bunch of immature comment writers who will botch this up for all of us.

Yeah, Al Mujawhatever did that to Diana Moon some time back. It just made Al Muji look dumb, if you ask me. Diana was making her usual strong points, and Al Mu couldn't take the argument.

insults and third-grade name calling

The usual exemptions apply, of course:

Ted Rall
Mark Morford
Any and all contributors to Indymedia
Any and all posters to Democratic Underground
Any and all citizens of France

I'm talking about people they were addressing directly - not a public figure, nor someone who say, wished death on a certain segment of society or said vile things about them first.

Making fun of someone's name is no way to rebutt any argument anyhow.

So it's OK to insult people as long as they don't comment here?

Sounds awfully hairsplitting to me.

shrug It's your sandbox.

Exactly, it's her sandbox, and she's extending the courtesy of mentioning it to her readers. Thank you, Michele. We're not worthy of the respect you have given us.

y'know, Thlayli, I've not seen Michele use things like 'Dead Rall' or 'Mark Dorkford' as elements of argument. And her comments about posts on DU and indymedia--and those who make them are generally reserved for the posters ideas--and do not revolve around kindergarten name-calling and bluster.

And making derisive comments that are aimed at a nationality, like the French, while upset with the policies the government of that nation espouses is a common occurence. Until you can get your leftish cohorts to refrain from disparaging things American, I think that this partcular hair remains safely unsplit--it is rhetorical shorthand, nothing more.