Left In Lowell

I hope it hasn’t escaped anyone’s notice here that the writers here at LiL (and most blogs) are unpaid. I never thought I would have to clarify that hey, sometimes we have actual off-line lives, and despite the fact that several people have moderating capability for the blog, we can’t always get your comments moderated right away. That seems rather self-explanatory.

I’ve written that we decided to keep moderation turned on after city elections were over because we think it’s working, making LiL a better place. We have had a fairly civil conversation, no more crazy drive-by posters (well, there are a couple, but we catch them quick) and what’s more, we catch a bunch of automated spam. Computer-generated spam comments are the bane of an open blog’s existence. I don’t have to tell you how awful it is to see such comments, especially the x-rated ones, in your blog, and we’re still trying to go clean up all the old posts from up to three years back which got hit by spam comments over time.

We feel pretty confident that we’re getting around to approving people’s comments pretty quickly, whether that’s during the weekday or at night or a weekend. You largely have Mr. Lynne to thank for that, as he’s pretty diligent at checking at all hours, as well as Mimi, and KRS, who still helps us out on occasion. I’d like to take the time to thank them for that. However, a recent incident where a (I can’t say lovable, but at least known) comment curmudgeon posted on Friday night and didn’t get approved, apparently, quick enough for them. As it happens, it was Winterfest eve for some, and a lovely spontaneous romantic candlelit dinner for others. But instead of waiting patiently, even unto the next morning when people might be around to moderate, this person then proceeded to spam us with twelve comments about how we are evil censors, etc and so forth. Needless to say, said comments got deleted, including the original one. We absorb a lot of abuse here, but even we have our limits.

It takes extraordinary effort to be banned from LiL. It even takes quite a lot to get your comment edited in any way; we don’t do either action lightly. We don’t do it to people who merely disagree with us. We don’t even do it when we think a person is completely off their rocker and we’re sick of arguing with them. Nope, it’s reserved for special circumstances, when we really have no other choice. We are not interested in censorship or blocking other points of view if we can help it. I think we’ve applied these standards pretty fairly.

So please, the next time you comment and do not get through right away, and are tempted to just post over and over trying to get us to hurry up, remember that bloggers have dinner to cook, and home improvement projects, weekends away, vacations, and work. We’re all volunteers here. If you really think you were banned or your comment deleted, send a (polite) email to one of the email addresses listed to the right. Maybe you’ll get a (polite) explanation back. But for heaven’s sake, do not spam-comment, because that’s a quick way to get yourself deleted. Respect our time and effort, and we sure as heck will respect yours. Cuz with very few exceptions, we really do love you guys. You all are what make writing - and moderating - this blog worthwhile.