a question of moderation

[ratcreature]

Some years ago I posted some scans of a superhero drawing book, specifically from chapters where it explains drawing women. That post is widely linked, and google brings it up fairly high up when you search for "how to draw comics" and the like. This results in me still getting a steady stream of comments that range from clueless to horrible sexist drivel or worse.

Now LJ offers you the option to lock comments without deleting or hiding the old ones, and having once again an sexist idiot rant at me today (in multiple comments even, I assume the person didn't notice the comment field telling them I log IP addresses), I am considering to freeze comments there. In general I like to keep comments open, and normally I like getting comments on older posts, and every once in a while I get and interesting one even on that post, but is that worth getting enraged every so often? (I usually don't react anymore, but since I screen anon comments to weed out spam, I have to at least glance at their drivel.) The comments are an illuminating display of fail from certain segments of comic fandom, but then we all know about that already, so there is really not that much need to have them enact it over and over again in my years old post.

So I'm waffling, and wondering what you think.

Poll #2698 moderation question

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 24

View Respondents

Should I freeze comments in that post?

View Answers

Yes.
23 (95.8%)

No.
1 (4.2%)

Comments

[sholio]

You can freeze comments without hiding them all now? ooh, neat! :D

I would say to freeze comments and put a little note indicating why you've done it. The tone of the remaining comments ought to provide ample evidence in support of your decision. (I haven't looked - my blood pressure probably can't take it!)

Another possibility would be to screen comments and then turn off notifications. They can wank all they want, but you'll never see it. That was what I did that one time I was getting mega-trolled, when I got tired of dealing with it. I think it actually might be more effective for getting rid of trolls than turning comments off entirely, because if you have no comment option then they might look for alternate ways of contacting you, but if they go ahead and type their comment and then it's screened and never unscreened, they've gotten it out of their system (and they have no idea if you've read it and are just ignoring them).

[ratcreature]

Yes, LJ recently added that feature! I hope it'll come here too, because while I almost never lock or disable comments myself, I think it would be a great option for people who post meta and then have a discussion get out of hand so that they are tired of following, yet can't freeze, which now makes lots of interesting comments invisible, as they disable new ones.

And yeah, I would put in a note. And I have wondered as well whether if I lock there, the commenters would then feel strongly enough to seek out the non-locked version here on DW for example, just transferring the problem (and here you can't lock like this yet), though they might not realize that it is there, if they are unfamiliar with my journal. So I guess getting emails would also be possible.