Breaking – There will be no change in Legal Insurrection Comment Section
Lola the Alaskan Sled Chihuahua is resistant to change.

Last night, for reasons unrelated to this post, I was looking back at the posts from when former Cornell undergrad Kathleen McCaffrey joined (November 2010) and then departed (May 2012) Legal Insurrection.
What I immediately noticed is how many of the commenters back then still are commenters now. That sense of continuity and community is one of the things I think sets Legal Insurrection apart.
But it wasn’t something I was going to write about.
Over the years I’ve struggled with how to handle the comment section. I’ve had to make repeated appeals to commenters to tone things down, and on occasion have had to ban people when they crossed that “you know it when you see it” line. Those appeals have met with limited success, and it troubles me that in the past couple of months I have received numerous communications from long-term readers — some who have been with us almost since the beginning — that the comment section is out of control and they don’t like reading it anymore. They are not wrong, and things seem to be getting worse this election season.
But, that said, I want our comment section to be vibrant and active. I think it would be worse if we opened it up to third-party software like Disqus or Facebook. We would lose the sense of community, and would open ourselves up to more drive-by commenters throwing hand grenades into the comment section then moving on.
As a business reality, there’s a reason why so many of the large websites use third-party commenting functions. Drive-by commenters are page views, and page views are money. I’m convinced we would significantly increase our page views if we used a different system. There’s also a sense of growing the audience apart from monetary considerations.
So the reason I’m writing about this is that this morning I saw that Hot Air is moving to a Facebook comment system:
We have certainly enjoyed the comment section and look forward to seeing it grow and become more diverse. That is one reason why we feel it necessary to make this change. A closed, proprietary system requires far more resources to manage than we can apply to the task. As a result, we rarely have the opportunity to open the system to new commenters, which means that newer Hot Air readers have no opportunity to engage and provide their feedback to our articles. That is unfair to those new Hot Air readers, and it also deprives other readers from a broader range of views.
Also, our commenting format has been outdated for some time. The Facebook interface has comment nesting, the ability to like, and post-commenting editing capability. Rather than use resources to essentially re-invent the wheel, using what has become an Internet standard interface makes much more sense. Facebook has over a billion users and many Hot Air readers likely already have accounts, two key reasons we chose this platform for our site. Sites such as IJ Review, TechCrunch, Huffington Post, WebProNews, Inquisitr, and more have gone to Facebook comments, while almost all others have gone to some other outside platform that allows Facebook for a login, such as Disqus. Some readers may have concerns about using their real identity to comment at Hot Air, and we certainly understand that reluctance. Anonymous accounts can be created on Facebook, though, and those can be used for commenting on other websites.
Perhaps equally pertinent:
This will also allow Hot Air’s editors to put aside policing the comment sections. We get steady, and lately increasing, demands for interventions in quarrels between commenters that often requires much time and effort to unwind.
Every website has to do what’s best for it. Hot Air is in a league of its own and one of the flagships of conservative media. It competes at a different level than we do, so it seems to me that moving to a Facebook system would make sense for it.
For us, I’m not convinced it makes sense. Many of our readers don’t have Facebook accounts, in part because they don’t trust Facebook’s privacy or lack thereof. Legal Insurrection has a large and active Facebook page (give us a “Like” if you haven’t already), and I don’t notice a lot of cross-overs between the people who comment there and the people who comment here.
Also, it would be much harder to maintain anonymity, which is a long American tradition. See, The Federalist Papers.
I asked Lola the Alaskan Sled Chihuahua what she wanted to do. She’s very resistant to change. It can be a problem. Lola wants to keep the current system. And whatever Lola wants, Lola gets.
So, for now, the BREAKING NEWS is that we are keeping our current comment system.
Comments
Like others, I live in the conservative closet. Thank you.
I comment rarely and appreciate the time and effort you put into this blog.
DisQuesting has some features that I’ve learned to like,
embedding images and media clips, BUT the additional drive by liberal harassers, as opposed to further understanding of issues has made me more and more leery of participation.
Also once the number of comments reach a critical, limit, a post should closed to additional entries, it just becomes repetitive due to people NOT reading other comments and only interested in seeing their own POV. – this may be one ;>
Once again thanks for sticking to your principles.
No doubt your post warms the hearts of the Maoists running this country now, including the corporations.
Oops, above was to Grem @3:25 pm.
Dumped facebook years ago.
Have lurked here for two years, thank you for all the enjoyment. Driven from HotAir by the FB requirement. Will do my best to fake being intelligent in my replies.
“Will do my best to fake being intelligent in my replies.”
That’s not really difficult. Just think what someone smarter than you would write, and then write that. I do it all the time!
Though I haven’t commented on LI very often lately, I appreciate that you’re keeping the comment system in-house. I loathe Facebook–never had an account and never will. There are many sites that I will not comment on because they require FB accounts. Ew.
Keep on rockin’, Professor.
Good thing Lola isn’t spoiled or anything.
Cute dog!
I agree with the others who have said that they will not use Facebook. If one is employed in government or by any large corporate bureaucracy, posting conservative political material on Facebook is very, very dangerous. I wouldn’t do it.
I very much support maintaining the status quo in the comment section. In my time here, since 2011, comment section behavior has come up before, and I again reiterate my appreciation for the excellent job Professor Jacobson does moderating. Very few bans, and those all of the you-have-to sort. Very light hand to great effect.
Comments are downstream of articles, i.e., the story selection and quality of the articles are reflected in the comments, troll-fare aside. One happy problem LI has is that it’s a great blog, a great place to get reliable information on the news of the day, but also on pertinent and important side issues left out of most other political/social news blogs. One great feature is the depth of coverage on Israel and Jewish people everywhere, the BDS evil, and antisemitism. Branca’s 2A stuff is awesome, while cartoonist Branco is as good as anyone working today. What these attributes mean, of course, is that the comment section with capture and hold people for considerable lengths of time. On the internet, one year is equivalent to five years in real life, that is, for me to have posted here for five years is equivalent to have read a paper version off a magazine rack, with frequent letters to the editor, for twenty five years. That’s a captive audience that hangs with the same blog for such a long time, relative to internet scales for continuity and focus. And when the same general bunch of commenters ‘see’ each other nearly every day, well, there’s a saying about the effect of familiarity. So, animosities and running battles are to be expected, I suppose. The LI pot boils, but never over. If it ain’t broke…
———-
I thought it might be helpful if commenters offered any tips they hold on Surviving A Political Comment Section.
Disclaimer: I already know that I don’t always practice what follows, but I do try to keep civil and to use humor whenever possible, especially when contesting an assertion. I do not say I am always successful. Anyway…
Inner Ignore Button – Way backin the day I used to frequent trivia message boards, trivia being something I’ve always been good at, never lost a game of Trivial Pursuit. Those message boards were notorious virtual fight clubs, the gen pop always at each others’ throats. The software had a simple feature, the Ignore button. Click it on any poster’s tag and their posts no longer appeared, just their name and ————. Modern comment sections don’t use these that I’m aware of. They should rethink it. To compensate the lack, I have an imaginary Ignore Button on the inside of my forehead with which I’ve mentally blocked out certain posters. If a poster regularly proves too vulgar, too consistently stupid, too repetitive, or those posters you don’t need to read, you already know what it says, or whatever the reason, I hit my mental ignore button and when I see their name I skip over the post. Some of us acquire what I call troll groupies, people who follow specific posters around just to confront their every post. I ignore ’em. Quick tap on the inside of my forehead. Try it. Even if it’s me you’ll ignore.
Living Room Attitude – I frequently have to remind myself of this one, but this is a single-owner, personal project, one-man blog, including contributors picked out by the one man. So, when I’m living free in his comment section, I try to act like I’m sitting on the couch in his living room. Indoor voice, no cussin’, and remember that every other poster is also guest of that one man whose living room this kind of is.
F-Bomb Disclaimer – Tell you what I can pledge right now. I know that the worst cuss words offend a lot of commenters. I’ve been guilty of deploying one of them semi-once-in-a-while, the other one never. I’ll pledge here and now to quit using the f-word, with my disclaimer being I might need to include it in a pertinent quote or citation of another’s words, and since I joke a lot, there might be the rare irresistable joke from me that makes it necessary, at which time I will %^&# it (f**k). There. Aren’t I nice?
—–
Facebook and Discus are non-starters for me, don’t and won’t use them. Oh, I have a facebook page to keep up with family and friends (I have grandkids who live 1200 miles apart from one another), but I tell my fb ‘friends’ that I will unfriend anyone who gets political so as not to see the posts and not to have the inevitable arguments, regardless of liberal, conservative, etc. I compartmentalize my politics and facebook is walled off. Discus… just, no.
Aw, ‘Enry ‘Awkins, this is why I love you! I love the living room analogy. I try to use a little humor by reminding certain folks that there are grandmothers here! You are one of the reasons I read the comments. Thank you.
Hi. I’m annoyinglittletwerp-and I’m a refugee from HA.
I started commenting there almost 9 1/2 years ago. I was told that this place might be a good next place to ‘land’.
The professor is too good-hearted to turn away refugees from HotAir. You shan’t be shunned or ignored – unless you become an annoying little twerp 🙂
One time something was said that really frosted my cajones and that was when someone made a comment about another’s wife. That is where the line is drawn. I have gone off the rails a few times lately and am trying hard to control that so it doesn’t happen again. My comment frequency has reduced as a result. Love this blog the way it is. I did start a FB page after years of thought and use it strictly to keep up with family. I do not use my real name and just like Mr. Henry Hawkins, do not engage in politics with family or friends.
In case you don’t recall, you were one of the commenters in the 2012 post I linked at the top, https://legalinsurrection.com/2012/05/fare-thee-well/comment-page-1/#comment-342369
Thanks for hanging around.
I have asked for an edit button, but don’t want it if the price is Facebook. I started to open a Facebook account, saw how much info they wanted, and exited. The account still exists. That was years ago. No thanks.
I started a FB account to keep track of my grandchildren. They have my real name, but still don’t know where I live – so they find some pretense for asking at least once a month. I don’t do politics on it. The left is too insane, and the Trumpkins no better.
My reaction to the takeover of comment sections by the rabid anti-GOP nuts generally has been to read them and comment less. Invariably that leads, eventually, to reading fewer main posts on the site, too. I still have LI as a home tab, but Hot Air & Ace are long gone.
As a proud and rabid anti-GOPe commenter, (the democrats get it worse from me) I don’t know how you don’t see what we see. Nonetheless, you aren’t a leftist, so we,still share the same values, just not trusting them same people to further them.
JoAnne made a comment in the post debate thread about the lack of civility, and I wanted to reply but decided not to. Now I feel compelled to.
This whole thing about FB or Discus or whatever is just one big smoke screen to hide the real facts.
The problem with the site is not the comment system but the moderation system.
But it is not just the moderation system. I have noticed that some of your authors, in the last few weeks, couldn’t resist putting up stories whose sole purpose seemed to be to start flamewars.
In the post debate thread, I asked a question about Ted Cruz robo-calls. I asked the question because Trump made an accusation. A couple of people replied straightforwardly, but a couple instantly came with insults. Is that the way you want the blog to run? A person tries to check some facts and they get insulted?
And that tone is getting nastier and nastier. I don’t know much about HotAir, but I doubt very many are going to stay here after seeing some of the threads.
Many people like Gary restrict the nastiness to political threads. They also don’t start out their subthreads with insults. However, one person spread his insults out over all the threads. He doesn’t wait to start a flamewar, he starts insulting people immediately. He even insults people when they agree with him. The fact is that he is worse then what people accuse Trump of being.
This being a legal blog I would expect the decorum of a classroom discussion or a court room. Of course above person has already said he does not have to comport him self the way he does in court. Don’t you think it says a lot about what low regard he has for this blog? Oh and his behavior seems to have attracted a pure troll in the form of jennifer johnson a new poster whose post seem to only contain trolls.
It doesn’t take much to moderate the blog, some basic statements suggesting civility. You don’t have to permanently ban anyone just a short respite will do.
The basic fact is:
LegalInsurrection has become a cesspool because you want it to be a cesspool.
Now you are just trying to assuage your conscience and mollify those complaining with talk about how you don’t want to use FB.
All I ask of you is that you let us know what the rules are. Are you going to let all of us insult each other? Or are you going to act like a lefty and only let those that agree with you insult others. I really do want to know, because I’ve been trying to be moderate. But if you are going to allow people to just insult each other willy-nilly, then I am ready to hit back hard.
PS: I don’t like Zuckerburg anymore then other people here. But I don’t think that is a good enough reason to not use Facebook. Just as Brandon Eich’s personal views are not a good enough reason to dismiss him as CEO of Mozilla.
You should not choose FB to do comments for the more basic and pure reason that it is not very good.
I think this pretty accurately sums things up. I suspect the motivation, however, is one of money. I think some regular commenters donate more than others; I suspect that is what determines whether rules are enforced. Perhaps I am just excessively cynical.
@Anonamom – yes, you are being excessively cynical.
Ban her! She’s a witch! And what do we do with witches?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrzMhU_4m-g
Well, she has a wart!
Spectacular. We have #CashForComment Truthers 😀
//You should try donating to the Trumpservative Trumphouse – I hear they’ll send you a free tinfoil hat #protip
We don’t need Facebook. We do need limits per day on posts by each participant.too few people with nothing particularly special to say are hogging the comments.
Do that, and the blog will attract better quality commenters.
Thank you!
Another commenter to this post who was a commenter in the 2012 post linked at the top, https://legalinsurrection.com/2012/05/fare-thee-well/comment-page-1/#comment-342311
I generally don’t comment using facebook because it’s too easy to backtrack to the real me. I use facebook because it is the best site for interaction with widespread family and friends. I’ve been defriended by 2 liberals. One because I wouldn’t agree that him being able to marry his boyfriend was a good and just decision fully justified in the Constitution.
Disqus, for a while, was deleting any comment I made at any site within seconds of making it. I emailed all the site owners, and Disqus, and that stopped. Never got a reply from anyone about how or why it happened or why it suddenly stopped… Commenting systems seen deliberately to be quite opaque in their operation.
I try to use the same user name and password in all the opinion and news sites. But it’s really a pain to comment on a site that you read a lot, but only comment once in a blue moon, and have to remember a username and password.
Many thanks, professor Jacobsen, for not giving in to Facebook. I had a page with that “outfit” for three weeks, was deluged with old buddies and it took threatening the site with legal action to remove my account, photo and information.
Powerline, a popular semi-conservative blog, shut down its comment section a few years ago without any prior warning whatsoever. At least the sellouts running Hot Air had the decency to give advance warning.
The sentiment over at HA is to totally bail. The best reason given is that Facebook leans left and has used its immense power to censure conservative thought and speech. Further, the TOS clearly state that you are not to post anonymously, stoking fears of a backlash against conservatives.
So go ahead, HA. Let your commenters be part of commie Zuckerberg’s pro-progressive, NSA friendly, data mining death star. I’ll be happy to park it right here at LI where this lowly redneck with a law degree can post without fear of censure, banning or outing.
Thanks, Professor.
Most of the time, I decide it’s not worth bothering to comment here. The comment threads have gotten unreadable and a few commenters here behave detestably with personal attacks. As for Facebook, it is what it is, we all detest Zucky, I have a lot of friends who have been suspended over their posts. I find it hard to believe mine haven’t gotten me suspended, and I do frequent Breitbart (where the threads are full of nuts of all stripes but some good folks, too).
Civility is all but dead. Moderating is a thankless job, but I like comment sections that are moderated more than ones that are not. Personal attacks here really have gotten extremely off-putting. But I respect your decision to keep things the same. I’m just not around much (but I do get the daily emails and check in usually).
Civility is not dead, I do think it is on the back burner. Emotions, and passion all seem to be amplified with this election cycle. I also enjoy a more moderated comment section, but this is easy to say since I don’t have to do it, nor do I have a clear understanding how much time it takes. I am really happy that LI is not changing, since I don’t have a facebook or even a twitter account. This is Professor Jacobson’s house, and I do consider myself a guest. I also understand that I take away far more than I am able to contribute, so I am grateful for it.
Many of our readers don’t have Facebook accounts, in part because they don’t trust Facebook’s privacy or lack thereof.
And those of us who do, but write blog comments under handles for good reason, would have to attend LI as passive observers only. That’s still a good thing – this blog is a place to learn things which are rare elsewhere – but mere cheering or jeering at the screen is a distant second to pitching in a comment or wisecrack from time to time.
I COME HERE FOR THE CONTENT. Comments are an aperitif that I might or might not choose to enjoy, but I do not get the type of comment nor these types of links at other sites that I visit.
Comments here are not particularly convenient, and it is harder to actually get into a conversation with someone here. Which is fine – that should be a cause toward making one’s comment complete and succinct on the first try.
And always bearing in mind that the best error finder known to man is the “submit” button.
Thanks for posting this article. I think it’s important to be able to comment. When Popular Science stopped allowing comments, I stopped going to their website. Disqus is an okay way to make comments, and you can create an account that’s independent from all your other accounts. This provides anonymity if that’s what you need. Like user Gospace, above, I was globally banned by Disqus from replying to comments for no reason I (or they) could determine (it may have been because I posted two hyperlinks in a single comment). When they finally unbanned me and responded to my support email, they said they would be reevaluating their automatic ban software. One nice thing about Disqus, as I understand it, is that you can set up trusted members of your user community to moderate the discussions, which frees up your own employees to write articles. I use Facebook every day, but I wouldn’t want to use my account to comment on articles outside Facebook. Just my 2 cents.
Goodmriddanc popular science. What a leftist,rag it’s become.
I don’t come here for the comments, nor the analysis, but for the nude photos. (Where are they.)
LOL……..thanks for the laugh. Nudie pics????
I seldom comment because I really don’t want a fight – I want a discussion. I don’t know where you go to find that anymore.
Okay, I don’t comment here as often as I ought, but THANK YOU for NOT changing the platform for the Commentariat here… I wasn’t onboard with HA from the beginning, but long enough to witness the sad, slow decline since before Salem bought the place from the Boss Emeritus.
For L.I. to follow all the other sites in pursuit of the almighty click-o-meter would be a sad day indeed, and I’m equally certain it would lead long-time Commenters to depart, just as we have from the boards there at HA. ☹️
Ahh, the Good Olde Days… *sigh* ????
Thank you. Privacy is a Constitutional right.
You run your comment sections better than you interpret the Constitution, Perfesser. You might consider posting a set of rules or guidelines for commenting, rather than relying on the “you know it when you read it” standard. It is nice to not have speech stridently policed, and for that I praise you.
I complained about the incivility I’ve been seeing here if late but don’t want you change anything, Prof. Jacobson. I was simply appealing to the posters. There is no need for name calling. Use your big kid words! I really enjoy the free exchange of ideas, even ideas that sometimes appall me but it always makes me think.
Thank you all for an excellent blog. I enjoy every post. Well, almost every post!
Though I came here for the incivility, I remained for the appalling opinions.
As of 1143MST today, 17 Feb, I note the incredible dropoff in comments made at Hot Air on recent posts. As in, zero. I wonder if Ed Morrissey is thinking twice about that Facebook comment move.
There are actually comments on some of them, which I only just discovered after I temporarily disabled Ad Block and Ghostery for that site. Of course, the mere act of disabling Ghostery on that site allowed it to load 74 (count ’em, 74!) trackers… which reminded me why I started using Ad Block and Ghostery on that site in the first place.
Re-enabling my blockers for that site hid the comments again. Big loss – not. I’m off to go clear my cache now. I have no idea what I just allowed them to load up. Ugh.
I, Mr. Applegate, think that, while Lola is pretty much able to dictate her agenda, she’s not the “boss”, and she is, in fact, subservient to me and subject to adhering to my policies and dictates…….
Prof. Jacobson made a comment including the phrase “whatever Lola wants, Lola gets”. That’s a line from a song in the musical “Damn Yankees”, where a character named Lola (played by Gwen Verdon; somewhat of a “siren/Mata Hari”) is boasting of her ability to charm men into doing whatever she wants.
“Damn Yankees” is somewhat of an esoteric reference, and one which is very dated – it was best known during the 50’s-60’s. It’s unfair to make such references without explaining them to readers who were born 30 years after the heyday of the musical.
This is a sore point with me, as is quoting lines in foreign languages; such as: 1 – “caveat emptor”; 2 – “Honi soit qui mal y pense”; 3 – “Mis Luftchüssiboot isch volle Aal” without giving the English equivalent.
(Note: “Mr. Applegate” [played by Ray Walston, aka “Uncle Martin…” ]is the name which the Devil/Satan/Beelzebub/Lucifer/etc. goes by in “Damn Yankees”)
ps – lest I be guilty of what I criticize,
1) “buyer beware”
2) “shame on he who thinks badly of it”
3) “my Hovercraft is full of eels” (ok, there’s an “in” joke that goes with this one [Google it] – so sue me for wanting to add some extra humor, and including a “Useful Swiss/German phrase” from
http://www.omniglot.com/language/phrases/swissgerman.php)
Of all the options available, Facebook is a no-no – simply because there are many readers who will not touch go near the social networks and that includes Twitter.
When PowerLine went Facebook, I took that to be an insult so those good writers get far less attention from me. I don’t consider that they care much or that my visiting their blog is important – but I would miss you guys and I have to be able to comment.
Go to Disqus if you want to do another venue.
No facecrook or twatter for me!
I waste too much time as it is…
Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get me.
That is the reason I don’t have a FB account. Also, when you seek employment, they look (especially my current employer .. who will remain nameless).
yeah, the dog doesn’t look real interested. Possibly not the best one to be trifled with.
I had a Facebook account for a while, but the darned thing took on a life of it’s own, and I just can’t swim in that stuff anymore. I had no control over it.
When thiss election passes, it will probably calm back down a bit.
Thanks for sticking, and I really do very much enjoy the site.
Mark
Speaking of the comment section…why are there pieces where it appears closed, e.g., “Laquan McDonald Video Not Dispositive of Police Criminal Misconduct”?
https://legalinsurrection.com/2015/11/laquana-mcdonald-video-simply-not-dispositive-of-police-misconduct/comment-page-2/#comment-631221
Is there an expiration date on commenting or, am I not navigating the site correctly? Sorry, new here. 🙂
Post comments automatically close after 14 days.
Ahh, thanks William. 😉
Thanks for keeping the comments as is, Professor. I seldom comment, but read the blog daily. While some comments and/or commentors may go off the rails from time to time, I generally enjoy the comments as well. I think it adds greatly to understanding the issues.