Robert Spencer comments on comments, and every point is on target: Jihad Watch: On some comments disappearing, and more.

It is tempting, I suppose, for people who comment here and everywhere on the Internet to speak as if they were sitting in their living room with a group of close friends. It is easy to forget that this is a public place and that people from all over the world are monitoring it closely, for a wide variety of reasons. When CAIR piled on to ISNA’s recent libel fest about my upcoming seminar for the Indianapolis JTTF, they trotted out their greatest hits package: all their own distortions, half-truths, and libels they have circulated about me over the past few years. Some of those, of course, quoted not me but comments from this site — which is an indication of why CAIR is the only party that is happy, besides the commenter, when someone writes something here that is genocidal, abusive, or genuinely racist (terms like “Muzzies” and worse are not welcome). Of course, they didn’t hesitate to quote comments that have actually been removed from this site, and for that matter may have been posted by provocateurs in the first place (I’ve caught quite a few here), but what does CAIR care for accuracy?

It is absurd to claim that such comments reflect on my own positions, since people of all perspectives have commented here. If they think I agree with a particular comment, let CAIR prove it from my own writings. In reality, comments are unmoderated, and I mostly do not read them. I don’t have time to read them. If you put something in a comment expecting I would see it, I probably didn’t, unless someone emailed me and told me about it. When people do email and tell me about such comments or pertinent material, I generally respond if there is anything to say. But the fact that comments are unmoderated means that if I don’t see an abusive comment, and Hugh and Marisol don’t see it, it will likely remain onsite. That does not mean that we endorse it. But when they are called to my attention, I remove them. Thus if you can email me and call my attention to such comments so that I can remove them, I’d be grateful.

Some — particularly those whose comments have been removed — have said that to erase such comments amounts to the very dhimmitude I am trying to keep America from adopting. I disagree. For one thing, I believe that curses, epithets, racial or other kinds of insults, and the like have no place in any public discourse. I also believe that their presence lowers the level of that discourse and leads many to believe, rightly or wrongly, that a site where such things are said by commenters must have nothing worthwhile to say in its articles. And also I think it’s simply stupid to hand ammunition to those who are doing all they can to discredit people who are trying to raise awareness about the threat of jihad and Islamic supremacism. In a war, fight strategically so as to win; a warrior whose efforts help the other side more than his own can hardly be said to be doing that.

UPDATE at 3/22/07 8:46:48 am:

I have a filter in place to stop certain derogatory and/or racist words from being posted in LGF’s comments, and in the last few days, I’ve seen some people attack LGF by saying this “proves” that there’s an enormous problem with that sort of thing here, that I was “forced” to put in this filter to stop a flood of such comments.

This is nonsense, being spread by people with an agenda to discredit LGF.

First, the number of comments that contain these words is minuscule, not enormous at all. There are more than three and a half million comments posted here, and only the tiniest of tiny fractions of that number would qualify. And usually, when such a word appears, the poster is immediately denounced by other commenters—as they should be.

Second, the fact that more than three thousand comments are posted here at LGF every day makes it impossible for me to read every one. Therefore, the filters exist not to prevent some imaginary huge problem, but to stop the very rare cases where one of those words might escape notice, remain posted, and then be used against me personally.

Just wanted to make that clear for the record.