My Blog Isn’t a Platform for Internet Randos

In the grand scheme of things, I’m a nobody.

This blog is enjoyed by a few people (mostly technologists, furries, and furry technologists), but it’s not really providing a service that anyone would pay for. There is no “team” behind it. There is no monetization strategy or business plan. It’s just some nerd with “cringe” hobbies/interests that likes to write things far too long for Twitter.

I’m not telling you all this to be self-deprecating. I’m saying it to level out expectations.

Every once in a while, one of my blog posts reaches escape velocity and gets noticed by a larger Internet community. This leads to a stark increase in comments from people wanting to “debate” me. There is no more prominent example of this than my blog post about the dumb “sigma male” grift that became a meme.

The dumb comments on that post–which I will never approve–became so tiring that I left a comment at the bottom to ward off would-be debate-bros.

I’ve received a lot of inappropriate comments on this blog post, in particular. If you disagree, write your own blog post to rebut what I wrote instead of expecting me to approve your comments.

Comment

This prompted another rando to leave the comment featured prominently in the header:

You could just approve the comments. I’m sure nobody is trying to hurt your feelings; a civil conversation of disagreement should be allowed. Peace brother 👍

Fucking incredible. I’m having flashbacks of the sealioning on Twitter back when the anti-feminist movement “GamerGate” was in full swing.

Since some people are confused, allow me to clear up some misconceptions about this blog–and the comment policy it adheres to.

Comment Moderation Policy

This blog is not a public service provided by any country’s government. It is not the work of any company or business.

Nobody has the right or privilege to have their words platformed here, except myself.

I pay roughly $100/year for the privilege of being able to write about things that interest me without having to fuss over hosting infrastructure or secure application design. (Like hell I would self-host WordPress and be responsible for maintenance! I’d never find time to write anything!)

One big motivator for this blog–instead of, say, a Medium page–is that I can write the things I want without being pressured to paywall my content, and without advertisers getting their filthy hands all over my ideas. Having no real incentives allows me to write what I want, how I want, and when I want.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a “civil conversation of disagreement”, or the hundreds of comments I get every year (post spam filter) telling me to kill myself for being gay and/or a furry.

Whether a comment gets approved or not is decided at my sole discretion, and my answer will almost always be, “No.”

If you believe you have a right to Free Speech that this policy might hypothetically violate, you’re more than welcome to start your own goddamn blog and write your opinions there. I don’t owe you or anyone a damn thing.

This isn’t censorship, it’s called having personal boundaries.

If you can’t tell the difference between personal boundaries and an attack on your “rights”, please do the world a favor and permanently remove yourself from the dating pool before you hurt someone.

Starting a blog is easy. Maintaining one can be challenging.

If you believe what you have to say is important enough to get published somewhere, go put the time and money into building your own platform instead of demanding access to the one I built.

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That being said, by all means, continue to write your comments. Just don’t expect me to blindly approve them all just because you wrote them. The overwhelming majority of comments I receive get chucked in the trash bin.