Krugman

As with most things, it seems to me to be worthwhile to check in with Paul Krugman about media comments, which he appears to self moderate for his column on the New York Times.

He offers readers this bit of advice:

January 11, 2011, 10:37 am

Notes to Commenters

1. Obscenity will get your comment deleted; I suspect that a fair number of commenters don’t even realize they’re doing it, because that’s the way many of us #$%^! talk these days. But think about it, and don’t waste your time or mine.
2. Stay on the topic of the post.
3. New rule, if you haven’t seen it: Nazi/Hitler references are out unless clearly relevant.
4. Get your insults right. There is, I believe, a fair bit of evidence against the hypothesis that I’m stupid. What you mean to say is that I’m evil.

On a similar subject, he seemed to suggest a fairly soft hand in comment moderation (even for immoderate comments):

January 7, 2011, 12:12 pm

Comment Meta

Just FYI: since this morning, I’ve approved about 320 comments, and rejected I think 10 — 9 for obscene language, one because it was an advertisement for cheap shoes, or something. No opinions were censored; to be honest, supportive comments are a bit more likely than hostile comments to contain unacceptable language.
That’s more or less typical for this blog. Despite the conspiracy theorists who show up in comments, nobody is being censored for being negative, and rejections for excessive length or blatant lies are rare.