Via
atrios and
roxanne, and semi-related to the ongoing F-word debate, this is a very good post from
Frogs and Ravens:
The ones that fascinate me the most are those that get at what is a continuing debate across the blogosphere: that is, what the obligations of a blog owner are regarding his or her commenters, the commenters' obligations in turn, and in particular these obligations with regards to blog content and banning policies.
On the one extreme of the spectrum are those who believe simultaneously that (a) blogs should not post anything that might offend them, even if they are only visiting a given blog on a first-time fly-by and (b) that anything should be allowed in the comment threads, up to and including insulting the blog owner and his or her other commenters. I call this the "The World Exists to Serve Me" contingent.
On the other extreme are those who believe that (a) blog owners can say whatever the hell they want, however they want, and if the people visiting the blog don't like it, they can go away (common rallying cry, "No one's making you read this blog") and (b) blog owners can do whatever they want with regards to their comments threads -- ban randomly, edit comments according to their own whims, refuse to have any comments, ban people who disagree with them, etc. I call this "It's My Blog and I Can Do What I Want" crowd.
I think kos runs his as a hybrid - with community moderation and ultimate control with him, exercised as judiciously as possible.
Paul Rosenberg and I, at My Left Wing, where Paul responded and political cortex, where Paul followed up on his thoughts, have had a running discussion on the issue of blog ownership and control. This is another facet of that discussion.