I decided when starting my blog last January that I wouldn’t allow comments; and except for one or two entries early on (where I allowed them accidentally), I haven’t allowed them. Lately, I think more about the general notion of possibly allowing them, while, as a practical routine, I try to be sure I always block the ability to allow comments whenever I do a new entry.
I weigh the pros and cons of allowing, and not. Why do I continue not to?
It does seem tempting to start allowing them, because with some entries (particularly on movies), I realize I may have erred on some facts that people can correct, or I have not covered all the bases. And more generally, it may make me seem somehow suspiciously aloof not to allow comments.
But I continue to prevent them for a set of fairly simple reasons. Some are rooted in matters from a past year or two, and some are based on much more recent considerations.
Lessons from the 2008 lawsuit
Having been subject to a pillorying at the Writer Beware blog in September 2006, which inadvertently led to my being named in a multi-defendant lawsuit in 2008, which of course led to my bearish experience of getting the suit dismissed against me, I had plenty of motivation not to allow, or to minimize the possibility, of the same sort of thing: e.g., new little whirlwinds of Internet “disputation,” initiated by a thread of comments, tied to whatever topics my blog might cover, which featured a definite lack of common sense, and/or malicious intent, and/or other things I could not effectively answer (at least quickly).
Consequences of Writer Beware’s October 2011 entry on The Write Agenda
The same sort of concern arises from when there was a flurry of activity tied to the blog of The Write Agenda in October 2011. Within this period, on a personal level, I could not easily brook another Internet pile-up of misunderstanding about me, attacks of some sort, or the like; and at the time, the blog of Writer Beware—in a generally understandable enough entry—posted its case about The Write Agenda in early October 2011. In the immediate wake of this, I found there was a sharp spike in the number of searches for my LinkedIn page.
Whenever Internet activity has occurred with some connection to me (such as, not so bad, increased searches for my LinkedIn page that seems discretely associated with some recent post I’ve made on my blog), I try to make an educated guess about what may be the theory that people behind it seem to be acting on, and relatedly what group (with some affinity between members of it connected to a “philosophy”) seems behind the activity (there can obviously be more than one). This is part of my monitoring what has been represented about me, usually content I search for on Google, which has been imperative in my doing my own “reputation management” in the wake of the Bauer v. Glatzer lawsuit. (And is that suit ever “the gift that keeps on giving.”)
In particular, for there to be examination of my LinkedIn page in the immediate wake of the expose on The Write Agenda, it seemed that some informal collection of people in early October 2011 might have felt I was one of the people behind The Write Agenda. As I’ve stated in one or more of my earliest entries to this blog (such as January 28, 2012), I cannot have been part of The Write Agenda, because when it talked about again suing Shweta Narayan, a former codefendant in the suit, this would have made no sense for me, because her attorney and I both worked, with some amount of coordination, to get dismissals from the suit in September 2008, which we did get.
When Barbara Bauer herself posted an editorial on The Write Agenda in August 2012, this should have made fairly clear what I’d suspected back to mid-2011, that she was one of the main people, if not the only one, behind that blog. And of course, I’ve not been an ally of hers since I received her lawsuit papers in March 2008. (My having pointed out on rare occasions since November 2010 what she has the option of doing in connection to her lawsuit’s having been dismissed without prejudice hardly means I am an ally of hers. Indeed, it means that I point out—for whomever it matter to—a hypothetical risk of further lawsuit business arising from her direction.)
A more recent concern: A relevant “Wikisource” page
In more recent months, I realized that there was a “Wikisource” page representing, via a pdf or other means, the page or pages of Bauer’s January 2008 complaint specifically dealing with me. (Today, I happen not to find that page, but find other pages on more general issues noted in the complaint that were alleged regarding me.) Wikisource in general (whose purpose I don’t fully understand), as far as I know, has had no other substantive page about me that is as directly about me as the one specifically on the counts concerning me. Why this page would be posted is beyond me.
It should go without saying that, if I won an MSJ (as a pro se defendant)—and in fact won two MSJs (the first being vacated on a technicality), both substantively approximately the same—against this lawsuit, the suit (as against me) was without merit (and therefore the initial complaint’s being made publicly available serves no responsible purpose). Bauer had received adjudication regarding me. The court system has served her regarding me.
Plus, I had most of my costs covered by Bauer, which in general is the sort of thing that argues that a suit against the person receiving costs-coverage was frivolous.
Now who would have posted representations about me from Bauer’s 2008 complaint as part of a Wikisource page (one, not specifically about me, seems to have been initiated in late October 2011, and another in mid-August 2012)? This is to say nothing about some of the basic statements about me in the complaint (such as even the address given for me) being, strictly speaking, factually wrong.
Part of the point is, it could be only a very few people posing problems here—including misinterpreting (willfully or not) what my role might have been regarding The Write Agenda, or (a person or people with a different agenda) being willing to post the Wikisource page about the complaint pages. With the Internet, as many of us can appreciate, that’s all it takes—a very few people—to pose problems that could mean a headache for someone trying to defend his or her reputation.
Multiple parties with disparate agendas
Another issue is that there could be multiple, not necessarily coordinated “parties” out to do such mischief. Some of these could not only be Bauer and/or a set of people tied to The Write Agenda; but maybe independently of them, there could well be some variety of newly militant “activists,” or maybe some other “breed” of troublemakers. Sometimes, in given instances, you never know who might be behind the mischief, aside from characterizing the nature of the activities in broad terms. All you know is it could be one of a number of sets, each including a small number of people, with different “philosophies.”
One could argue that I need not worry much because these people don’t really know what they’re “talking about” when interpreting such things as my being named in the lawsuit (wrongly). True, but again, all it takes is a tiny number of people who think this way, and they can post things that rise high in search results, and then members of the public “unaligned” with any of the mischief-makers, who see this, can be wrongly influenced.
It’s this sort of thing that makes me want, with respect to my blog, to limit sources of trouble and decrease the chances of possible problems, and therefore prevent comments. Does this seem unfair to those who might genuinely want to enter a conversation about something I say in an entry? Well, as I said, I try to weigh pros and cons on both sides. For now, the course I follow seems best. This isn’t to say my policy won’t change.
Anyone who feels he or she can make a cogent, well-based argument that might persuade me to think otherwise can send an e-mail to bootstrp@warwick.net (“bootstrap” without the “a”). Or, if someone connected to the business interests of a movie I’ve reviewed has some responsible point to make, he or she can do it via this e-mail address. Whoever might contact me should know: Partly for practical reasons, please don’t expect an inevitable response, at least right away.
When you need to be both Beowulf and Henry James
Independent of these considerations, I’ve thought that a writer today, as I’ve long worked to be, has to be tough in dealing with a very difficult business as well as a “sensitive artist” trying to play his or her best “good-faith cards.”
