H 23°, L 4° | Tomorrow: 
H 22°, L 6°As many of you are aware, an article published Monday on the AEPi fraternity garnered many comments that were completely out of line and irrelevant to the discussion. Anti-Semitism was bandied about freely and swarmed the discussion threads in the hours following publication of the story.
The Badger Herald does not endorse these comments and has made efforts to remove them from our site as soon as they appear.
However, many angry students and community members have called our offices in the last few days asking us what we intend to do about the inappropriate and sometimes hateful commentary that has flooded our board.
First off, to those commenting, I address this warning: If the comments on future articles continue to produce racist tirades or targeted rants with absolutely no relation to the topic at hand, they will be deleted upon submission. I have no tolerance for such swill and have no problem making sure any comments from your IP address are instantly deleted.
As to the rest of our readers: Our comments will now be under stricter moderation. In the past we’ve felt it necessary to allow all comments pass so as to not allow any comment with even a grain of truth or intelligence to be squelched. We’ve assumed a libertarian philosophy in our commenting standards and believed, up until now, that the best way to keep discussion free and vibrant was to refrain from interference.
I now see that philosophy doesn’t work when some of our readers are dedicated to derailing debate. For this reason, I’ll be revising our commenting policies in the next week in hopes that moderation eliminates those who seek to blare nonsense over the more reasoned voices.
However, I should make it clear that I will still attempt to make our commenting as free as it is reasonable to do so. During the course of debate over the appropriateness of those comments , one commenter said the following: The right to freedom of speech ends once that speech becomes offensive.
No, it doesn’t. Many people on this campus will be offended by what is published, but the mere act of offending people is not an excuse to curtail free speech. What is offensive to some may contain enough practical opinion to raise further discussion and debate. There are other cases, such as the AEPi comments, where the commentary is offensive to all walks of life. When we recognize an offense to common decency, that’s when we draw the line. But not beforehand. Otherwise we may miss a nugget of truth hidden amongst the verbal refuse.
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I believe Smathers’ position is mostly on point. However, why does it take something like antisemitic reader comments to prompt stricter regulation of shameful content? To illustrate, take the scores of hateful, ignorant, and counterproductive comments in response to the Badger Herald’s articles last spring about an alleged rape Sigma Chi. Some of those comments went so far as to make death threats targeted at the men of Sigma Chi while others verbally attacked the alleged victim.
The Badger Herald staff should realize their duty to deliver ‘responsible’ journalism, including both published content and discussion boards. I understand the desire to protect free speech at all costs, but there are obvious limits within which respectable journalism resides. Antisemitism is (or should be) “offensive to all walks of life,” but this is by no means the first (or worst) instance of The Badger Herald failing to abide by its responsibility to the UW community.
Whether it is running stories about an alleged rape at Sigma Chi with no substantiation of an anonymous person’s claims (many of which have since been proven entirely false) or allowing the discussion boards to be used for hateful and derogatory attacks, the Badger Herald must thoroughly examine its process for editing or risk losing all semblance of integrity.
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The Badger Herald might consider using Facebook connect (or similar service) which would allow/require users to log-in with Facebook accounts to post comments. I bet that would help clean things up.
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Ironic, considering you posted this anonymously.
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why would you write your name if you don’t have to
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“There are other cases, such as the AEPi comments, where the commentary is offensive to all walks of life” This sentence really should read… “There are other cases, such as the AEPi ARTICLE comments, where the commentary is offensive to all walks of life.” The way the sentence is worded in the article make AEPi look like it wrote the offensive commentary when in reality AEPi are the victims of hate. I urge the Badger Herald to stop prolonging this mess.
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The Badger Herald has already lost “all semblance of integrity”.
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Boom! Thread over. Get that man a fish.
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Good call Jason.
In deciding rules for moderation, I completely agree that being offensive is not and cannot be the standard.
IMO, the line should be drawn at personal attacks. There’s no reason commentators cannot make get their points across forcefully and pointedly without resorting to ad hominems.
The chances of missing a “nugget of truth hidden amongst” a pile of verbal abuse is almost nil. I don’t think we’re that hard-up for good ideas.
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Like you give a shit.