Will this redesign get rid of the ridiculous policy of moderating every individual comment? It's seriously slowing down the rate of conversation around here, and makes it impossible when a moderator isn't on. Truly, it is the most paranoid comment policy I have ever seen anywhere. Most sites get by perfectly well by holding-for-approval the first comment a poster makes, then removing users and comments there after as it becomes appropriate.

What possible reason could you even have had to start such a draconian policy? I think I remember it starting when a flood of misogynist commentators came over, but only holding a user's first comment would have probably solved that, and in cases where it wouldn't have, so what? It can be reported and removed.

I don't believe anyone could possibly function at all if they suffered material psychological harm from seeing the phrase, "Get back in the kitchen," so it's not as though every offensive comment is the equivalent of a seizure-inducing pattern. Indeed, considering that a large part of this site's purpose is to bring examples of misogyny and other bothersome things to our attention, the readership here is, in fact, self-selected for those that can deal with exposure to offensive material without issue.

Alice, we're doing our best here. I'd ask that you please be patient, and respectful, as we go through site changes.

Since we're moving to a community site, where anyone can start a blog, we're erring on the side of caution as we get things going. Thanks.

Alice, everyone else seems to be tolerating the comment policy just fine.

Jessica, I think you and the other editors are doing a great job, and thanks for putting so much hard work into keeping Feministing going.

BTW, the favicon is now missing from the site (although it still shows up in my bookmarks from when my broswer downloaded it back while it weas still up, so I wouldn't be surprised if you didn;'t notice its absence yet).

The comment policy is honestly pretty annoying, especially after a few of my posts never showed up.

Alice commented at June 20, 2008 3:20 PM: "What possible reason could you even have had to start such a draconian policy?"

What's so draconian about it? Not every web page needs to approximate real-time chat. I've even seen a couple of blogs with no reader commenting enabled at all:

http://webbalert.com/

http://www.boston.com/business/blog/filter/

Alice commented at June 20, 2008 3:20 PM: "I don't believe anyone could possibly function at all if they suffered material psychological harm from seeing the phrase, 'Get back in the kitchen,' so it's not as though every offensive comment is the equivalent of a seizure-inducing pattern."

Equivalent of a seizure-inducing pattern, nah. Equivalent of something they'd rather not have up on their own website for hours, probably.

Well, I consider the commentary to be a large part of why I come here, and so hour-long delays are very bothersome, but that's just me, I guess. At any rate, it is interesting that despite every posted word passing under the gaze of a site administrator, a delete-worthy comment still managed to get posted on the Quick Hit: Birth Activists Respond to AMA Decision thread.

As a random aside, some may be interested to know that I didn't just pull the e-seizure thing out of the luminiferous aether. Link.

There have been several of my comments that got eaten or deleted, some of which were lengthy and time-consuming to write, so I'll also be very happy when the switch is over and comment moderating ends.

Trolls are a drag, but they're also kind of fun to play with sometimes, so I'm of the camp that would rather allow posts to go up freely and then be deleted later if they are causing serious problems, being too outrageously offensive, derailing any possibility of intelligent conversation or spamming so hard the site is going to crash.

I agree with kissmypineapple - you all do a great job! Thank you! I'm looking forward to the new renovations.

Despite my problems here, I have always approved of comment moderation or deletion, and banning posters immediately if need be, at the discretion of the editorial staff. MRAs on their blogs whine that they do not practice "censorship" the way feminist blogs do. (Not totally accurate, and they often treat feminist commenters like shit anyway - just saying.)

This is because I understand the need for a "safe place" for women to go to where discussion can be productive, and they do not need to worry about the outside world. If that means my commments not showing, or me being banned, I leave it up to the discretion of the editorial staff, because I'll fail to understand how offensive I am being, myself - until too late.