Blog Comments Policy Changes

10/20/2014

NOTE: I awoke the morning after posting this to more than 200 new comments which included threats and intemperate language. I deleted most of the comments and have closed further comments. The closure affects ONLY this blog entry. Other entries remain open.

As per the request of the individual first mentioned in this blog post, all reference to him has been removed.

My blog has more than 1,400 entries spanning four years, and there is no way I can monitor every comment made on every post. Nor, for that matter, can I devote all my waking hours to policing the behavior of those who post on this blog. As anyone who has visited YouTube knows, the owners of comments sections are not legally responsible for nor required to police the comments left in a web forum. However, the actions of a few individuals are making the comments extremely unpleasant for many readers.

I have a few options, and I’m not sure what the best option is. They are:

1. Ask politely that readers refrain from personal attacks on one another and stick to discussing the actual subject of any given blog post. The downside is that there is little chance that this request will be fully honored, leading to the same situation recurring.

2. Switch to an approved comments system in which comments must be manually approved by me before they appear on the blog. The downside of that is that I would have to spend several hours a day working on comments, which is more than I can afford to devote to them. It’s not like I get paid to read the comments.

3. Switch from the native Weebly comments system to their new Disqus option for better comments control. The downside is that switching will delete all previous comments on every thread going back four years. The only way around that is to start a new blog for future posts, but this will damage my Google rankings as well as make it hard for people to link back to my blog.

4. Turn off comments entirely.

So, for now, here is what is happening. To prevent this situation from recurring, I have posted a lengthy set of terms and conditions which supersede the stopgap blog comments policy I tried out in January. All readers are hereby notified that posting a comment on the JasonColavito.com Blog constitutes your acceptance of the terms and conditions. Here are the relevant terms and conditions for posting on the blog:

This blog operates under the general rules of respectful civil discourse. If you choose to comment on any blog post, you take full responsibility for everything that you post. Jason Colavito does not control the content posted, nor does he verify the identities of those posting. Nevertheless, Jason Colavito or any designee he may appoint may monitor any user-generated content as he so chooses, and Jason Colavito or his designee reserves the right to edit or remove any content for any reason whatsoever, without notification or consent. Links to sites considered spam or postings advertising products or services may also be removed without notice or consent. Jason Colavito further reserves the right, at his sole discretion, to deny posting privileges and remove any and all posts by a user.

At his discretion, Jason Colavito or his designee will remove comments containing abusive, offensive, vulgar, racist, threatening or harassing comments, or personal attacks of any kind.

At his discretion, Jason Colavito or his designee will remove comments containing personal information such as home addresses, phone numbers, personal email addresses, etc. of you or any other individual.

Jason Colavito or his designee will remove spam, off-topic comments, or comments that advertise a product or service or constitute political campaigning or lobbying whether in the United States or anywhere else.

Jason Colavito adheres to the notice and takedown procedure for complaints of copyright violation under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Post only content for which you own the rights.

Choosing to post a comment on the JasonColavito.com Blog constitutes an agreement that you understand and will abide by this comments policy, and pursuant to 47 U.S. 230 and all other applicable federal, state, and local laws, agree to hold Jason Colavito harmless and indemnify him against any claims, suits, loss, damages and actions, except where prohibited by law, resulting from posts you yourself have made or which other users of the blog comments function have made.

Pursuant to the new policy, please avoid personal attacks on Voyles in the comments.

Only Me

10/20/2014 07:15:38 am

As long as this blog doesn't go quiet-as in, you no longer consider it worth your time-I'm happy.

Hopefully, with the new season of America Unearthed around the corner, you won't have to report on giants/Nephilim/Watchers for a while. :)

10/20/2014 07:27:29 am

I don't know what you're talking about. Scott Wolter is a *giant* of Geopetrography! :)

An Over-Educated Grunt

10/20/2014 07:50:25 am

That's redundant. Petrography is a subset of geology. :P

He's a giant of archaeopetrography. Which should be a real thing but might instead just be called Wolter Voodoo because he refuses to develop his methodology in a format anyone else can understand. He might very well be writing history, but he's writing it in the Voynich Manuscript style.

10/20/2014 07:51:58 am

Oh, right. How silly of me :)

10/20/2014 01:56:09 pm

By the way, technically you're incorrect. Petrography being part of geology doesn't make the term 'geopetrography' redundant, since 'earth' and 'stone' aren't synonymous. But yeah, I was thinking of archaeopetrography, of course :)

Jason Colavito link

10/20/2014 07:28:31 am

You forget about History's new Giants/Nephilim series, "Search for the Lost Giants," premiering Nov. 2!

10/20/2014 07:31:22 am

*Howls in anguish*

You had to remind me!

10/20/2014 07:33:22 am

I wonder if they're going to do an episode on Sleder Man...

10/20/2014 07:35:13 am

Actually, I think it's November 4. I'll have to check on that.

Greg Little

10/20/2014 07:37:13 am

The show, which will no doubt be a hit for History, actually premieres Tuesday Nov. 4.

10/20/2014 07:37:56 am

A *giant* hit, I'm sure!

Matt Mc

10/20/2014 07:37:20 am

I am sorry you have to go through all this Jason.

10/20/2014 07:39:38 am

You're in a crap position here. Not legally, I'm not an expert there, but for a variety of reasons I'm unimpressed witht he argument, but personally. It's not like this blog is for profit. So... I've already expressed my feelings about this via E-mail. Publicly, I'd like to say that the comments section most emphatically isn't your fault, it's the doing of the commenters themselves. Your work above the comment line remains highly readable even if you nuked everything below.

RLewis8

10/20/2014 08:03:10 am

Just a comment. I believe this is the second or third time you've noted your inability to edit comments (or otherwise manage this blog) due to technical limitation of the current platform. You may want to seriously consider an upgrade - even if it means losing all of the previous comments. Its seems like you should be able to archive/copy the existing comments to a different website - but regardless, it is probably better to rip the bandage off sooner than later. It may be painful short-term, but it could give you more flexibility to address future issues.

Shane Sullivan

10/20/2014 08:03:49 am

Well, I don't think this will restrict my own posting much, but I certainly hate to hear that it's causing such a pain in the ass for you. I wish you good luck, and hope that the minimally
time-consuming/heartbreaking solution will suffice.

10/20/2014 08:07:07 am

Why would this restrict your posting? I don't get it.

10/20/2014 08:17:06 am

It would restrict my posting if I routinely made posts that Jason was likely to have to remove, but I don't think I do that.

Kal the Infamous

10/20/2014 08:34:12 am

I find it ironic that whenever someone on the blog sphere gets miffed they were called out they go on about suing the blog or something. They can't just get over being proven wrong or being called out, and just claim they were bullied. Really? First of all, if this person is an adult, why call it bullying? It wouldn't be bullying. Harassment maybe, but bullying. I don't think you can blame a blog admin for the posting of comments by others. That would be the written version of hearsay. Gossip. The reputation of anonymous blog commentators cannot be sullied. They keep their identities quiet and nobody will know why they are.

I agree that there should be some official rules posted though and encourage you, JC, to add them to the blog rules page. If we're all adults here, we can keep from personal attacks and not be childish about it. That's a good thing. The blog should be for people discussing shows, not one another's posting, no matter how strange some of them are.

Also it might be good to say stay on topic, and not let rants happen that aren't on subject. I've seen a lot of these posts fly off the handle, and have even contributed to some of that. Sorry.

The reason I do not post links to my blog is I don't want trolls coming to look for me through this blog. They can find me anyway and don't need to come here to do it.

I am not a famous fringe journalist but an interested party who likes reading about the strange stories and reviews on this blog. I especially enjoy the reviews of America Unearthed and Ancient Aliens as you are one of the few blogs going there, covering the stories. You're one of the few which makes you a target for trolling.

Since you are not an official news source and are an editorial review blog, it doesn't seem reasonable you'd need to adhere to journalism rules really, just internet blog rules, and the comments should not make you libel as they're from others. Just in case, delete all inflammatory comments, which you have no doubt done.

10/20/2014 09:14:19 am

So. On to more pleasant topics. Let's talk about giants.

Bigfoot: Natural redhead or dye job?

RLewis

10/20/2014 09:21:22 am

I imagine they were originally are brunettes, but obtained the red-head gene when they began fraternizing with the vikings.

10/20/2014 09:22:33 am

Giants are so very boring.

how about Pyramids on comets and petroglyphs on Mars

http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2014/10/earthly-pyramid-on-comet-p67-and-petroglyph-on-mars/

I wonder if anyone has told Hoagland yet

10/20/2014 09:26:53 am

Never mind Hoagland, they're petroglyphs! Quickly, send the Manly Man Action Geologist! We'd better make sure that he's functioning at highest efficiency too, so 100% oxygen for our heroic rockhound!

One spark later, thanks to the resulting crater he can truly be said to have made an impact in his field.

10/20/2014 09:58:22 am

maybe there should be a Wolter/Hoagland team up, just imagine the sacred geometry.

10/20/2014 10:02:07 am

God, the amount of hot air generated in a Hoagland-Wolter tag-team could cause a fire in a pure-nitrogen atmosphere...

10/20/2014 10:03:22 am

"100% oxygen for our heroic rockhound!"

You're trying to kill Wolter, aren't you? :)

10/20/2014 10:03:55 am

I wonder if Steve St. Clair would feel left out

10/20/2014 10:10:39 am

We've accidentally given me the idea for the worst superhero team, or possibly band, ever.

ROCKHOUND: Able to make mountains of copper disappear into thin air! Capable of spinning webs of supposition from the thinnest of tissues!

THE GEOMETER: Can find mathematical relationships between ANYTHING! Sees faces from across space and time!

STEVE: What kind of rap name is Steve, anyway?

... Aaaand Mike Bara on drums!

J.A Dickey

10/20/2014 10:16:56 am

I've yet to opinion on the Martian "femur" that Nasa's rover spotted
a few months ago. the rock that looks like it came from a Martian
sedimentary layer ancient, as in billions of years, and is encrusted.
if S.W starts to apply his geology lore to Mars and by inference the
Martians Ray Bradbury and H.G Wells wrote about, will i be ever forgiven? David Brody has had other fringe thingies in his novels.
Is there any possibility the femur is more than a geometric shape?
Dare i talk Mars, water, magnetic fields and molten cores or even
sapient cuttlefish anywhere other than at a Star Trek Convention?

10/20/2014 10:17:29 am

STEVE "BABYFACE" ST. CLAIR!

10/20/2014 10:21:56 am

JAD -

No, don't start talking about H.G. Wells and Mars in this setting. There's already been one excellent musical about that, we don't need Scott Wolter getting any ideas.

10/20/2014 11:23:12 am

I have the OST to that one on vinyl.

"The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one", but still, they came!

10/20/2014 11:25:40 am

It still defines how the Martians are supposed to sound for me, and I tear up every time I hear "Thunder Child." Not ashamed to admit it.

10/20/2014 01:24:51 pm

Hopefully the band will have martian midgets dancing around stonehenge ala SPINAL TAP

10/20/2014 01:27:43 pm

Matt Mc, "midget" is a derogatory term many find offensive. You, of all people, should know that! ;)

10/20/2014 01:37:35 pm

Fair enough, I am just so used to using the term midget from my work with sideshows, but I will concede you are indeed correct.

So little martian people dancing around stonehenge it is then

10/20/2014 01:44:00 pm

Your sideshows remark is even less PC ;)

10/20/2014 01:55:15 pm

How, I spent years working with and promoting sideshows and burlesque performances in the mid atlantic region. I see the sideshow as a important part of Americana that should be remembered and preserved for what it is and was both the good and bad sides of it. But a sideshow is just people with unique talents showcasing it for people who have unique tastes.

10/20/2014 01:57:27 pm

Are we being ironic now? I really can't tell at this point :)

10/20/2014 02:06:41 pm

No not at all, in 2000 I worked on a doc about the history of the sideshow and afterwards I became more involved with the sideshow community. I started volunteering at a Dime Museum in Baltimore and then when that closed became a co-owner of a sideshow themed bar in DC where we house the dime museums collection. I have met so many great interesting people working with these performers and it is something that I have a great passion for. So no irony here. The sideshow/burlesque community is full of some the most honest and hard working people I have ever met, they all just have some unique tastes and in some cases different ways of expressing them.

10/20/2014 02:09:49 pm

Oh, I wasn't dissing sideshows! The joke was supposed to be that "midgets" are stereotypically associated with sideshows and you making that association is not PC... I guess it didn't work. Welp.

10/20/2014 02:17:33 pm

Okay I get it know, sorry I am a bit tired.

You however are correct midget is not a good way to refer to a person of small stature. I sometimes have to check myself when outside the community.

You however should of seen our Midget Madness night we would have once every 6 months or so, All performers where little people featuring everything from Burlesque to blockheard to fire eating to sword swallowing and even a curtain act (where a performer does trapeze like act hanging from silk curtains) it was our second most popular events right behind Old City Sideshows grand guinol themed burlesque shows with enough fake blood and gore that even GWAR would of been impressed

10/20/2014 02:19:56 pm

Sounds like a gay ol' time :)

10/20/2014 02:27:00 pm

Oh it was but not as much as the boylequse nights hosted b Scotty the blue bunny

http://www.scottybunny.com/

But I digress, I do think Wolter and Hoagland should team up, Wolter could ignore planetary sciences and prove Hoaglands theories and they could together prove that the Templars went to Mars

10/20/2014 09:28:54 am

Grunt --- I'd even concede a seven foot tall Bigfoot who lived say
about 50,000 years ago has to be a pygmy Gigantopithicus and if
sapient, maybe has more of a genome overlap with Orangutans
than with us, Neanderthals, Chimpanzees or Bonobos. Any reddish
hair may have more to do with our distant Great Ape cousins. It
may not be our own red hair or that of the very specific red hair some Neanderthals had. I can see how a Gigantopithicus on an
island inside a community would tend to see evolution reducing
them back to a more primorial being, but perhaps with a much more
sophisticated culture. Lets contrast today's sloths with the bones
of the extinct ones Charles Darwin saw on his legendary voyage...

10/20/2014 10:05:52 am

Insular species tend to be smaller, though. Resource competition drives smaller frames so there can be more of them. See Shetland breeds or the "hobbit" from Borneo. Plus if they have a limited range, they don't need larger frames for locomotion - it's easier to walk the length of North America annually when your legs are bison-length than when they're sheepdog-length, for instance. Basically, small spaces and no outside pressures equals smaller animals.

10/20/2014 10:37:53 am

Not always. There is the phenomenon of island gigantism.

10/20/2014 01:13:31 pm

Don't delete all the comments, just the ones made to annoy or harass other commentators. However, making fun of the stars of AA and AU is okay, within the realm of tasteful discourse.

StrongsStyleFiction

10/20/2014 01:48:00 pm

Please don't go with Disqus. It sucks. It's like Yahoo, which was a barely functional search engine/email people used that quickly became irrelevant once Google came around. Hopefully a more functional comment system comes along and makes Disqus irrelevant.

Kitten in a Box

10/20/2014 03:27:46 pm

Um, I only poke my nose in here occasionally to read your articles but I was wondering if you were aware of the Popehat blog? They are a bit loopy libertarian sometimes but they do good work when it comes to getting pro bono legal help for poor bloggers who are facing legal bullying. They have wonderful articles about what constitutes an actual legal threat and how to deal with it. You may want to read their educational articles and contact them if you are worried.

A.D.

10/20/2014 04:17:12 pm

Why don't you just block that guy?That's all these con men pseudo historian cowards do.Spam and Troll.

The Other J.

10/20/2014 05:26:14 pm

Jason, would there be a way to archive past posts and their comments and then add in the Disqus comment system? Maybe lock the comments where they're at for posterity, and house those past articles at jasoncolavito.com/archive, and have new posts then use Disqus.

Just a thought.

As for frivolous lawsuits, it's clear some confuse criticism and debate with bullying, unless they're the one doing it (a classic sign of a bully). Rather than wave a red rag at a raging bully by engaging, I'd suggest to others to just ignore him, just don't respond. Pretend the post -- no matter how asinine, no matter how many logic-leaps and refusals of evidence, no matter how full of special pleading and borderline offensive (or just plain offensive) digs at others, just let it sit. If a post is especially inappropriate, maybe shoot Jason an email or a tweet, but don't give the guy the oxygen he needs to think he should retain legal counsel.

Besides, it's not like any minds are being changed in those exchanges (except making some entrench in their certainty). Beyond the immediate gratification of dealing with someone who's wrong on the Internet, the last two years have shown there's not much to be gained in those specific exchanges and a few others (relax, it's just a TV show). If those exchanges are going to lead to the blog's proprietor having to deal with legal paperwork or weed his electronic garden every couple of days, do yourselves and Jason a favor and just let ranting dogs lie.

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