GeekTyrant Comments: Dropping the Ban Hammer

I'm a big believer in free speech and would not want to limit anyone's ability to express themself. But anyone punching and yelling at my house guests is a bully I will happily toss to the curb.

If you frequent our comments you might have noticed my benevolent dictatorship over my small corner of the internet. We don't allow comments that are racist or attack anyone's gender, orientation, or religious beliefs. We allow only specific kinds of foul language, so you can drop the f-bomb until your fingers bleed, but use a vulgar word for your genitals and your comment gets auto filtered into moderation.

The auto filters are far from perfect, and most are targeted to fight spam, but I do as much as I can, to do nothing and let the readers be self moderated via up and down voting.

Over the last couple months I have woken up to an inbox full of flagged comments, of which I approved nearly all. Most were innocuous and in disagreement with one single Disqus user: Throt the Unclean. He started several flame wars with many level-headed readers, forcing me to close comment threads earlier than they should have.

Flagging the comment of some who disagrees with you is pure cowardice. I'm strong enough in my opinions that if some hates a movie I love, I don't need to attack them personally. After weeks of flame wars, Throt the Unclean reveled himself to be a troll and true to his name.

I finally banned him this morning after he left some very clearly racist comments on the site. He's also the most annoying kind of racist/bigot — he's an unaware racist/bigot who tries to justify his ignorance by starting flame wars.

I need to apologize any reader who has been offended by this trolls comments, and in hindsight, I should have banned him sooner. Shortly after banning Throt a new user showed up named "GeekTyrantCensorsSpeech." I've since blocked both IP addresses.

I would happily defend this troll's right to free speech on the internet, but he's not going to shit on my guests' coats and expect to be invited back to my party.