New Manhattan Contrarian Comment Policy

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Starting tomorrow May 8, 2025, daughter Jane and I will begin moderating our comment section.

Since I started this blog in 2012, I have refrained from intervening in the comments in any way. Over time, I have been very happy to host what gradually became a robust and engaged commenter community. With the exception of a Squarespace program that for some unknown reason randomly segregates around 1% of the comments, comments here have been posted as soon as the commenter clicks “Post.”

Most recently, the situation with the comments has deteriorated noticeably.  There have been increasing numbers of spam comments, promising easy money and soliciting readers to click links that I strongly suspect are malicious. Despite many attempts, we have not been able to filter these spam comments automatically. We have also seen an uptick in insults, antagonism, racism, and antisemitism. This is occurring to a degree that I feel has become detrimental to the experience of the blog. My hope has always been to foster intellectual discussion and debate, and to make the Manhattan Contrarian a place where people are comfortable sharing their thoughts and ideas without fear they will be attacked.

I do not have the intention of censoring any large number of comments. The biggest issue is that once we begin moderating the comments, comments will be filtered before they appear. This  could mean there will be substantial delays before comments are posted.  We do not have any revenue here, or any paid staff. We are going to make an effort to review and post the comments at least every few hours, but there might be times that it takes even longer than that.

We know that many commenters come here for the active discussion. We are aware of other websites that have moderated their comments for a short period of time, and then stopped the moderation after things have calmed down.  We will see where we are in 30 days.

For those who wish to comment here, please be aware of the following:

Your comment will not pass moderation if:

  • It includes insults;

  • It directly antagonizes other commenters;

  • It includes racist or antisemitic statements;

  • It is spam.

We encourage comments that:

  • further discussion on the subject of the blog;

  • challenge other commenters in good faith;

  • critique or challenge the MC in a constructive manner.

We hope these guidelines will improve your experience as a reader and commenter, and that you will continue to join the conversation and debates the blog inspires. Of course, we are open to hearing your feedback.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.