Thoughts on Freedom Pub Conversations

Why do you come to Freedom Pub? Are you here to expand your knowledge about government, policy and taxation? Are you here to talk to other people? Are you here to have your ideas challenged and/or improved? For me, it "Yes," "Yes," and "Yes." I come here to be exposed to new ideas, challenge those ideas, and have my ideas challenged. I come here to interact.

I think my favorite aspect of Freedom Pub is the egalitarianism. This is not Heartland Institute's blog. This isn't Jim Lakely's blog. This is our blog. (Though, I think we do owe Heartland a big "Thank You" for providing this platform for us.) You don't have to wait for a power that be to bring up a topic of interest to you. If it's important to you, then you get to write about it. If there's a meme you want to share, you get to share it. It's a wonderfully Free idea.

I posted a couple of comments on Alan Caruba's recent post, Why Are Climategate Charlatans Still Free?, asking for clarification about his charge of criminal fraud. He responded (and here I'm paraphrasing dramatically) that he was busy and asked that I "DESIST" in commenting on his posts. This dismayed me greatly. Alan and I may have a difference of opinion about aspects of the "climategate" scandal, and that's fine. Our world would be a boring place indeed if we all agreed about everything. I responded with a couple of comments talking about the idea of conversation in general. Unfortunately, Alan has deleted all the comments on that post, closing all discussion of the subject (at least, in the context of his post). I think that is a disservice to Freedom Pub.

Below are some of the deleted comments I made regarding conversations on Freedom Pub. I'm interested to know what other members think about this topic. Do you want to hear opinions that are contrary to yours? Do you think conversation should be free and open? Do you like it if a comment thread goes off the topic of the original blog post, or do you think the conversation should stay closer to the original point?

One of Alan's good points was that due to the fractured nature of his publishing (he cross-posts on many different sites), he doesn't have the time to attend to the comments on each site. My question is if anyone is aware of tools that allow you pull and/or push comments back and forth between sites so as to aggregate the conversation?

[Italicized text are Alan's words from the comments he originally posted.]

Fair enough. I do probably spend too much time engaging with people here. If you don't have the time to respond to my comments, I can accept that. However, I would encourage you to not stifle any discussion around the issues you raise. Oftentimes, other people will be interested in the topic, and choose to engage as well. Just because you don't have the time, doesn't mean others do not as well. I may post a comment, agreeing, disagreeing or asking a question, and while you might not respond due to your schedule, Ron, Rick, Paul or Jim might. Well, probably not Jim, since he's busy jet-setting around the globe on HI's dime. ;) Then Paul and Jim, or Rick and I, or all of us, can have an interesting conversation, and it will be all due to you.

I think you and I got off on the wrong foot when I complained (probably unfairly) that you weren't taking advantage of the tools of "new media" (i.e. linking). Another advantage of blogs is the ability to have a conversation. Sometimes these involve the original author, but on the most popular blogs (whose authors, like you, are very busy), they usually only involve the readers. But that is still an important conversation of value, and I would urge you not to stifle it.I don't think you are seeking to silent debate on the topics about which you blog. You strike me as someone who values the free exchange of ideas we have in this country, thanks to the First Amendment. But when you delete comments which disagree with your position, I start to wonder if my assumption is not true.

They are widely posted on many sites . . . I cannot possibly engage in a discussion over each and every daily commentary.

I think this is a not uncommon problem. There are a variety of technologies which help publishers like yourself aggregate comments from various sources, reply to them, and then push those replies back out to where the original comment came from. I'm not too familiar with any of them, and I think they are all relatively nascent and have a lot of kinks to work out, but I look forward to the day where these fractured discussions can take place more coherently. There are probably people commenting on this story elsewhere, and I would love for them to be a part of this conversation, but alas we lack the tools to do so effectively right now.