the Next Right

Somebody (Patrick? Jon?) really needs to get their act together and start policing spam.  This place is turning into Usenet and it is a very bad thing. 

On the one hand, we have places like RedState where the obnoxious and intellectually insecure Erik Erickson bans anyone who disagrees with him on minor points of what he considers to be conservative orthodoxy (ok, that was a gratuitous dig, but it's true).  On the other hand, we have open forums like this one, in which we trade putting up with the occasional troll for the freedom to express and debate real policy and strategy differences.

So let's get a hold of it.  If anti-spam moderators need to be created, so be it.  My patience with The Next Right is wearing thin.

For a variety of reasons, we have been very hands-off when it comes to the comment section at The Next Right. We do not wish to turn this blog into a comfortable echo chamber. However, it is one thing to operate a big tent and tolerate dissent, but it is quite another thing to allow some behavior to poison the environment for others.

We've heard from a lot of people that the comment section at The Next Right just doesn't have a good signal/noise ratio. There is just too much trolling, thread hijacking, and behavior that simply does not create a productive interesting conversation. We don't object to disagreement - from the left or right - but we want The Next Right to be a more valuable, enjoyable experience for our thoughtful commenters and for the people who would participate if the signal/noise ratio was higher. And, frankly, for us, too.

So, here's the deal: We are not making formal rules. We simply expect commenters to be reasonable, generally substantive part of a functional community. If we believe commenters are detracting from the community, we will block them from commenting. We will not do this lightly, over policy disagreement, or on the basis of political orientation.

Our goal is not to purge dissent.   We do not seek to create a "safe haven" from people who disagree with us.  Indeed, part of the purpose of The Next Right is to confront some of these conflicts.  Our goal is simply to improve the value of that conversation.

Promoted -- we need to reclaim the idea of the web as a place for organic self-organization and self-government in contrast to the top-down philosophy of the left. -Patrick

What is the blogosphere saying?  Can we get it on the web?  How can we use this to raise money online?  

These are questions that each of us who are "online" strategists hear from our clients.  And they miss the point about the power of the Internet for political change. 

Not to beat a dead horse, but the web -- as a medium, as a place -- plays a crucial role in politicking today, and we can foresee it playing an ever-increasing role throughout the 21st century.  It is key part of the solution to the right's woes, but it plays a minimal role in the problem.  The problem, as Alex Castellanos, veteran media strategist identifies in a National Review column, is that Republicans can't communicate a core principle (singular). 

Read on.