GJ is disappointed with what he discovered at VP:
I listened to you on Molyneux and was impressed enough to follow your link here. Alas, as so often is the case, a closer inspection disappoints. The format of the site is not engaging, and neither is the tone. There’s an imperiousness, an intemperance about the writing that any traditionalist should find off-putting. The rules regarding commenting strike me as especially heavy-handed and narrow-minded. There appears to be an imperative need to delete everything and anything outside the privileged in-group’s wonted expectations. And the sneering boasts about superior mental attainments sound juvenile and absurd, especially given the gaming provenance of so many of you. If a commenter comes up short in debate (by what criterion we can only guess), why would that necessitate deleting his entire argument? Arguments stand or fall on their own merits and have nothing to do with “regulars.” or cliques. You brag that it’s “not a democracy.” Fine. But does that mean it’s a police-state? Your “finish him” attitude toward the intellectual arena would seem to owe more to Nintendo than Socrates.
I think GJ would do well to spend a little bit more time reading the comments here before reaching any conclusions. What necessitates deleting entire arguments is when they are presented by trolls, some of whom are Soros-paid hasbaras of one sort or another, some of whom are simply people with various psychological issues or an intense personal dislike of me or my politics. There are also those commenters who are intent on spreading a message of defeatism and despair, who may or may not be paid to do it. In none of these cases are they arguing honestly, and long experience has taught me that there is absolutely no benefit to permitting them any leeway at all.
While you may not recognize commenters intent on causing problems, I have been blogging for 13 years and it is very easy for me to recognize the different between someone who is honestly presenting an argument and someone who is not. For example, if you go to Steve Sailer’s or other right-wing blogs, you will see EXACTLY the same comments being copy-pasted into the comment threads there. Those commenters are autokill-on-sight; their comments are deleted and their usernames are spammed.
On the rare occasions that I mistakenly spam an honest commenter, I immediately restore their commenting privileges.
So, yes, one could say that it is a police state if one likes, although I would liken it more to a place that is under a constant state of siege. For example, when we tried allowing the SJW List to be open to editing by everyone, Wikipedia-style, every single page was either poison-pilled or spammed within 24 hours. Once we locked it down, we ceased to have any problems and the SJW List has continued to grow steadily since.
Now, I could simply lock down VP to registered commenters only, but I prefer not to do that since it would dissuade genuine passersby and casual commenters. Instead, I keep it open and crack down hard and fast on griefers. I don’t delete very many comments, there are only 31 trolls on autovanish, and the fact that GJ’s comment was not deleted should suffice to prove that differing opinions are permitted. The fact is that no one who posts a comment or series of comments that is an honest, on-topic argument need fear their comments will be deleted simply because they disagree with me or because it is outside the privileged in-group’s expectations.
As for Socrates, there is nothing Socratic about this blog. If you were more familiar with it, you would know the contempt in which that old dishonest fraud is held here. I prefer to try presenting conclusive and persuasive syllogisms, not play word games that prove nothing. And rest assured, despite being the Leader of #GamerGate, my “start nothing, finish everything” attitude owes nothing to Nintendo or even Mortal Kombat.
Things are as they are for various reasons, many of which have nothing to do with my personal idiosyncracies or preferences. The reason this blog is still around and still growing is because I respond to the actions of the commenters here, both good and bad.