Yet another blog eliminates its comment section because participants cannot control themselves and engage in civil discourse. My unscientific poll shows that this problem is primarily an affliction of the left. Many on the left seem incapable of engaging in intellectual discourse. Don correctly labels this problem “e-food fights.” See Cafe Hayek’s announcement below.
To the Cafe Hayek community:
After much discussion and weighing of pros and cons, Russ and I this afternoon have decided to close the comments section indefinitely, starting with this post.
The reason for this move is simple: the comments section has become far too infected with venom spit by people interested not in civil conversation but in hurling baseless accusations (at Russ and me, and at other commenters) and mouthing talking points that range from being juvenile to downright incendiary or obscene, and in all such cases utterly uninteresting and uninformative. The e-food fights that now erupt so regularly here must stop; they make the Cafe a disagreeable and shabby forum.
If and when we do re-open our posts for comments, we will have in place a different system – one that, while surely short of perfect, will help to keep the proportion of productive and civil comments higher than has been the norm here recently.
Our apologies to the many commenters – some regular, some infrequent – who carry the discussions forward in a mature fashion. We’ll miss reading your insights for however long we keep the comments section closed.
