This Blog Is Now Moderated By The Iron Fist of Elizabeth Bennet

I don't comment often, but the times I have it has always been an interesting and worthy experience. I support you doing whatever you need to do with your space to encourage thoughtful discussion and cut down the signal to noise ratio that drowns us all in static and madness.

My day job is actually moderation, for commercial websites. (And for fun I volunteer my services to help moderate the website for a popular web series.) Moderation can be thankless and exhausting at times. You will wonder if anyone ever bothered to read the guidelines. I highly recommend a notepad of standard text to use when dealing with emails/comments. A line or two about "you've been banned" or "this is unacceptable behavior because REASONS" or whatever works.

You'll think initially that you won't have to type something five hundred times because surely people will see and get it, or eventually people will learn not to do something. But it comes in handy and makes it much more efficient to deal with certain situations. (Like say, waking up to find three hundred comments in a thread about ridiculous drama... oh internets.) Plus, not all your trolls deserve personalized rejection letters. Fuck 'em.

Good luck in this new chapter of internet life.