Nihil Nisi Bonum

To clarify the comments policy on this blog

If you want to criticise a living person who holds public office, appointed or elected, and the attack is not actionable or worded in offensive language, I will usually leave the post up even if I strongly disagree with it.

This blog operated for many years with no comment moderation and very few posts indeed deleted, and I wish I could continue to run it that way because I believe strongly in free speech.

However, when an obit thread, is posted on someone who has just died, comments critical of that person which might have been regarded as within the bounds of decency during their lifetime are likely to give offence.

I am not going to ban all criticism on this blog of any decision taken by someone who has since died - for example, if we had a post on pensions policy and someone says that part of our problem now is because the late Prime Minister X was wrong to do Y on pensions twenty years ago, that's within the area of legitimate debate.

But when I post a thread which is intended to pay respect to someone who has just died, posts critical of that person will not get through comment moderation.

Comments

Jane said…
This is a fair policy. There is a fine balance between free speach on policy matters and issues which cause offence, outside the political issues, to fellow human beings who are in mourning. The dead and the feelings of their family should always be respected.

RIP Liam Murphy.
4:40 pm
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