Rumiminations on this blog and the comments therein

I didn’t start Peoria Pundit (originally called “Bill’s Content”) more than four years ago with any grand designs. I just wanted to be able to say stuff I wasn’t allowed to say in the pages of the Peoria Times-Observer. After I got my sorry ass fired over there, I took all that denied creative energy and threw it into this blog, and I did have it in the back of my mind that this could be a big thing, perhaps something that could turn into a professional gig of some sort.

In the end, PP became pretty successful blog. I’d describe it as being somewhere halfway between a virtually anonymous cat blog and Instapundit. roughly 1,000 living, breathing pairs of human eyeballs visit this site every day, if my server’s visitor counts are to be believed. Some of these people visit because they found link in Google, Yahoo or some other search engine. Many come here from links on other Blogs. Others have Peoria Pundit in their browser’s favorites folder.

As I’ve said, I’ve resigned myself to the idea that Peoria Pundit is not going to become a permanent full-time money-making job. But I do credit it for something else: Doing it helped keep me sane when I was going through some serious ego-deflating events in my life. I’m kind at attached to it. And judging from the reaction I get when there’s a technical glitch of some sort, so are a few other people.

People tell me this site is popular because its almost exclusively local in content. And it’s because of whatever I happen to scribble down; it’s also because the commenting section has become a forum for discussion about local issues.

You know how some blogs, even though they have open comments, no one really seems to comment on anything? I don’t want that kind of blog. And there are others in which hundreds of people comment. Most of the debate degenerates into the comments about personalities of the commenters and the host. I don’t want that kind of blog either.

What’s left is a sort of middle ground in which most posts have a comment or two, a few posts have some and others have several dozen. I like to let people say anything they want and let them moderate themselves.

Unfortunately, one person kept insisting on the right to accuse another person of a particularly loathesome crime, simply because of a disagreement in political philosophies Granted, it’s obvious he was just calling someone a name rather than making an accusation. But as I told this man, it’s my site, I pay for it and I’m responsible for any libel that gets committed on my pages. This person couldn’t seem to grasp that I was serious and as a result, it no longer posting here.

I didn’t make this decision lightly. I want comments. I want them to be lively and free-spirited. But I don’t want it to be a shout-fest and I don’t want to end up in court explaining why the Peoriapundit.com libeled someone.