Around February 6, FT.com introduced a change in the template through which I submit my posts to Maverecon. This caused me to lose any vestige of editorial control over the comments submitted to my blog. All I see is what you see – the comments actually published after vetting/filtering by FT.com.
Until the status quo ante is restored, and I can see the entire flow of comments that have been submitted, I will not post to Maverecon. My personal comment-vetting policy is rather more permissive than that of FT.com – I have never knowingly turned down a comment. I understand that the FT has to worry about lawsuits, and that it has policies against personal attacks/abuse etc. in any publication and on any website that carries its name. Naturally, our interests and positions are not perfectly aligned. By agreeing to move my blog to FT.com, I agreed to abide by a certain code.
But I need the information to be able to argue my side of the ‘what can be published’ issue. Until I can see the entire flow of comments – good, bad and ugly – I am not even aware of what has been filtered out. So until my information base is restored, I will take a break from posting.
