A note on comments

Hi everyone! First off, I want to apologize to anyone who has been having log-in issues. We will be going through a major redesign soon and we hope that all of these technical problems will be solved through that. On that note – whenever you encounter any tech issues, please feel free to email me! My email address is anna [@] feministing [dot] com. If you email an editor, they just end up forwarding it to me anyways. If you send it to me directly we can have you accessing and writing on the blog much sooner!
The same goes for comment grievances. If you are frustrated about something, have a question about our policy or just want to check with me before posting a comment, please don’t hesitate to email! Writing about being annoyed with the commenting moderation on a thread isn’t very useful because we generally only publish comments pertinent to the post and your question/grievance won’t get the attention it deserves. I understand it can be frustrating when you feel passionate about something and your comment doesn’t get posted right away. But please understand that our approval-only comment system is in place to protect everyone who writes (and reads!) on the blog – editors, contributors and community members alike!

We want to make sure that hate speech, derailing and any other potentially detracting comments don’t go through. We, in no way, want to have a comment space resembling anything close to that! We aren’t trying to get Orwellian on you and silence dissent. Quite the opposite. We just want to make sure that we can maintain a safe, feminist space– as difficult as that may seem on the World Wide Web, where everyone and anyone with an idea and a keyboard has access to our platform. We truly care about our comment space (that’s why they hired me!) and hope we can further develop it into a space where genuine push and pull happens. And as I said before, if you want to check with me if you are unsure about your comment, I would love to chat!
Part of the reason why I applied for the job is because I love reading comment threads. Some of the most moving things I’ve read have not been in a post per se, but in a personal anecdote someone provided in the comments. For folks who tend to skip comments, I hope you start to read and contribute! And for folks who are regular contributors, I hope this type of fruitful dialogue can continue and I hope to learn more about you everyday! And trust, I am reading each and every comment (and if not me, an editor is!).
With much love,
Anna – Your Community Moderator