Edward Goldberg is a Loser

Like most people who comment on the Huffington Post from time to time (O.K., kind of obsessively, like way more than anybody is interested in) I have run up against the comment moderation policy more than once.

I’m not complaining (too much).  A site like that has to have some kind of moderation policy, or else it would be filled with posts that say nothing more than BWAHAHAHA!!1!, or one word repeated 100 times because somebody’s figured out how to do that with their computer and thinks it’s cute, or, near the top of the thread (but usually not right AT the top) a couple of dozen posters writing First!  I know this because it used to be like that, before they instituted their current commenting policy.

Edward Goldberg, Putz

Still, it can be frustrating sometimes.  Here are some hints to help you deal with the censors over there, if you ever post over there.

1.  Don’t use bad words.  Really, that’s an easy one for them to spot and throw out, and they can be seriously Puritan.  Also, I think robots might be moderating some of the articles.  If you say, for instance, “I wish it weren’t so,” they might see the sh and the it and not the space.  Actually, I don’t remember if that was Huffpo, but it happened to me somewhere.

2.  The columns on the side, their guest opinion people, seem to be allowed to moderate their own comments section.  They tend to be moderated much more heavy-handedly than the news articles in the middle.

3.  A reply to another comment will usually go in right away.  I guess the mods are just worn down by that point.

4.  Sometimes you just aren’t going to get through because, although it’s basically just a big news aggregation site, Arianna is a strange old bird who made her fortune by marrying and then divorcing a gay Republican, and there are certain subjects she does not want discussed.  The name Lori Klausitis is not going to make it into the comments section (the young intern who was found dead one day on the floor of Joe Scarborough’s office), and neither is anything to do with building 7.  Area 51 is no problem, but building 7 is off limits.

Anyway, I responded to a column over on the left hand side today by a man named Edward Goldberg (Professor, Zicklin Graduate School of Business, Baruch College; president, Annisa Group) in which he wrote that Obama might LOOSE the election if the Euro collapses.

I wrote in and said hey, you seem like a pretty smart guy, college professor and all, how come you don’t know how to spell “lose”?  Needless to say, it did not get printed.  So, I wrote again and said “Hey, how come you didn’t print my comment, LOSER”, which I thought was pretty funny.

It still didn’t get printed.  And the misspelling didn’t get corrected.  Oh, well.  I do what I can.