I suppose it was inevitable but this morning I switched on comment moderation. From now on you can comment freely here but it won’t appear until someone gets round to approving it.

What’s the comment policy? A liberal one. I am more than happy – indeed encourage – opinions other than my own. But I feel they should be politely put and avoid abuse, and I also think they should come from someone who’s willing to put a real email address in the contact form . Pseudonyms are fine I guess (though I don’t like them frankly and don’t really understand why they’re necessary for most people).

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I should explain, though, why this change has come about. Earlier today I <a href="http://davidhewson.com/2010/08/25/history-as-showbiz-the-saxons-deserve-better-than-this/" target="_blank">wrote a piece about last night’s BBC programme</a> on the Anglo-Saxons. It was just my opinion. I felt the programme epitomised an unfortunate trend in television history documentaries, one that puts entertainment over substance and resulted in the knowledgeable and likeable presenter wearing odd clothes, being placed in bizarre situations, and getting asked to do ‘amusing’ things that detracted from the subject matter. The culprit was the medium and director more than the presenter, but she, unfortunately, is the face the public sees.

That’s my view. I’m entitled to it as you are entitled yours.

The post got a few hits and went on Twitter. Mid-morning it had a couple of comments here that took much the same view, and many more on Twitter of the same persuasion. In fact I’ve yet to see anyone come out <em>in name</em> and say they loved the programme. Except for one comment which came in from one ‘James Fortford’ who wrote…
<blockquote>As an introduction to Anglo-Saxon art, I found Dr Ramirez’s insight and enthusiasm for the subject quite inspiring… the documentary was beautifully shot, and well paced. Also it was a joy to see a passionate young presenter given the chance to make a programme on a topic she clearly loves.

Oh, and I must say that I found Dr Ramirez's documentary infinitely more interesting than any of your second-rate Dan Brown rip-off novels.</blockquote>
The Dan Brown thing is frankly a bit odd. I got that a few years back when <em>The Sacred Cut</em> came out. But the truth is that the first three Costa books, including that one, were written <em>before</em> <em>The Da Vinci Code, </em>a book I’ve never read (or anything else by DB except the first few pages of the last one). From what I know of Dan Brown I don't think you can compare much of my output to his. So let's be frank. This was just an attempt at a cheap insult. Was he really comparing a history documentary with a piece of fiction? No.

I  duly emailed the chap to say, in effect: feel free to disagree with me as much as you like. I’m happy to carry it. But let’s be grown up here. The abuse doesn’t really do your case any good – unless it was your intention in the first place for some reason and then the answer's no -- I won't carry it.

I put the comment in moderation and waited. The email bounced back. No such address. The comment came in again, with a different email address. I tried that in case the first one had been a mistake. It wasn’t. James Fortford (or Fortsford in some) doesn’t exist.

The comments then came thick and fast, a dozen or so in thirty minutes.
<blockquote>Oh, you censored my comment? So it's acceptable for you to put a piece of criticism out there for all to read, but as soon as someone criticises your work or disagrees with you, you censor them?

Unbelievable.</blockquote>
Well no, actually. I just wanted you to make the same points but politely. And this wasn't about my work. It was about a TV programme. Oh, and insults aren't criticism either.

He  started pasting the same comments over and over again using different fake email addresses and said…
<blockquote>I can do this all day. Dan Brown Rip-off merchant.</blockquote>
Then there was this succinct piece of anonymous rhetoric…
<blockquote>Twat.</blockquote>
After which I put up the barriers and made it so that all comments now need to be approved before appearing, which is how they are now.

The internet’s odd really. It’s held up as some enabling vehicle for ‘freedom’ but in practice it’s often nothing more than a <em>carte blanche </em>for troublesome cowards who want to spit venom at people anonymously then run away and hide, giggling like guilty schoolchildren in the corner. It’s a shame really. It means those supportive comments for the programme never appeared, just because the commenter couldn’t be bothered to phrase them in a half-polite fashion.

I must say though: none of this is new. A few years ago I was running the Wordpress site for the glorious <a href="http://www.save-wye.org" target="_blank">save-wye</a> campaign. This was 2006 when most people didn’t know what a blog was. We started by letting anyone comment in any way they wanted, without moderation so their remarks appeared immediately. That lasted a couple of weeks until we realised the average citizen has absolutely no idea about the laws of libel, especially when they could hide behind a nickname as 90 per cent chose to do.

A few months later I banned anonymous commenting altogether. If people had something worthwhile to say, they could damn well put their real name to it. You can go through save-wye now and see the effect this had. The tone and quality of commenting improved enormously. People had to think about their opinions, and they knew that they would be seen to be <em>their</em> opinions, not those of some cowardly anonymous poster. Comments became more constructive, more thoughtful.

It was no longer a rabble of anonymous faces. It was a forum in which identifiable individuals could agree and disagree in public and learn how others felt. Get the point? <em>That</em> is what free speech is about. And in order to get it we had to circumscribe what commenters could do and how, otherwise it would simply degenerate into anarchy once more.

I guess that was easier with save-wye, which was a small community website where most of us knew everyone else. It’s harder here but the general rule is the same. Feel free to disagree as much as you wish. But if you don’t say your bit politely, it probably won’t appear.

<strong>Update</strong>

The chap concerned has now emailed me. He hadn't checked the one good email address he'd used so didn't know I'd tried to contact him about his comment. He apologised for getting the wrong end of the stick which I'm happy to accept. Seems the Dan Brown remark was more to do with the book covers -- nothing to do with me, and now changed -- not the books, the last of which, he said, he'd liked.

So it ended quite amicably I'm happy to say.