However, for this thread, there are a number of comments that have been sent automatically to moderation. There are also some comments that appeared (unmoderated) in this thread that might arguably fall short of the “Be Generous” standard. In my experience, simply letting a moderated comment sit there in the queue eventually leads the commenter to reflect on what they’ve written, understand that maybe, just maybe, the comment was ill-considered, or that the world did not absolutely need to see that piece of text anyway, or that keeping score on such matters is not worth the trouble. And that’s the end of it. Sometimes, a commenter will even send an email and ask that it not be moved out of the queue and into public view.

But this thread and this topic have resulted in righteous indignation and protest on the part of moderated commenters (conveyed in additional comments, also sent automatically to moderation) and the demand that they be allowed to say what they have to say. In those unseen comments, people who have essentially opposite perspectives on this issue have attacked the host of this forum, The Chronicle, for not allowing everything they have to say appear in the forum.

I don’t think the problem is with the administration of the forum or with programming of the filter. The problem is that there’s folks with perspectives on both sides of the issue who would, as my mother used to say, “argue with a fence post,” and who will not rest until they are satisfied that their perspective has the imprimatur of the forum. I get it. I identify with it, even. (Who do you think my mother was talking about?)

But it’s the kind of thinking that leads people to insist it’s only fair that they have the opportunity to respond, or that other person was allowed two comments (in a row!) and this different person only got one, or this person was allowed to write 102 words and the other person got 195 words. And so The Chronicle needs to allow this moderated comment to appear or else take down some other comment that has already appeared.

I find the calculus of “forum fairness” to be unproductive and a waste of everyone’s time. I don’t have any patience for it.

For those commenters who have opposite perspectives on this issue and would like a forum to air your perspectives, get together and create one.

With apologies to those whose comments are currently in the automatic moderation queue for various innocuous reasons, this thread is closed.

“monomaniacal–although ill informed” would be much more accurate.

This may be a case of independent invention and could plausibly derive from either the CAT scan of the proposers brain or his having somehow seen the tatooed back of Sandra Bullock’s ex-husband ( or his pornstar girlfriend).

Again, I support the removal of all advertising from AATA buses. It is a drag on the image of the service.

This is especially so given the notorious history of its submitter and its defender here ( who finds it ‘eye catching’).

By the way, there are articulate folks on anti-ad side who’d enjoy a see saw ride.

The context of the original piece would be interesting. Anyone care to translate the Spanish text from “Panteon de Menudencias” that surrounds the image? The “Description” on the UNM page reads: “Pictorial broadside with an image of a spider with a calavera face that resembles [Mexican president] Victoriano ['The Jackal'] Huerta.” Sounds political.

Copyright’s complicated, and I make no claim to be an expert, but it looks like the work in question was created in 1919, and is thus probably out of copyright by this point–I understand 1923ish to be the horizon for copyright claims in the US. (Beside which, if Posada died in 1913, his image was probably created earlier than 1919–I’m guessing UNM is considering the entire page as the “original work” that they’re citing a Nov 2, 1919 date for, as opposed to the Posada image itself.)