Wednesday, September 6, 2017

From the glass-enclosed newsroom high above Global Military Justice Reform plaza

Global Military Justice Reform is double-barreled: it includes both "posts" and "comments." Posts are written by the editor and the line-up of contributors from around the world. Their names appear on the home page. All posts must be signed.

One of the fun parts of blogging and editing is the selection of a suitable illustration. Contributors typically select their own. Editing is ordinarily confined to style (which we try to keep consistent) and punctuation. We probably could do a better job of linking to past posts on a topic as well as inserting hyperlinks.

The blog does not have a daily or weekly quota (it's not like issuing parking tickets). There are days when there is literally nothing worthwhile to report, but that is infrequent. Then again, there are days when there is no end of newsworthy developments. On those days readers may see as many as five posts.

Comments can come from anyone. They are moderated by the editor, and although the software permits commenters to write under any name or anonymously, comments that are anonymous or employ a pseudonym do not pass the test and are deleted.

There are costs and benefits to this policy. The cost is that readers from time to time miss out on some worthwhile insight. The benefit is that comments tend to be more responsible and better thought out than they may be if anonymity were permitted. It's a trade-off, but it's one that seems to make sense in the interest of maintaining the highest possible quality and civil tone on the blog. Periodically this policy is restated. At times that is done because someone has attempted to post a comment that is worthwhile but anonymous, and the hope is that the reminder will lead that person to re-post using his or her real monicker.

We have seen a small uptick in spam comments. These are mostly just a nuisance for the editor but occasionally they are fun to read, in a Theatre-of-the-Absurd kind of way. If a particularly good one comes along the editor may post it for readers' amusement.

Finally, the blog's built-in (free) analytics software tells us a little about where are readers are from and what they are most interested in. As regular readers know, we try to spot it when there is a "hit" from one of the dwindling number of jurisdictions from which we have not yet heard. Since the list now stands at 179, this happens less and less frequently. (Still waiting for Nauru, for example.) Some of the numbers are counterintuitive and suggest that computer programs rather than human beings are at work. This week, for example, the analytics report that hits from Russia were double those from the United States. We'll continue to boast about the total (currently 469,916 since the beginning in January 2014), but the numbers must unfortunately be taken with a grain of salt, given what we know.

The editor hopes readers, contributors and comments have had a safe and rewarding summer (the editor et ux. got to view the eclipse, among other things). Autumn beckons.

Thanks for your interest. If you have any suggestions, please post a comment. (Real names only, please. See above.)

1 comment:

  1. No sooner said than done. Here's a spam comment just received:

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    Moderate comments for this blog.

    Posted by Unknown to Global Military Justice Reform at September 6, 2017 at 8:03 AM

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Comments are subject to moderation and must be submitted under your real name. Anonymous comments will not be posted (even though the form seems to permit them).