Consumerist: Questionable Commenting Policy

When it comes to surfing the net time is my biggest enemy. It is a limited resource so l am cautious in how I use it. That means that I can't hit every blog or content provider I want on a daily basis, so some of them are in a rotation.

Consumerist is part of the weekly rotation. I don't get there every day, but I do check in throughout the week. Even though I have been lurking around the site for months I haven't ever been interested in commenting, until today.

And today I learned that one cannot just begin commenting because you have to audition. Yes, that is correct, you have to audition. They don't just want any commenters, they want very special people because

"our editors want to spend more time providing new content and less time moderating comment threads."

It is their world and they can run it anyway they like, but something about that is a bit off.

"3. Why are you doing a blog about consumerism? Aren't blogs about Hillary Clinton being a lesbian and Tara Reid drunkenly shoving firecrackers up her nose?

Because it's not being done anywhere else, at least certainly not with a good sense of humor. Because in this age of a renewed crisis of the commons where companies use intimidation tactics to silence criticism, it's important for an independent voice to provide that critique."

Did you see that little blurb about intimidation tactics silencing critics. Well it seems to me that they are not much better. Not very impressive.