Announcing FF’s new blog editors

Greetings, denizens of the Filipino Freethinkers. I have added this new post to announce that a handful of our fellow members have been appointed by admin to be blog editors.

There hasn’t been an official announcement yet – Red’s been pretty busy lately- but I’ve been given the green light to go public with this news.

Aside from me, there are seven more members who have been promoted to editor – I had originally intended to announce their names in this post, but I figured it be best if they made the announcement for themselves. As editors, our responsibility will include the management of any new posts that are being submitted to the blog’s front page for proofreading.

Just so you don’t get the wrong idea and think we’re some sort of thought police, I should clarify that the role of an editor (at least to my understanding) isn’t to stifle or to censor your works. The Filipino Freethinkers blog stands for the free exchanging of ideas after all, and to be frank, a lot of our you guys submit some truly interesting posts.

Regardless of their style, theme, or topic, and whether we agree or disagree with them, your articles share the common thread that they invoke critical thinking. They challenge us to rethink our own perspectives, and force us (intellectually speaking) to always be on our toes, never giving in to complacency or conformism.

But let’s face it – ever so occasionally, in the heat of the passion of creating our next article, even the best of us mistakes. It’s nothing serious; perhaps a misplaced pronoun or two, or a dangling participle, or an abruptly cut off sentence, or maybe even a couple of misplaced commas or apostrophes.

And like a small blemish or wayward scratch, these seemingly small grammatical slips add up, and may distract some readers from the real gem that lies underneath them. And that is where the editors come in.

We’re not here to take anything away from the article. Quite the contrary, our job is to pick away at these blemishes and grime, adding a mirror polish to an already good read so it can be better appreciated by our visitors.

Our job is to ensure that the author’s message is sent to the readers as clearly and as coherently as possible. To this end, we will try our damned best to clean up said articles without altering their content, or the writing style its author worked so hard to use as a voice.

The second (and quite admittedly, the more enjoyable) aspect of our job as editors is comment monitoring. Basically, we will also handle any spam troll or inappropriate comments found in the blog, and will deal with it accordingly.

Once again, this job isn’t something the editors can handle alone, and we encourage all readers to report any said spam or trolling to us (in my case, via PM at the forums). Please remember to enclose the name of said offender so we can more effectively zero in on comment, and to purge it with extreme prejudice.

As for the specifics, troll spams are basically posts that have nothing to do with the post, and are posted usually to advertise a product (porn sites, electronics shops, penis enlargement drugs, etc.).

Inappropriate comments are, if I were to use the FFF rules as a basis, include threats of violence, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic posts with the intention of offending other members.

Being a freethinker’s site, we welcome debates, but also understand that given the nature of our discussions, things can and will become heated in a very short amount of time. You’re welcome to attack the enemy’s argument – stab at its lack of structure, bludgeon its poor logic, or eviscerate its premise for its sheer insanity. Demand evidence and supporting data. That’s what critical thinking is all about after all.
On the other hand resorting to racial, sexual or cultural slurs or threats of violence is hitting below the belt. Anybody who resorts to these to attack their opponent will prompt us to call upon the Space Marine illustrated above to politely (but firmly) banhammer the living snot out of the poor sod.

That said, we will try to be fair with our moderation, and so long as you play by the rules, regardless of how disagreeable your assertion may be (and so long as you keep it civil), you have nothing to worry about.