This Time, I Am Not Arguing With You

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​When I ran my previous Farrah Fawcett page, I had a bad habit of responding to people who clearly were not there to contribute anything useful. Someone would leave a rude comment, insult Farrah, take a cheap shot at another person, or deliberately try to provoke an argument, and I would respond. Sometimes I wanted to correct the record. Sometimes I disagreed with what they were saying. Sometimes the comment was so obnoxious that I felt it deserved an answer. Looking back, I can see that responding usually accomplished very little. I was giving attention to someone whose only real contribution to the page was disruption.

I am not doing that this time.

Farrah Fawcett Fandom will be a respectful page for people who actually want to be there. That doesn't mean everyone has to agree with me, and it certainly doesn't mean every discussion has to be polite in the sense of being bland or meaningless. People can disagree with something I write. They can challenge an argument, question an interpretation, prefer another actress, another season of Charlie’s Angels, or another part of Farrah’s career. None of that bothers me. Disagreement can be interesting. Sometimes it even gives me something new to think about. What I am no longer interested in is confusing disagreement with disrespect.

There is a difference between saying, “I do not agree with this,” and coming onto a Farrah page simply to insult Farrah, mock another fan, demean someone’s opinion, or leave a comment designed to start a fight. I spent nearly four years running a large Facebook page, and I already know where those conversations usually go. They rarely become more thoughtful. They usually become louder, more personal, and more pointless. One rude comment becomes five more, then ten people argue about something that has almost nothing to do with the original post. Meanwhile, the person who started it has received exactly what they wanted: attention.

This time, my response will be much simpler. If you come onto the page and behave like that, I will delete the comment and block you. I won't argue with you. I won't explain why I deleted it. I won't give you three warnings or spend half an hour trying to convince you to behave differently. The comment will disappear, your access to the page will disappear, and nobody else will ever know you were there.

I don't see that as censorship, and I don't see it as an inability to handle criticism. A Facebook page is not a public courtroom where every person who walks through the door is entitled to unlimited access. It is a space I created, maintain, research for, write for, and spend my time building. I have every right to decide what kind of environment I want that space to become. If someone wants to run a page built around insults, personal attacks, and endless arguments, they are free to create one. That is not what I am building.

One of the biggest things I learned from running the old page is that moderation is not just about removing bad behavior after it happens. It is about setting the tone before bad behavior becomes the page's culture. The overwhelming majority of people who followed my previous page were thoughtful, supportive, funny, curious, and genuinely interested in Farrah. A very small number of people could still consume an enormous amount of time if I allowed them to. I am not interested in giving that small group that kind of influence again.

So the rule is very simple. Be respectful to Farrah. Be respectful to the people who are here. Disagree when you want to disagree, but contribute something worth reading. If your only purpose is to insult, provoke, or make the page unpleasant for everyone else, there will not be an argument waiting for you this time.
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There will just be an empty space where your comment used to be.