Tag: police blogs

Alas, because of my disagreement with onereader, I have now activated “comment moderation” (see the preceding post and the comments to the post below that.

What this means is that there will be a delay between when you post comments and when they will appear. I’ll try to keep this delay to a minimum.

But don’t worry, you can still accuse me of “douchebag move[s]” or whatever else you want.

And please do comment.

I had a nice talk on the phone yesterday with an NYPD sergeant who got in touch with me to talk about my book, police blogs, and policing in general. It was a nice talk and great to get feedback on my blog.

Writing a blog is strange. Because things just go out there and I have no idea who if anybody reads it. And since you’re all reading this for free, I don’t get paid for it. I always wonder if it’s worth it to keep blogging. I could be doing other things. But most of the time I enjoy it or else I wouldn’t be doing it.

Stat counters tell me that I have about three- to four-hundred “unique visitors” a day. But in my mind my blog readership consists of the dozen or so people who comment. So please keep the comments coming! Imagine I’m a goldfish who can’t see out of the fishbowl. Comments are like flakes of delicious food magically floating down from above. Feed me and I’ll keep swimming!

This is a letter to just one person who posts by the name “Frequent Poster.”

Dear Frequent Poster,

You are the first and only person whose comments I have deleted. The first from hundreds of comments and thousands of readers. I suppose it is a coming-of-age experience for a blogger to have to delete a comment. But it is unfortunate.

You obviously have deep feelings about police issues. And I respect the depth of those feelings. But I do not like the style in which you express your feelings nor the certainty in which you believe you are sole possessor of the truth.

You wrote in one comment I deleted that I have been “dishonest and disrespectful to [you].” So please do not subject yourself to this disrespect. The problem could very well be me and not you. But still, it is my blog (you could always start your own).

Nobody pays me to write this. So when keeping this blog is more trouble than it’s worth, I will stop. And you are making this experience much less fun for me.

I am kindly asking you to stop commenting to my posts. Commenting anonymously does not change the fact you are still commenting. I wish you would stop.

I am kindly asking you to stop reading my blog.

My next step would be to disallow anonymous comments and/or moderate all comments. I do now wish to do this. I am kindly asking you to do the honorable thing and respect my wishes and go away.

Respectfully,
Peter Moskos

Here’s a police blogs that seem, at least at first glace, to be pretty interesting.Beat and Release:

To new supervisors, I have the following the advice: Dedication to your troops is what engenders respect. Willingness to back them engenders respect. Putting paper on them and chastising them for very minor infractions shows them you are a company man with no discretion and can’t be trusted. Don’t break the law or lie for them, but consider the totality of the circumstances in any given situation. I heard one of my guys trying to recruit another officer for the team. His selling point was, “I know he won’t go to jail for us, but he will put his ass and his job on the line to keep you from getting screwed over.”

And this post: Old Versus New.

There are a lot. And a metablog about them.