Censoring comments?

I can understand deleting spam and trolls not adding anything of value to the conversation. It is however unfriendly and unprofessional when someone deletes a comment simply because they don’t like it.

I am now certain that WebWorkerDaily, part of the GigaOm network, is deleting comments they simply don’t like. I set a post to “Notify me of follow-up comments via e-mail” after I thought that one of my comments had been deleted. I received the following comment on the post but when I went to the site it was also nowhere to be found. I’m posting it below for the author. If I had a copy of my response I would post it here but I didn’t get a copy of it via e-mail so I would have to start over and rewrite it.

Dzyner added a new comment to the post Does Crowdsourcing Commoditize Freelance Expertise?.

Dzyner said on Does Crowdsourcing Commoditize Freelance Expertise? December 16, 2010 at 11:49 am

In response to Guest Column on December 7, 2010 at 5:42 pm:

As crowdsourcing goes mainstream, there’s a heated debate going on about whether the practice commoditizes expertise. Having built an expert crowdsourcing site for the past year, I’m convinced these services don’t have to commoditize expertise. Quite the opposite, I think they can give it direct value.

I think in certain industries and professions crowdsourcing could be beneficial. As a freelance graphic designer for over 8 years I feel that the client relationship is key in creating not only good design but effective design. Crowdsourcing takes out the client relationship. I suppose if your just looking for bugs in some code it doesn’t really matter but in creating a brand it matters. A lot. Unless of course you just want a design that looks pretty but doesn’t really connect to the clients target market because it has no depth.

See all comments on this post here.

There are no curse words. There are no links to strange websites. The post isn’t even confrontational and yet it’s been deleted on the site.

I also really don’t understand why they left my comments about being censored. Do they think they can discredit me by leaving those posts and trying to make it look like I’m imagining things? It just doesn’t make sense to me.

Anyway, the lesson here should be:

Don’t delete comments from people who are adding value to the conversation even if you don’t totally agree with them.

…Or don’t allow for comments at all.