Bloggers, Comments, Hmmm Is “blog civility” an oxymoron?
Found the two entries while blog surfing, I have a thing or two to say below:
By James Joyner - Outside the Beltway
Wizbang’s Paul has hung it up, I think for good this time, saying “It just ain’t fun anymore.” The last straw was a recent flamewar he got into with Ace but he’s been tired of the trevails of blogging for quite some time. Coincidentally, his colleague, Jay Tea, is taking a hiatus having just helped a friend get through his father’s dying days.Although I’ve been at it hard for almost exactly three and a half years now (that milestone will hit officially Monday), I’ve managed to avoid the
“blogger burnout” that seems to afflict most bloggers. Sure, it’s a ton of work and there are days when I feel like obligated to simply crank out content just to get something up, those days are still, fortunately, rare. I’m still a news junkie and sufficiently curious about the world around me that I’m seldom long without something of interest to opine about.
My least favorite part of the “blog job,” though, is the incivility in comment threads and the occasional cross-blog flamewar. While OTB’s comment threads are quite civil compared to most blogs of comparable traffic, there are a handful of regulars who forget the number one rule of our site policies: “Remember that the people under discussion are human beings.” The follow-on — “Comments that contain personal attacks about the post author or other commenters will be deleted. Repeated violators will be banned. Challenge the ideas of those with whom you disagree, not their patriotism, decency, or integrity.” — is something that I’ve largely refrained from enforcing, since it’s a lot of work and I hate to alienate regular visitors.
That’ll likely change, though, as four or five regular visitors–almost evenly divided ideologically, by the way–who are driving down the tone of the discussion. I think I’m better off making a few folks mad than have the comments section be an unfriendly place.
This week-end, I was talking with someone who’s working on a yet to be debuted, high profile website that’s supposed to feature civil comments sections. Personally? I’ve been on the web for a very long time and I’m not sure such a thing can really be created.
You want to put in a filter that will get rid of profanity? People will spell words phonetically to get around it. Are you going to get moderators who will really crack down and ban everyone who’s rude? Well, that’s a subjective call and you’ll be overwhelmed with complaints. Do you want to set up an automated rating system that will automatically ban abusive posters based on the rankings of other people? On political websites, all that will mean is that all the liberals will try to ban all the conservatives and all the conservatives will try to ban the liberals.
That leaves you with three choices:
#1) You can put enormous amounts of manpower into policing your comment section. For most people, this is just too time consuming to be considered.
#2) You can take an extremely light touch and hardly ever delete comments or ban anyone. In this case, you’ll quickly find that your comments section turns into a complete sewer.
#3) You can take a benevolent, yet iron fisted dictator route. You can let people curse a little bit and just delete comments that go a little over certain lines. But, if people step way over that line, you delete their comments, ban them, and they’re never heard from again.
In my opinion, #3 is the best way to go because as James said, there are usually just a few instigators threadjacking, picking fights, and generally being obnoxious while everyone else ends up reacting to them. You get rid of those malcontents, you get rid of 90% of your problems. So bloggers, pull that trigger on problem commenters and never look back!
I’ve have often discussed this with folks and I have never understood why blog comments are such a big deal.
First of all I don’t get a great deal of comments, never have, nor do I ever think I will.
Maybe how I post things on this blog really does not invite folks to give their opinion on a given topic.
I have had to do the registration thing because of blog spam something all sites are dealing with.
For the sites that worry about comments particularly the profane laced or stupid comments my suggestion would be when someone make a dumbass comment when it is clear that they don’t know what the fuck they are talking about just highlight that comment and expose the stupidity. Put it front and center.
My feelings on comments are like my feelings on radio talk show callers. For a good number of them, the less I hear from them the better.
Take listening to Rush for example. The reason why his show is so successful is that his callers are well screened and the callers usually help him make his various points throughout the show. But more importantly the host drives the show. I would not give a shit if Rush did not have a single caller. Most talks show callers are egotistical idiots who just like to hear themselves speak and get off on the fact that they are being heard by a audience.
Most people who call talk shows I believe truly think they are offering a unique perspective on a given topic when 99 percent of the time they don’t.
Bck to comments, I like reading smart comments, regardless of the political slant. I wish more liberal minded people would comment here, and offer a unique view from the other side. But I know from personal experience that being black and conservative, liberal white folks won’t come here or on any other right leaning black site and run the “evil white racist” conservative bullshit. To most liberals black conservative is an oxymoron. “How can you be a Republican when they secretly kill blacks in the basement.”
The above articles and others I have read make note of how uncivil dialogue has gotten and they are concerned about the profanity laced tone of many comment sections.
I personally think filtering out comments is bullshit, and it’s a clear copout.
More than that it’s is completely disingenuous because to chastise the profane nature of someone’s raw feelings is to chastise real life.
I don’t consider the blog world a pristine intellectual venue where we all just get along.
We live in a racially and socially charged world where people flip each other off while driving.
Married couples engage in profane laced tirades towards each other (in front of the kids) I might add. Many folks have or at least wanted to say fuck you to his or her boss and co-workers.
We listen to music that demeans women and watch television shows that glorify violence and portray women as bitches and hoes.
People engage in racially insensitive talk via jokes routinely, not to mention all of the other sexually and socially deviant behaviors both on and off the internet.
So for someone to tell me that they our concerned or outraged at the dialogue exhibited on blogs is laughable. Blogs are not private tea parties.
The article above pointed to a disclaimer I’m sure many have used,
“Comments that contain personal attacks about the post author or other commenters will be deleted. Repeated violators will be banned. Challenge the ideas of those with whom you disagree, not their patriotism, decency, or integrity.”
But the funny thing is, both political parties engage in the old oft used term “the politics of personal destruction.”
Why hold blog commenters to a higher standard that the likes of Howard Dean.
Dean referred to Harris individual as “Stalin,” and has made comparative references of Republicans to Hitler. Liberals routinely do it.
I agree with Kos 100 percents when he said in one of his interviews (ABC News) that blogs are raw emotion and that is what makes them appealing.
My problem with comments on blogs is that the hosts of many of these blogs wants to delete and edit comments to their liking. The other point I have made before is that individuals consider some blogs their own personal space. Blogs are becoming as segregated as real life, electronic gated communities and that is the real problem.
The other problem is on some sites if you have 50 or 100 comments 80 percent of them are going to be the same stupid shit. Take these comments for example:
whoop4467 said…
To Trinity - This may sound like Whinning to you beacuse that is all the Repukes did during Clinton’s tenure. So you know first hand what whinning is I guess. The big differences between Democrat whinning and Repuke whinning is about $35M of government expenditure, all of the time in law suits, 90% of Congress’s time investigating the Clinton’s over a BJ( and the BIG lie about it), all of the time investigating “travel gate”, all of the time investigating Clinton land deals, all of the time investigating every “conspiracy theory” that had a 1% tangent effect to Clinton’s life (similiar to the 1% Chaney doctrine applied to Iraq), and all the time spent to make Clinton’s and his administration’s life miserable.
Where is the current accountablity for this rogue, lying, incompetent and clueless Bush Administration? Is that a whinney question or is it a question of a proud American that wants my country to be the best it can be and wants my country to operate fully according to our constitution. Being a whinney citizen is one choice given to us by the constitution and the Repukes exercise it better than any citizen in the US.
Anonymous said…
To Trinity:
There is hardly anything more “mean-spirited” than the attack on our freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution and other assorted crimes dumped upon the U.S. and the world by the Bush Administration.
And there is absolutely nothing “petty” about drawing attention to the problem.
We do offer solutions even though the pig-headed administration, the equally pig-head Republicans running congress, the Bushie sheep and the right-wing dominated mainstream media too often do want to tolerate dissent.
We are left in a quandary.
Robert Ramsey said…
Nero fiddled. We now have “clarity” on one thing anyway:neither Bush, his administration, anybody in Congress nor their mainstream media minions, nor the citizenry is ever going to own up to and apologize to the world for our crimes against humanity, our barbarism and ignorance, not to mention the unbounded gallingly arrogant attitudes toward everyone and everything not a have or a havemore by these beings. What is to be done?
Anonymous said…
Yes, I agree the American Idol singers had no business meeting up with a man like President Bush…
They don’t deserve such disrespect, dishonor and embarrassment.
Yawn….Most people who comments don’t even try and peep what has already been said, they are just interested in getting their shot in, who care if it has already been said. How many ways can you say, Bush is an evil Nazi.
Yes, I wish I had more general feedback on some articles and posts but thinking about myself I almost never comment on blogs anymore. I can do my ranting here.
If I see a post on a blog that I like or have strong feelings about I will at least give a shoutout to let that individual know someone found the post interesting.
We don’t live in a sanitary world. And as for my blog I’m not trying to pretend that I’m some intellectual wannabee who has all of the answers.
This blog is a bulletin board for my views and stuff I like and agree with or what I may find interesting.
I’m just some dude with strong opinions who loves to read and study the political scene.
Besides I’m certain anybody who has been to this blog is already thinking, “this motherfucker is crazy” so leaving a comment, particularly liberals may not be in their best interest.
But people if you are so inclined, drop me a line, express your opinion, say what is really on your mind. Profanity laced tirade or not. I am much more appreciative of honest raw comments than some canned boring observation.
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