Extraordinary Observations

Christine Borne is sick and tired of all the negativity and ignorance in the comments section of Cleveland.com articles. I certainly can't disagree. A few weeks ago I blogged about some despicable comments left on an article about young people who had taken a passion for politics this past election season. Unfortunately, I'm not as optimistic as Christine that we can "take back" the Cleveland.com comments section, no matter how hard we try.

This is, of course, not a new discussion. In July, Sheila McClear made the case over at Gawker that newspapers shouldn't allow comment sections on their websites:

Comments are thought to be an added value to a newspaper's site—providing another reason to read. You come for the article, and stay for the interesting discussion. The only problem is, there is no interesting discussion. Almost never. Not even from the mythical supersmart New York Times readers.

The obvious solution would be to have newspapers control all user submitted content. In a previous post I argued that if a blog has a troll problem, the quickest way to fix it is to delete the bad comments. McClear thinks otherwise:

You could argue that newspapers should rigorously vet and moderate their comments, or at least require them to use their full names. I'd argue that this is a silly misuse of their time; I'm not suggesting that newspapers should actively patrol their comments, like this and some other websites do. (We're a blog; comments are in our blood.) I'm suggesting they get rid of them altogether. (This doesn't include the blog sections of various papers, which the NYT and Washington Post are stuffed full of.)

Honestly though, would it work? Newspapers certainly fear that eliminating comments would drive away readers. Is there a case study we can look to for help on this question? Andrew Sullivan's The Daily Dish, is one of the most popular and frequently referenced blogs on the internet; and unlike most, it does not allow comments. Last March, Sullivan asked his readers to vote on whether or not to add a comment section to the posts. Overwhelmingly, readers voted against comments. As it turns out, they actually appreciate the fact that readers don't have the opportunity to clog his well written pieces with ignorant drivel. They also trust Sullivan to engage in editorial control that still allows for the most intelligent and thought provoking to get published at Sullivan's discretion.

I've always believed that one of the biggest downfalls of the internet is the ability to hide behind a wall of anonymity. Back before blogs and Web 2.0 became the norm, message boards and forums suffered from many of the same problems that blog comment sections now face. Those message boards that were heavily patrolled and censored, that deleted inappropriate users, banned trolls' IP addresses, and stuck to extremely strict posing policies were the only ones worth reading. Message boards that were unmoderated were magnets for spam and ignorance. It seems that without a "big brother", message boards, and now comments sections, will always resort back to the lowest common denominator.

While I give Christine Borne props for calling on the blogosphere to clean up Cleveland.com, I am afraid that it is a job that simply can't be solved from the grassroots. The problem, of course, is that even posting rational, well written comments will do little to spur intelligent discussion. Intelligent posts are mocked and attacked ad-hominem. At the end of the day, the exercise is mentally and emotionally draining for those of us who care about injecting reason into a cesspool of ingorance. The only way to truly fix the problem is to let the trolls know that they aren't welcome. Unfortunately, I do not think Cleveland.com is even willing to consider such an option.