I spent this afternoon at the New London Day. Greg Stone invited me to participate in a roundtable discussion. The subject was comments on articles on newspaper websites. Apparently, they can get wild and wooly sometimes, and issues arise about the extent to which the papers should reject offensive comments. For legal reasons they can either publish them in full or not publish them at all, so editing is not an option, which it shouldn’t be, in my opinion.
I have to confess that I felt like a bit of an imposter, in that I know almost nothing about the subject. I read the comments on this blog, since it’s my job, and I do appreciate the people who comment here. However, as anyone who spends much time here knows, it doesn’t take a lot of my time and in the more than three years I’ve been doing this, I’ve gotten maybe two posts that might have been considered offensive to some people. (I’m not counting those critical of me, all of which I find deeply offensive, but being a good liberal, I let that pass). Most of my comment related activity consists of rejecting spam comments.
I read the comments on some blogs, where the level of discourse is particularly good, but generally I don’t, primarily because I just don’t have the time. My own opinion is that, aside from overtly racist, sexist or obscene comments, anything goes. To be honest, I’m not even sure I would screen that stuff out. My own opinion is that people who spew that stuff are merely exposing their ideas for what they are. I think most people are capable of critical reading, and will automatically reject or ignore a comment from someone who expresses their ideas in crude, rude or nasty language.
That being said, it also seems that for a newspaper, there are times when you shouldn’t allow comments at all. Apparently there are folks who take delight in posting rude comments on wedding announcements and obituaries. Better to allow no comments than to expose people to gratuitous insults to no purpose.
The entire thing will be on Comcast (I don’t know when) and possibly on Thames Valley. It was actually pretty interesting. I give the Day credit for trying to grapple with this issue.
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