Small victory for the ignorant…
There’s no getting around a few simple facts of the discourse of internet comments:
1. There are many wingnuts, ding-dongs, bumpkins, and yahoos out there just itching to scorch a good discussion with their flamethrowers.
2. It takes time to build an online community.
The yahoos have won the day at the Washington Post.
I completely understand the Post’s position. I’m sympathetic. Here’s the “but”: Would the Post, or any other credible news organization, give up on its letters to the editor because they get a bunch of unpublishable crap? Do they not spend a significant amount of time reading and rejecting letters?
(I’m proud of my local paper. The editorial page editor, Robert Leger, is unafraid to publish the wingnuts. The News-Leader offers several online comment sections. And, obviously, the Ozark’s ding-dongs show up to spit and cuss. I hope the editors tough it out until a community forms.)
It seems to me there must be a technological patch for this problem. That’s waaaaay out of my area of expertise. This, however, isn’t: The technology exists to allow the public to interact with the media. The public is coming to expect an instant connection (i.e. a conversation between equals) with the media. The people are rapidly becoming content providers and expect to be content providers.
This ain’t goin’ away.
The Post claims to be hip to the blogosphere, but I think it missed a big opportunity in this case. It doesn’t involve a technological patch, just a little marketing saavy.
It should have realized that lefty bloggers were organizing a pitchfork brigade against Deborah Howell long before it was forced to pull up the drawbridge (the fuse for this episode was actually lit with the Froomkin Flapdoodle a month ago, so it’s not like they couldn’t see it coming).
I would have set up a Thrilla in Manilla match between Howell and a lucid proxy for the aggrieved lefties – like prof. and longtime Post critic Brad DeLong. The bloggers would have advertised and hyped the match for free, driven tens of thousands of readers to WaPo’s site, and hosted the flamefests in their own comments.
Sven– Yes, there are bunch of things they could have done. I like the flamefest idea
I’m hearing this same thing everywhere: What do we do about the wingnuts? My answer: Nothing. Just let it be (or delete the truly vile flames). Let the community form.
The News-Leader does do a good job of letting the trolls ply their trade on the editorial pages. The missing link in most of these new environments is the control element the newspapers employ which is to remove the anonymity factor. Use a commenting rule that requires verification and and I believe a large part of it would go away.
Ole– I agree. A registration system would help.
My Advice to the Washington Post …