commenting on commenting

This Boston Globe article about commenting on blogs and forums doesn't seem to be news, covering as it does the almost inevitable vitriol and idiocy of this particular form of free expression.

Almost but not quite inevitable. And that's what's interesting to me.

As the writer points out, and as various bloggers as disparate as Joe Clark and Glenn Reynolds seem to have  found, there is a certain (and growing it seems) level of sense in rejecting the open forum that was one of the bases of what we used to call Web 2.0. Some people are opting out of the so-called democratic discourse, because of what often results: name calling, schoolyard taunting, obscenity, bickering and even personal threats. It's pointless, difficult to read and turns off readers.

When you go to general interest sites like newspapers you quickly see this happen – no shared viewpoint, no shared assumption of courtesy, and no shared respect. Bush was a Fascist. Stephen Harper is a Fascist. Obama is a Muslim-Commie-Fascist. (Surely he's won the trifecta.) You're a Fascist. And so on. The list is endless, and tedious no matter where on the spectrum you're coming from.

What's interesting in the Globe article is that none of their more vicious anonymous commenters would talk about their motivations. Maybe they're embarrassed. Maybe they reject the idea that they have any need to explain the nature of their freedom.

Anonymity may have other purposes online, but for commenting it seems to only encourage the most childish and stupid behaviour.

And in focusing on that, the Globe writer almost but not quite hits the point. It seems to me that what really encourages people to be civil – or restrains them from being name-calling idiots – is the very idea of community; that they are in a place that they get some benefit from, and want to return to. Just as in your bricks and mortar neighbourhood, you wouldn't start screaming at your neighbours at the drop of a hat; life afterward would get pretty grim, and chances are you'd feel pressure (either internally or externally) to move out. Commenting works where there is community.

So when you go to Batters Box, say, there is a real neighbourhood feel to the place. I love the wildly informed and respectful conversations there; they rarely devolve into out and out insults, and it's not just the admins who point out breaches of etiquette. Ken Levine regularly encourages commenters to leave their names, and won't deal with those who don't. Even some political bloggers, like Matt Yglesias, seem to get a relatively evolved and literate species of troll, let alone a community of commenters who don't always agree but who are engaged. And that's only three fast examples that live in my bookmarks.

I don't know if losing the ability to comment anonymously is going to somehow magically solve Our Global Digital Civilty Crisis. But I do know that finding and fostering community is a hell of a lot more rewarding than ranting.

Of course, your comments are appreciated.