Comment Abuse

Enabling Hate-Mongers - Tom Gruisich, WaPo

Online anonymity is an interesting issue for the moment. I've noticed a rise in the calls for people to use their real names on message boards and blog comments in recent months. Gruisich here seems to get some of the balancing act that board moderators and bloggers are wrangling with. How does one deal with trolls, sock-puppetry and other forms of comment abuse? Calling for the use of real names is one means but I don't think it is a universal solution. What I think we will see in the future is a informal segregation of boards between those who allow anonymous posters and those who request the use of real names. Personally, I don't see a problem with such an arrangement. I continue to use the analogy of the English coffeehouses of the seventeenth century and their use of posted rules. Each coffeehouse would have their own set of rules that those who entered the coffeehouse had to obey. No one was really prevented from going to as many coffeehouses at they wanted to and if the conversation in one place was dull then they could move on. I think what we will see with the issue of abusive comments is the marketplace of ideas come into full effect. Those moderators who are too persnickety will chase off most commentators while those who hardly moderate at all will invite only the worst of the worst. The market will shift most people into a sort of middle ground while the fringes will still exist and still cater to an extreme element. No one gets locked out but you see a shifting of voices that flattens out the shrill extremes while accentuating the measured center. I don't think I will have a problem with this.