12 Comments Add your own

• 1. redrover  |  January 2nd, 2008 at 12:21 pm

  There is a connection between fluency and civility, and therefore between inarticulateness and incivility.

  Language skills have deteriorated during the TV/Radio age because listening and speaking have largely replaced reading and writing as a preferred, or at least most commonly used, method of education and communication. As a result, many forum participants no longer have fully developed reading and writing skills. And because it is through reading and writing that most people develop their critical thinking skills, many forum participants lack them as well.

  For such a disabled person, calling somebody a liar or some other name that is even worse, in the context of a forum discussion, is just a way for that functionally inarticulate individual to bypass the rigors and messy inconveniences of the reasonable argument that he would like to articulate but cannot do so because he lacks the requisite skills and tools.

  It’s not so hard to imagine that such a person feels frustrated by his disability and that his frustration is expressed as uncivil conversation, i.e., stuff you wouldn’t say to your Mom.

  Anonymity is certainly a factor, but serves mostly to disguise the identity of the functionally inarticulate. I don’t believe that it necessarily encourages uncivil conversation, but I do suspect that functionally inarticulate people, operating anonymously, have a tendency to take over forums and destroy their usefulness in retaliation for the frustration they must deal with as consequence of their own reading, writing and critical thinking deficiencies.

• 2. Jim Phelps aka Spade  |  January 2nd, 2008 at 1:08 pm

  Well, I post under a pseudonym but it I leave it relatively easy for someone to find out who I am. I have my url posted with my online identity so there is no mistake where my opinion lies.

  My opinion, Anna, on proper online cyber speech differs with most people in this respect:

  Having worked in Signals Intelligence, I understand that there is no such thing as privacy online, on your phone, cell, or keyboard. Knowing that is the case, why would one go out of their way to conceal one’s identity?

• 3. Anna Voelker  |  January 2nd, 2008 at 2:42 pm

  Jim and redrover,

  Great points. Thanks for sharing. It amazes me, too, that people don’t realize they really aren’t anonymous. It doesn’t take much to find IP addresses, e-mail addresses, etc.

• 4. Jeff Semiche  |  January 2nd, 2008 at 11:53 pm

  Very nicely said, redrover.

  The obvious problem with the functionally inarticulate or the reading-and-writing impaired is that there is no way to screen them or exclude them. Communicating ideas to them or debating them on a level they can comprehend becomes a whole new skill we find ourselves unwittingly having to develop and hone if we’re not used to having to deal with such people on a daily basis, especially in writing. I like to think a lot of people come to a forum to learn. I certainly do. I know when I’m in over my head, too. Many people don’t. Sometimes the hostility that results is from those who are best able to express themselves, often at the expense of those least able.

  I was one on Storychat who stubbornly insisted that those who cloaked themselves in absolute anonymity were less likely to give as much thought either to what they read or what they wrote in response. There were a few there, like “Ive League grad” StupidInRockford2, who actually admitted they would no longer participate if they had to divulge their real names because of a fear of censure or worse by employers. Anonymity allowed them to be mean spirited, threatening, condescending. People could flat out lie about their credentials as self-proclaimed experts, lie about their education, lie about anything. I argued that there was probably a huge difference between what people would say anonymously and what they would say with their real name attached. There were many who I honestly believe would have hunted others down for some of the things that were said. I always posted under my real name, Jeff Semiche, and never personally feared (there or here) that I’d ever said anything that would have caused anybody to wish to do me harm. If it turns out I was wrong, I’ll just have to deal with it and I’ll have only myself to blame.

• 5. Anna Voelker  |  January 3rd, 2008 at 7:21 am

  Look at this. We’re having a great conversation here. Thanks, Jeff, for your insight. When we get comments on stories back, we’re not sure we’ll be able to require full names on posts. But we hope to require a full registration process. Of course, as with anything, people can and may lie about who they are. And I often wonder if there was a way to require people use their real names if conversation would decrease on our site. Thoughts?

• 6. Jeff Semiche  |  January 3rd, 2008 at 10:09 am

  There are many people who say they would not participate without assured anonymity, but I’m not sure that all who say so would actually be able to keep themselves out of the fray for long when there is a topic that interests them. I suppose some would disappear, but others would probably be more inclined to participate with people who write their thoughts knowing their name is attached to each post. There IS a difference in the way people write with assured anonymity versus the way they write without it.

  I tried, but cannot for the life of me figure out how to submit a letter to the editor via the website. Actually, I was looking for the policy and instructions — also missing — about submissions. Unless I am mistaken, I always thought that letters to the editor are always published with the author’s name. If that is indeed the case, I’m not sure how a forum or comments section should be any different as venues for posting opinions. I haven’t seen any evidence that anonymity is an option on a letter to the editor and there seems to never have been a shortage of such letters. Either the policy does not allow for anonymity or it is the rarest of submitters who requires it.

• 7. Anna Voelker  |  January 3rd, 2008 at 10:24 am

  Jeff,

  You can’t submit a letter to the editor via our Web site right now. You will need to send an e-mail to opinions@rrstar.com. We’re working on bringing back the form and the policy. We know it’s frustrating for our readers. And I apologize for the inconvenience.

  You are right. We don’t require anonymity with letters to the editor. The one thing I can tell you is the platforms — print and online — are so different. Forums posts and story comments are much more frequent and much harder to moderate and confirm posters’ identity. I am not sure we (newsroom staffers) want to get into that business online. We do, however, want to provide a place for the community to converse. The volume of comments online is incredible (much more than what we get with letter to the editor submissions).

  I am not saying I am against such a policy. I am just not sure how we would confirm everything.

  Anna

• 8. Jeff Semiche  |  January 3rd, 2008 at 11:00 am

  Anna, you said, “You are right. We don’t require anonymity with letters to the editor.”

  Please clarify. You do not “require” anonymity or you do not allow anonymity with letters to the editor.

• 9. Anna Voelker  |  January 3rd, 2008 at 11:37 am

  Sorry. I should have said we don’t allow anonymity.

• 10. RedRover  |  January 3rd, 2008 at 12:05 pm

  There is a place for anonymity in exchanges such as these, even though it is no longer acceptable in published letters to the editor.

  Supposing a state or city employee wanted to alert other citizens to the incompetence of some of his employers, while on his own time and on his own computer, of course. Would he not put his job in jeopardy if he were forced to do so using his own name?

  Where would the Watergate story have gone without anonymous advice from “Deep Throat”?

  The RRS may decide to insist upon full registration for participants in StoryChat, but it should not expect that those who register will not do so pseudonymously. It’s very easy to create a web-based email address and identity that has absolutely no connection to your real identity using public access computers.

  And there is nothing wrong with that. One of the most prolific geniuses of all time, Ben Franklin, routinely published essays under various pseudonyms. Here’s an excerpt from an online article on that topic:

  During the eighteenth century, it was common for writers and journalists to use pseudonyms, or false names, when they created newspaper articles and letters to the editor. Franklin used this convention extensively throughout his life, sometimes to express an idea that might have been considered slanderous or even illegal by the authorities; other times to present two sides of an issue, much like the point-counterpoint style of journalism used today.
  http://www.pbs.org/benfranklin/l3_wit_name.html

  As I said in my original posting, I think that uncivil forum conversations are the consequences of social forces that have nothing to do with anonymity. I predict that if full registration is required, those who are functionally inarticulate will register under (multiple?) pseudonyms and continue their bad habits.

  When that happens, please remember that you heard it here first.

  RedRover

• 11. Bricks & Clicks &raqu&hellip  |  January 8th, 2008 at 11:22 am

  […] be honest. we don’t get too many comments on this blog (except here, which is great). we use this blog to explain what we do and what’s going on in our business, […]

• 12. Bricks & Clicks &raqu&hellip  |  January 24th, 2008 at 12:55 pm

  […] there’s a forum thread named for me. It was started after I posted this on Bricks and Clicks. That post was one of the more memorable ones because there was conversation […]

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