Who has the time to post comments?

August 12th, 2008 at 09:03am Linda Grist Cunningham

Web site “comments” can be — though often are not — important insights into what’s going on in a community’s collective brain. And, because comments are usually posted anonymously, the common wisdom has been that anonymity breeds a certain clarity and credibility since the poster doesn’t fear identification.

Yeah, it works that way in my dreams. It works that way in some Ph.D. candidate’s thesis. It doesn’t work that way — or not very often — in the real world. In the real world, there’s a preponderance of posters with way too much time on their hands and a deep-rooted hostility in their brains. They get ugly with each other and the world in general. They can’t express an idea that doesn’t drip with most every “-ism” and phobia. They are black holes sucking the rest of us into their unholy and unhappy vortex.

We take down the posts and ban the posters, exercises in futility that I’d liken to herding cats or containing Silly Putty. But we try, mightily. Our Terms of Use help, and best is mine: My house, my rules. If I don’t like what you’re posting, you must go somewhere else to post it.

Today, Howard Owens, director of digital publishing for GateHouse Media, shared this laugh-out-loud “article” from the Onion, the satirical weekly famous on college campuses (and printed here at the Register Star, by the way.) Some days, I am pretty sure this is what most comments posters are doing. Enjoy.

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