I disagree with the idea that the Engaget audience should be presumed to be educated and therefore more civil; the Kathy Sierra incident (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6499095.stm) is just one of several examples of how the tech audiences can be the model of arrogance and incivility online.

Greg’s comments about the Seattle Times all ring true for me as a former member of the Salon.com commenting community– anonymity, while a problem, was not the sole source of incivility there. The problem rested more with entrenched regulars who posted hundreds of comments a week, if not a day, hammering on offensive (and usually misogynistic) agendas frequently unrelated to the post. Whatever weak policies Salon had in place to police such comments never held for very long– regulars were always back with new screen names and old agendas. I frequently felt embarrassed for the writers who were routinely insulted and sometimes threatened in the comments, and eventually stopped reading Salon altogether.

I have no easy solution, but find it curious that comments are so often considered purely a value-add proposition to online content. In Salon’s case, they drove me away from it.

– Commenters can turn any thread into a political diatribe. The story could have nothing, nothing, nothing to do with politics, and all at once we’re reliving the war crimes of the Bush administration or Kenya-born Obama is subverting American greatness.

– Set up any TOS you want, and it scarcely matters. On a dime, comments can devolve into ad hominem insults, or worse. They’ll be profane or crude, they’ll push the boundaries, they have no shame. Especially in certain specific topic areas: Stories involving suicide (we’ve learned the hard way that we have to disable comments on those from the outset); stories involving someone who is overweight; any kind of hard-luck story about, say, a familiy that has been through foreclosure (it was their own fault, don’t you know, and from their photo they look like lazy bums); immigrants (no matter how they got here, they have to be illegal); and anything involving people of color (don’t be fooled: Racism is alive and well in America).

– Our comments are peer-policed. If enough people report an abusive comment, it comes down. At which time commenters immediately blame us, not their peers, and accuse us of selectively censoring comments to fit a political agenda. If that happens and we attempt to join the discussion to explain why/how a comment was removed, it seldom calms the waters. Their peers’ role in their ouster goes over their heads.

– Based on the number of comments posted by some individuals (hundreds of posts from many, thousands from some), these folks have too much time on their hands! You do have to wonder why the frequent fliers keep coming back to this one form of self-expression.

– Despite all the aforementioned ugliness, occasionally a commenter can make a point or add a detail that truly helps round out a story. For all the juvenile behavior, there are some smart people out there.

– And often, commenters, freed from any need to maintain journalistic evenhandedness, can offer up one pithy observation that rings true and sums a story up pretty nicely.

Commenting has been a matter of consternation for our reporters, who often feel protective of their story subjects after seeing some perfectly innocent folks get pilloried in the comments. We also worry that this creates a chilling effect on those who we might want to use as subjects. Meanwhile, we get about a million page views a month from commenting (out of typically 50 million-plus total for the site). We are still struggling internally with the question of how much reader commenting helps us vs. how much it damages our brand. It’s an ongoing conversation.

If you ask me, it’s all about anonymity. If they didn’t have that, they wouldn’t say terrible things — after all, they’d never say that sort of thing to someone face-to-face. Anonymity facilitates that Northwest passive-aggressive streak. It strips away the civilized facade some folks maintain, and reveals what’s underneath. That’s pretty awful, but it’s also intriguing from an anthropological standpoint, y’know? Leaves you wondering what’s more “real” — the civilized facade of the real world, or the virtual alter ego. …

Where I think the idea has merit is on initial account creation. It’s very common on political sites to have a 24 hour or 48 hour “waiting period” (cooling off period?) between setting up a profile and having posting privileges. I believe Newsvine used this “forced wait” to its advantage when the site was in beta, also.

Given that Mac/PC “discussion” is often similar to a religious or political discussion (emotions and hyperbole!), this “wait before you post” could be an effective speed bump when you have big stories like the iPad. “Big” stories bring readership, many first-timers; first-timers don’t yet know what the community mores might be. Asking them to wait 24 hours to chime in increases the odds that they might pick up some understanding or at least not be able to sabotage the site with drive-by comments.

Paolo, thanks for the background on Engadget’s moderation policy. Like I said, I’m not a regular reader. I totally agree with “moderate after” — that is, remove offensive material rather than approve each comment. We really really need software that can do semantic analysis on the fly and “flag” questionable comments before they can go live. One day. Maybe.

@Luis, I agree that eliminating anonymous comments would improve the quality of the community. However, I don’t assume that only anonymous commentators were at fault for the flame throwing, and I’ll be curious to see how the community behaves when Engadget has all of its identification systems updated. Time will tell.

@Thom, I didn’t mean to use “immature” to describe the young and inexperienced, who I agree have an absolute right and opportunity to share their perspectives, diversify the conversation and learn. I really meant “immature” to describe those who behave well below their potential. I really like the second half of your post. It alludes to the “old way” of providing feedback to media through a probationary period. I don’t know if that pace would stifle the discourse (because news would move faster than comments could keep up with, and responses to comments would likely be too disconnected by time), but I think the general idea that providing more opportunity for self-moderation is a good one.

Nope, engadget wants you to create YetAnotherAccount just for their site. I’m guessing that’s AOL’s decision, but I think it’s a poor one.

I’m in the camp that believes anonymity is one of the enablers of unseemly commenting. Direct attribution to a poster’s active online identity would go a long way in reducing trolling and other unwanted behavior.

It’s extremely simple for engadget to enable such attribution through the use of any of a number of hybrid onboarding systems, such as Facebook Connect, Twitter ID, and Google ID, which would all tie a user’s comments to a more meaningful identity.

Sure the determined can set up dummy accounts there, too, but I believe the incentive is created to have your own words mean something, beyond just creating an obvious liability to behave correctly.

Luis Antezana
Methodologie