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A Civil Pen (or keyboard)Posted Monday, February 9, 2009, at 12:57 PM
I have not had a lot of time lately to blog, read the blogs, read The Brazil Times online or read the comments.
I have been busy elsewhere. However, I did happen to comment on the animal control contract article. You cannot imagine my surprise when the "comment" section of that article disappeared from the website I did not read the "offensive" comments that caused this, but I can imagine that they were the same "kindergarten" variety that crop up from time to time when people cannot be held accountable for their words. Is it so hard for people to hold discourse to a vicil level when they speak or write? There was a time when being civil was enforced, on the spot, and an offense was cause for a duel that may well have ended in one's death. Even now, some of the things that have been said in comments anonymously would be a risk to receiving a punch in the nose had they been said face to face. If I am going to say something about a person's words or actions, I'm going to insure that there is a record other than my feeble memory of the event, especially if the event took place vary far in the past. Does the curtain of anonymity give a person the right to offend without provable cause or justification? It does not! While you and I may not agree on an issue, that does not give me the right to mount a personal attack on you either physically, verbally or in written form even as I attack your idea. The reverse is also true, you may attack my ideas, but you have no right (even with freedom of speech) to attack me personally. Please, keep your pen (and keyboard) civil. That may keep you out of trouble as the veil of anonymity is not a solid wall that cannot be removed under the law. Comments Showing comments in chronological order [Show most recent comments first] |
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Leo,
I agree completely. But I don't think that even with the recent calls for a civil discourse that many will heed those words and that the personal attacks and bad behavior will continue.
Troy
There are far more people on this board that are responsible, even in their annomynity, than those who abuse it. But like with anything, it only takes a few, or even just one to spoil it for everyone else.
I for one have been called names here, and others have come to my defense when that has happened, which I appreciate, but that is the reason why some, not me, want to keep their real name hidden. I can understand that.
Whether real names are used or not, it is really easy to seperate posters who have legitmate interests in a topic, and those who are just here to flame. Now maybe the Times doesn't have the resources to have a moderator check comments as often as they need to, but up until recently, the process they have used for reporting abuses has worked fine. I don't understand why that is no longer good enough.
Yeah, an inappropriate comment may be posted for everyone to see for a little bit, but again, at least for me it is easy to tell when someone is stating their point of view and when someone is just trying to be mean or what they think is clever(in not a good way). I've never tested, and won't, but surely there is a vulgarity filter on here right? I mean at least I have not seen any vulgarities so I assume there is and most message boards are filtered that way. So if we are just talking about personal attacks, then I think the reporting method that has always been in place should be sufficient for the worst cases.
I have personal reasons for remaining behind my pen name, but I would like to think that my body of work to this point has established my "name" as a legitimate poster whether you agree with me or not. There are many others that I read all the time using pen names, and I know who are responsible ones, even though I may not agree with them.
I do not flame others, however I will vigorously defend my position or my "name" when I feel the need to. I would expect that from everyone.
This board is fine just the way it is, give it back in all areas!
Troy........... There will always be a small percentage of people who don't follow the rules. I agree with you that that will never change.
ClayCountyGuy........ I can understand why a person would desire to remain incognito while posting their personal views on a subject. There is always the possibility that it could affect them elsewhere if their views on a subject were disagreed with.
I don't know if there is a "vulgarity" filter on this site or if something like that exists that would work on a site such as this. Like you, I've never tested for one.
I can understand why the Brazil Times would pull the comment section if they were getting a lot of complaints about the comments being recieved. If I'm right, a comment may or may not trigger a notification to one of the staff, but I'll bet a dollar to a doughnut that a complaint about a comment does. Taking care of a lot of complaints on one article would draw resources and would be ended by removing the comment section and the problem.
Leo,
Once again, you have hit one out of the park! Good for you and I LOVE LOVE LOVE when the Lion roars!
I don't agree we need more censorship, I think the best way to handle the problem of ignorance in full size print is for responsible people to notify the web master and let that one comment be deleted, or however many are offensive, it may not be the ultimate solution, but it may be the best one we have now. I was going to write down a comment someone wrote and save it for their wedding remembrances or an anniversary, and when I went back to copy it, the whole complete section had been deleted and I was a little sad about that, while I can understand the neccesity of having to delete them, I was angry for a while at some unknown person who caused the deletion.
My thought is that if there is an article that is going to spark debate, and we all know that if you talk schools, drugs or animals it will, then don't allow postings! It really chaps me to have the comments removed. Maybe there could ne some other place to post comments and then if you don't want to read them, you don't have to???
Just a thought..what would you all think about perhaps seeing if some kind of forum could be developed in conjunction with our paper where everyone could speak based on topics? Just curious.
KM.
Centered..... When or if you "click" on the circle with the yellow "!" at the end of a comment, you are contacting the webmaster. However, when the comments are getting out of hand, the webmaster has the option of taking the comment section out. I don't think that the Brazil Times has an employee whose only duties are to monitor the website, it is something that they do as well as reporting the news.
I know how you feel about the comments disappearing. I wrote a comment on the article in question and my comment dissappeared along with the rest. As I usually invest some thought and effort into my comments, I was disappointed even though I can understand the circumstances.
Sassypants........being able to comment on an article is a privilege, one that allows discourse within the population. No one has to write a comment and no one HAS to read a comment; but to restrict commentary on the articles to "Letters to the Editor" is rather confining.
Letters to the editor are printed at the disgression of the editor and restricted by space. I have written many more letters to the editor than have been printed....LOL. Which is one of the reasons that I decided to blog when the Brazil Times gave us that option.
Also, if you go over to the "Opinion" section of the website, you will notice that a reader has no option to comment on an opinion piece written by one of the staff reporters of a letter from the public. Not long ago, one of the staff writers wrote an opinion piece that he wanted open to comment, then posted it on his blog when he found out that the public could not comment to solve the problem.
Karen....... There are several ways to offer the public a voice on the Internet.
You can have chatrooms, forums, or the privilege to write comments, as we are offered here.
However, as long as the few people that there are that take those opportunities to attack their fellow man you will have the problem that caused the Brazil Times to "pull" the comments on the article.
Some people just never outgrow kindergarten when they think they cannot be held accountable for their actions.
I would not write something under an assumed name and say something that I would not say directly, I think people take what you say more legitimately if you sign your name than if you sign the comment with something like, Clown face, for example, my apologies to Clown face in advance, of course.