Blogfinger

By Charles Layton

Although we have our disagreements, the commenters on Blogfinger are, by and large, well-behaved. We editors don’t receive nearly as many seething pathological outbursts as we used to.

That’s because, early on, we decided not to go that way. We didn’t want a website that was rude, crude and strewn with name-calling, as some Internet sites are. So we established a policy about comments and posted it under the “Policies” tab at the top of this page.

Some people ignored our policy and kept trying to post abusive outbursts anyway. A few of these comments had the tone of a child’s temper tantrum. Some were studded with strings of WORDS IN ALL CAPS – the typographical equivalent of screaming — and spiked with a RIDICULOUS EXCESS!!!!!! OF EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!!!! — also the equivalent of screaming. Some of these submissions looked like they’d been written by a person with Tourette syndrome.

When we didn’t post these abusive comments and pointed out to the writer that they violated our standards, the writer would occasionally respond with YET! ANOTHER! INDIGNANT! OUTBURST!

We get fewer of such comments now. Most readers seem to have learned the rules, or else they’ve given up and taken their anger elsewhere.

But I’ve just read an article in the July issue of Scientific American with the title “Why Is Everyone on the Internet So Angry?” The article attempts to explain the frequency of uncivil comments online. It asserts that such behavior is addictive for many people — they go online looking for opportunities to vent their spleen. 

The article offers several explanations for the phenomenon, some of them obvious.

First, commenters are often anonymous and thus can’t be held accountable for their rudeness.

Second, the objects of their abuse are at a distance. Again, it’s a matter of non-accountability.

Third, Art Markman, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas, observes that it’s easier to be nasty in writing than in speech. When you’re having a conversation in person, Markham says, “Even if you get angry, people are talking back and forth and so eventually you have to calm down and listen so you can have a conversation.” Not so on the Internet.

Finally, the magazine quotes Edward Wasserman, a professor of  journalistic ethics at Washington and Lee University. He cites bad examples set by the media. “Mainstream media have made a fortune teaching people the wrong ways to talk to each other.” From what they see on TV, Wasserman says, some people “conclude that rage is the political vernacular, that this is how public ideas are talked about.”

According to Markham, “It’s valuable for all sides of an argument to be heard. But it’s not valuable for there to be personal attacks, or to have messages with an extremely angry tone… If on a website comments are left up that are making personal attacks in the nastiest way, you’re sending the message that this is acceptable human behavior.”

That is why rage on the Internet is bad for the soul. It signals to people that a screaming tantrum is an acceptable method of persuasion. And that’s one reason we don’t condone it here on Blogfinger. Another reason is that we just don’t think most people in Ocean Grove want that style of discourse on their local blog. 

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