Letters to the Editor
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The Fake Pose of Helplessness.
To slcgrad: I am vexed that you, like Salon, is ignoring 50% of the situation I pointed out.
My point isn't that it's Salon's fault for posting inflamatory articles, but it does so while choosing to skimp on the tools and policies necessary to manage discussion boards.
I do not dispute the poor thinking and lack of manners which degrade discourse. I dispute the notion Salon has no choice but to allow it.
Salon has been around since the early days of the Web - they've witness good and bad control of online forums. It was obvious that if one of the oldest webzines opened comments it would attract the entire spectrum of responses.
By the time they did scholary papers were available on trolling and moderation, major media outlets had been burned by inept feedback management. Hell, that Letters pages bring out the kooks was known long before the net.
Yet Salon chose minimal gatekeeping: no registration, anonymous commenting, no spell check, a one sentence comments policy and moderation queue which either didn't exist or had little oversight. (I used to defend anonymous commenting, but realized I only did so because it already existed. Most forums worth reading don't offer it or are more moderated than Salon.) Then after the problem was entrenched, they've been slow to change.
The problem is not readers failed at civility but Salon doesn't do enough to manage incivility. There's been multiple essays essays complaining about the results which have said little about why Salon chose such lax methods or why they are so slow to act in a way which satifies their own complaints.
This omission is becomes more dishonest each time. One is left to guess why the lack. As said before, I suspect Salon is unwilling expend the resources for the moderation it really needs. Nor is it willing to do anything which might reduce the traffic brought in by comments.
So I'll be blunt if you aren't going to do what's necessary, suck it up and stop blaming the readers who have no power to prevent the trolls.