Quote :

"On Monday, May 17, at 2 p.m., a breaking news article headlined “Obama’s aunt given OK to stay in United States” hits the home page of Boston.com. In a matter of seconds, the first anonymous online comment appears. A reader with the handle of Peregrinite writes, “of course she can . . . can someone appeal.” Certain topics never fail to generate a flood of impassioned reactions online: immigration, President Obama, federal taxes, “birthers,” and race. This story about Obama’s Kenyan aunt, who had been exposed as an illegal immigrant living in public housing in Boston and who was now seeking asylum, manages to pull strands from all five of those contentious subjects. In the next few minutes, several equally innocuous posts follow, including a rare comment in favor of the judge’s decision. Then the name-calling begins. At 2:03 p.m., a commenter with the pseudonym of Craptulous calls the aunt, Zeituni Onyango, a “foreign free-loader.” Seconds later comes the lament from Redzone 300: “Just another reason to hate are [sic] corrupt government.” News websites from across the country struggle to maintain civility in their online comments forums. But given their anonymous nature and anything-goes ethos, these forums can sometimes feel as ungovernable as the tribal lands of Pakistan. At Boston.com, the website of The Boston Globe, a team of moderators – or “mods” – monitor the comments. Actually, with just one or two mods on per shift, and an average of more than 6,000 comments posted every day, on every corner of the site, the mods could never hope to monitor all the simultaneous chatter. Instead, they focus on evaluating the “abuse reports” that commenters file against one another. For Steve Morgan, a veteran editor who coordinates the monitoring, the color of trouble is red. The crimson message at the top of his computer screen keeps a running total of the abuse reports that are awaiting action. Some complaints don’t ultimately turn up abuse – coarse language, ad hominem attacks, and the like – but rather just a political stance that the person doing the complaining doesn’t care for. So a mod needs to evaluate each complaint and decide either to remove the comment or let it stand. Over the next two hours, the comments about Obama’s aunt keep flying, the abuse reports continue to climb, and the mods scramble to remove the many posts – both conservative and liberal – that they determine have crossed the line. Some comments are enlightening, on both sides of the issue. (Madriver1 offers statistics showing that, of nearly 40,000 asylum requests filed last year, more than one-quarter were granted.) Some are unintentionally funny. (GLOBEREADER83 chastises another commenter for having written “good grammar” instead of “proper grammar,” but in both cases misspells it as grammer.) And many are not just mean, but make-you-want-to-shower nasty. There are references to Muslim bombers, Somalian pirates, “teabaggers and xenophobes,” America becoming “a 3rd world socialist hellhole,” and crude comparisons between Aunt Zeituni and James Brown, and between the first family and farm animals. Continued... "

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/magazine/articles/2010/06/20/inside_the_mind_of_the_anonymous_online_poster/

6/22/2010 2:24:27 PM

tl;dr

6/22/2010 2:27:41 PM

yeah i didn't either

6/22/2010 2:28:26 PM

yeah i didn't either

6/22/2010 2:29:21 PM

^

6/22/2010 2:36:33 PM

Summary: People use anonymity (whether perceived or real) to say questionable things on the internet.

6/22/2010 2:40:39 PM

That kind of behavior annoys me to no end. On tww, it is basically standard practice to rail on people, but on a news site, really? People have nothing better to do than be complete jackasses?

6/22/2010 2:57:50 PM

^ check out the comments on WRAL stories...

http://www.wral.com/news/

6/22/2010 3:22:41 PM

yeah comments sections arent even worth posting in if you're not one of the first 5-10 comments...everything turns to political bashing, race bashing, religious bashing, etc

[Edited on June 22, 2010 at 3:26 PM. Reason : .]

6/22/2010 3:26:02 PM

6/22/2010 8:31:55 PM

it is an interesting phenomenon

6/22/2010 8:46:08 PM

Quote :

"Some are unintentionally funny. (GLOBEREADER83 chastises another commenter for having written “good grammar” instead of “proper grammar,” but in both cases misspells it as grammer.) "

I don't know about their shit, but that's never unintentional on TWW

6/22/2010 8:59:01 PM

i've never really understood the need for a "comments" section on a news article.

6/22/2010 9:46:12 PM

6/24/2010 8:27:03 AM

Quote :

"but on a news site, really?"

Seems like it's all of them lately too. I kind of wish they would go back to the days of not having a comment section.

6/24/2010 8:45:57 AM

^^ i can identify with that

[Edited on June 24, 2010 at 8:57 AM. Reason : .]

6/24/2010 8:46:48 AM