Hotdish Tuesday: No Politeness, No Openmindedness, No Service

Should blogs try to be a kinder, gentler medium?  Or is the knock-down, drag-out interaction between readers what really brings people to the show?

Inquiring media minds want to know…

more insideIn the wake of the New York Times article yesterday calling for blogger civility, the hottest question after “who is Anna Nicole Smith’s baby’s daddy?” is “do we need a blogger code of ethics?”

MPR’s Bill Wareham is cautiously interested.

I don’t know that we need a code, but you can count me among those who get turned off when online conversations devolve into insult-laden diatribes. And it’s not just that I’ll click my way somewhere else at that moment, I may not return.

As for the Big Question, although bloggers Doug Tice and Eric Black have not addressed this new article directly, it wasn’t so long ago that they dealt with the discord in their own way.

With some regret but effective immediately, the Big Question will require registration for those wishing to post comments. We hope this will cut down the spam traffic against which we toil heroically behind the scenes.

The registration process will not be burdensome. We hope all who come in civility and substance will take a minute to register. Trolls and sock puppets feel free to take your unhelpful comments elsewhere.

So how does one decide where the free speech and free-wheeling back and forth of the comments section stops being an asset to a site and starts becoming a land of harassment, intimidation and ugliness that erodes versus expands traffic?

I sure can’t manage to do it.  We love our trolls here at Minnesota Monitor. 

After all, our ad rates are based per page view.