Take a poll on Washblog comments[Author's note 1/4/06: The comments in the post in question became more focused on the issues and less on the people -- and ended up containing much of real interest. As of today, 26% of the respondents -- 7 people out of 26 -- characterized these comments as showing that progressives need to learn to be more civil to each other for their own political good. Seven percent, or 2 people, said that the comments could convince almost anyone to never attend a Democratic event. That's a substantial minority of the people who responded -- people who are likely to be already battle-hardened blog readers. I take that seriously. Today, Goldy on HorsesAss quotes David Horsey on the comments on online forums: "... In so much of this populist punditry there is an overabundance of ill-informed spouting off infused with incredible rudeness, paranoia, bias and bile." And Goldy responds: "Gee, I dunno… that seems to me like a pretty fair description of the comment threads on both (u)SP ([un]Sound Politics) and HA (HorsesAss)."] On WB, where the dialogue happens primarily among activist progressives, I think it's to our mutal benefit to try to encourage less "incredible rudeness" and "bile".] I'm not sure what reaction to have to the comments on the post directly below this one: "Sirota and the need for a pragmatic ideology". But I'm curious what other people think. This site's managers are in the process of figuring out how to respond to such interactions. So I've created a poll, below. Obviously, the choices in the poll below reflect my feelings about the comments attached to Pen's story, though I did try to reach into my imagination and cover what I saw as the possible gamut/spectrum.
Feel free to leave a comment instead or in addition. Because this is about communication and I'm looking for specific information, I'm going to be very liberal in deleting any comment on this post that calls someone's credentials or humanity into question or otherwise appears to me to create or perpetuate uncivil interactions that might discourage people from expressing their opinion here.
Take a poll on Washblog comments | 27 comments (27 topical)
|