I’ll agree that when one is attacked, it’s natural to respond in kind. However, my point was and still is that if you start the conversation in full battle mode with a senselessly provocative piece, in an age of interaction, it is hardly surprising that the conversation ends where it began: Full of vitriol and name-calling. As I often say, if one wants lots of comments, it’s a pretty straight-forward process of picking a hot button issue and pressing those buttons as hard as possible, which seems to be the interactive ’strategy’ of too many news sites. Technology will only go so far in addressing community issues. One has to have an effective content strategy to maintain civility and intelligence, if that is, in fact, one’s goal.

There are some systems as you describe, in terms that people can vote up or down comments. The Bakersfield has developed and sells one. One can choose to see comments that have only reached a level of approval. However, I’m not aware of a commenting system that allows the type of filtering that you’re describing. Please point me in the direction of one if you know of it.

You should be able to use basic HTML and highlight what you wish using the Movable Type system that we use here.

Being a niche site, we don’t usually get this many comments. This post has been one of those in the long tail, slowly accruing comments over the two years since I wrote it. But as I said, technology is only part of the solution. Thanks for the comment.

I think

**** the future of comments lies in filtering ****

- what’s the point of making a comment, if readers are so fed up by the tripe before yours that they never see it?

Make the filters voluntary, and those who want (and want to be) the Wild West can have it, while those that want civil informed commentary can have that.

For example: skimming through the 20+ comments before mine it would have been great to see each one’s main point highlighted in bold (or color, or whatever).
(alas, corante doesn’t allow this…)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

In the end, it doesn’t truly matter what name someone chooses to go by. What matters is their contribution to the community over a period of time. Individuals can come to be regarded as pillars of the online community whether they are known as “Mr.Sillypants” or “John H. Smith” based on their actions and contributions.

Additionally, in the very short term, after one vitriolic comment, knowing my real name isn’t going to do you a whole lot of good. However, requiring a credit card, or a driver’s license, or a passport, etc, simply raises barriers to entry. One of the beautiful things about the internet is that the barriers to entry are dropping every second, and people can communicate relatively free of the initial stigmas and biases that persistently arise in meatspace based on things like clothes, age, sex, class, orientation, race and citizenship.

“….Let’s start a campaign for real names in the blogosphere (credit card-verified like they do on amazon).”

Where do I sign Paul?
Shiny Up,
Poet Horton

I disagree. It came late in the game - well after dozens of other media based group blogging sites, and most of the articles are incredibly pedantic in tone. Were it structured to augment the Guardian by allowing for additional information by readers, people disussing points, and publishing errata, it would make seem to have more to it than a yahoo group, but it doesn’t.
One finds BBC correspondents transcribing their television and radio reports, as well as other grand and brave acts of recycling by them and other bloggers, but does very little to add to the print edition.