Blog Comments and Bullying

The case of Kathy Sierra floated on the edge of my sphere of thinking for a few days. I read the headlines and thought, “That’s really sad,” and didn’t read further. Then on Wednesday, with a little time on my hands, I dropped by Kathy’s blog and read her story; I went to Chris Locke’s page and read what he wrote; I went back through what Doc Searls had written over several days; and I had a look at Andy Carvin‘s new Stop Cyberbullying project.

What Kathy Sierra has experienced isn’t merely sad; it’s horrifying. Her suffering was driven home to me when one commenter on the Iowa Public Radio blog was personally attacked by another commenter. The offending comment no longer exists, but it was a wakeup call for me and my administration of a public blog where individuals are allowed to comment.

The Iowa Public Radio blog has had Terms of Use since it went live. The terms are reasonably solid – no anonymous comments allowed; no misrepresentation of one’s identity; no personal attacks, profanity, etc. Since the blog went live in October, I’ve enforced most aspects of it. And enforcement has been easy – I’ve had to delete only 6 comments out of many hundreds that we’ve received from our listeners – and these are passionate folks dealing with a difficult series of changes to their public radio service. But the discussion, while sometimes heated, has almost always been appropriate.

However, I made one mistake. From the beginning, I didn’t enforce the rule not allowing anonymous comments. I let that slide with the best of intentions – I wanted people to feel free to comment, and I thought they’d still act appropriately. And nearly every anonymous commenter has. But what has become clear to me is that, by allowing anonymous comments to remain in place, I was allowing the community that listeners built around the blog to deteriorate; to channel Rob Paterson, I was destroying the blog’s Trusted Space.

Enter a brilliant piece by Tim O’Reilly’s Call for a Blogger’s Code of Conduct – something every blog owner, whether in public media or not, should read. Tim challenges and extends the more libertarian ethos of some blogs: you own your own comments.

Yes, you own your own words. But you also own the tone that you allow on any blog or forum you control.

Anonymous comments allow people to say things they wouldn’t otherwise say if they were identified. Anonymity removes a sense of responsibility from both the commenter, and interestingly enough, the blog owner.

So that loophole is gone. Yesterday, I changed our WordPress settings; users must now register and login to comment. A commenter isn’t required to post her name, so there’s still a measure of anonymity for those who want it. But there is a real email address. I will personally email every person who leaves a comment, thanking them for their comment. Any emails that get returned to me will result in the post being deleted. Posts will continue to publish automatically to the site, but I get an email when they do so I can review each comment.

This doesn’t change my belief that we should be as open as possible with our online communities. I don’t believe in moderating comments or requiring administrative pre-approval before they publish to the site. But there has to be a baseline expectation of civility. Our presence online is an extension of our on-air presence. The online presence can go further – the interaction it encourages can be more intimate, more open, than the one-way medium of broadcasting. But that Trusted Space that makes us so special to our listeners needs to extend to those who interact with us online.