Pirate's Cove

The Paper of Record jumps in to the debate

Is it too late to bring civility to the Web?

The conversational free-for-all on the Internet known as the blogosphere can be a prickly and unpleasant place. Now, a few high-profile figures in high-tech are proposing a blogger code of conduct to clean up the quality of online discourse.

Last week, Tim O’Reilly, a conference promoter and book publisher who is credited with coining the term Web 2.0, began working with Jimmy Wales, creator of the communal online encyclopedia Wikipedia, to create a set of guidelines to shape online discussion and debate.

Chief among the recommendations is that bloggers consider banning anonymous comments left by visitors to their pages and be able to delete threatening or libelous comments without facing cries of censorship.

Now, two points. First, sites are privately owned. Deleting comments is not censorship. When you pay for the site, you can do as you please.

Second, throughout the entire article, nowhere is it mentioned that the majority of horrendous comments come from those on the Left. I'm not surprised, as the Left is the primary readership of the NY Times, as well as being staffed and run primarily by those on the Left. I don't really need to dumpster dive again to prove my point, do I?

For any on the Left who might say "BS!!!!" I say, view the Beyond Moonbat, Liberal World, and/or Raving Moonbat categories for a reminder. Then, when you say in a sneering voice "hey, you damned neeeeeeocons do it all the time," give me the specific link to a blog or site that is at least near mainstream, and we'll see. Sure, conservatives have gotten out of hand at time, like when Elizabeth Edwards was originally diagnosed with cancer years ago. And those folks were roundly slapped down. Nothing similar slap downs were handed out when the left was hoping for the death of Cheney, Laura Bush, etc.

Sure, we all go over that line, and can get snarky and uncivil. The difference between conservatives and lefties is that conservatives tend to keep it in the realm of politics, rather then getting highly person, which is what the left does. What they do is known as the politics of personal destruction. I would have to visit literally hundreds of right wing sites to even find anything even mildly nasty, while, on the flip side, I could find major nastiness at multiple left wing sites within 10 minutes. Well, 30 minutes, cause I would stop to read the insanity.

Can you imagine the comments if the Times allowed them?

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