Why the Anonymous Forums and Feedback is a Bad Idea
Why doesn't the Colorado Higher Ed News have a feedback section where any Tom, Dick or Harry - or Tomasina, Dicra or Harriett - can post anonymously whatever scurrilous, vindictive or outrageous comments they wish? After all, such feedback will increase a Website's hits and hits translate to higher placement in search engines and so forth and so on, blah, blah, blah.
"In theory, it's a great thing.
We're giving the people a voice! But the reality is that commenting either attracts loathsome people or somehow causes ordinary people to express themselves in a way that is loathsome," writes Lev Grossman, discussing anonymous blogs in his Time Magazine column, "Post Apocalypse" (July 21).
For proof, one has only to go online, find a site with news articles and read the comments posted by readers.
Many comments are cruelly perverse if not downright depraved.
If Grossman is right and the anonymity of a site makes ordinary people post extraordinarily abhorrent messages, then there is a darkness lurking inside people that these blogs unleashes.
Respectable newspapers still avoid printing anonymous letters unless protecting the writer's identity is a security matter and the letter is important enough to publish.
Unfortunately, those same newspapers have website feedback sites where any muttonhead with a keyboard can rant and rave until frothing at the mouth.
In truth, these anonymous posts give power to cowards who suddenly feel that they have license to say whatever malicious and, often, utterly asinine drivel pops into their little minds.
Hiding at home or in an office or at an internet café, safe from any reprisal, they secretly blather on, hurling invectives and cruelties without worrying about a friend, acquaintance or colleague seeing it and identifying them as a miscreant.
These anonymous posts create the perfect storm; the gutless have a forum to demonstrate their gutlessness.
Real people with real thoughts, sound and reasoned, are never afraid to own their opinions.
They write what they believe and submit it knowing full well that some, perhaps many, will disagree.
Why should that matter? If the opinion is honest, well-conceived and well delineated, then having one's name attached to it should not make anyone fearful.
On my Website, the Colorado Higher Ed News, I don't have to tolerate anonymous rants written by cringing cowards too fearful of the world to put their name on their thoughts - and, really, how much more cowardly can some people get? Refusing to own their opinions is like trying to distance themselves from their face.
Not having a forum where readers can comment is preferable to having an anonymous post where any Tomcat99, Dickman10 or HarryNads can post whatever stupid idea pops into what is laughingly referred to as a mind.
"In theory, it's a great thing.
We're giving the people a voice! But the reality is that commenting either attracts loathsome people or somehow causes ordinary people to express themselves in a way that is loathsome," writes Lev Grossman, discussing anonymous blogs in his Time Magazine column, "Post Apocalypse" (July 21).
For proof, one has only to go online, find a site with news articles and read the comments posted by readers.
Many comments are cruelly perverse if not downright depraved.
If Grossman is right and the anonymity of a site makes ordinary people post extraordinarily abhorrent messages, then there is a darkness lurking inside people that these blogs unleashes.
Respectable newspapers still avoid printing anonymous letters unless protecting the writer's identity is a security matter and the letter is important enough to publish.
Unfortunately, those same newspapers have website feedback sites where any muttonhead with a keyboard can rant and rave until frothing at the mouth.
In truth, these anonymous posts give power to cowards who suddenly feel that they have license to say whatever malicious and, often, utterly asinine drivel pops into their little minds.
Hiding at home or in an office or at an internet café, safe from any reprisal, they secretly blather on, hurling invectives and cruelties without worrying about a friend, acquaintance or colleague seeing it and identifying them as a miscreant.
These anonymous posts create the perfect storm; the gutless have a forum to demonstrate their gutlessness.
Real people with real thoughts, sound and reasoned, are never afraid to own their opinions.
They write what they believe and submit it knowing full well that some, perhaps many, will disagree.
Why should that matter? If the opinion is honest, well-conceived and well delineated, then having one's name attached to it should not make anyone fearful.
On my Website, the Colorado Higher Ed News, I don't have to tolerate anonymous rants written by cringing cowards too fearful of the world to put their name on their thoughts - and, really, how much more cowardly can some people get? Refusing to own their opinions is like trying to distance themselves from their face.
Not having a forum where readers can comment is preferable to having an anonymous post where any Tomcat99, Dickman10 or HarryNads can post whatever stupid idea pops into what is laughingly referred to as a mind.