ToMA: Ignorance runs rampant in online comments
City bureaucrat Linda Hartmann steps up to defend her co-workers from the "hateful diatribes" in the online comments, and calls on the editors to quit publishing them.
The twist in her undies is clearly caused by the Elks Theatre intrigue, but she won't talk about that directly. She thinks Steve Norwood is the best city manager in recent memory (she's wrong -- Mark Stevens was a fair bit smarter -- but they've all been mediocre at best), that Prescott PD is above reproach (wrong again, of course), and our Council is "doing what they think is right," which to Ms Hartmann apparently equates with "doing the right thing." She dogs on former employees who criticize current ones. She goes on for 800 words or so refuting the "uninformed" commenters, but ends by claiming she doesn't care what they think.
I can understand how a white, salaried, mid-level City desk worker could sincerely believe all these things. What she lacks is experience dealing with City Hall as an outsider. Courier employees often express the same sort of institutional defensiveness. It's to be expected. But it demonstrates how hard it can be to communicate with City employees about the problems they create and participate in. A far better response would be to give people the benefit of the doubt and try to see how you can be part of the solution.
This is the second major public display of official sensitivity about Courier comments, following the Mayor's attempt to strongarm Deb Thurston a few months ago. It demonstrates that many City employees and elected officials pay close attention to the comments on an ongoing basis, therefore the comments are a strong tool for communicating with City Hall. I would hope that might make commenters a little more serious about what they're writing.
Ms Hartmann is correct, of course, that a lot of comments are idiotic, emotionally driven BS and gratuitous and often unwarranted personal attacks. (She misses that her own opinions here are emotional and poorly informed.) She's also right that anonymity increases incivility. The commenters who defend anonymity don't realize how many reasonable, informed and civil people are so put off by the uncivil environment that they refrain from getting involved. This has all been true since online communities began in the '80s and it will always be true. With more personal skin in the game, there's a lot less venting and lying. Registration and real names would be a good and responsible thing for the Courier to institute.
Regular readers know that I'm very skeptical about the claim that using one's own name on a comment commonly leads to harassment by employers or ideological opponents. I've been a high-profile commenter taking unpopular positions for years without any untoward social consequences other than the odd hairy eyeball from a certain Courier employee. If you're afraid of consequences, what makes it so important to comment on the paper? Like as not you're really just afraid of shadows. Try taking a few months off from TV and see how you feel about it then.
Bonus track, Wednesday: A comment appears today titled "The Susan Thomas Story," in which the commmenter pulls some interesting research from the Courier archive. Excellent!
