There’s a great little piece in the Inky today (whoa, there’s a phrase you don’t hear much) about how, basically, Philly.com’s lack of any kind of coherent comments policy is basically tearing the site down, asshole by asshole. Well, that’s not what Karen Heller’s piece is explicity about — it’s more a treatise on the old saw that if you give a douchebag the chance to be himself anonymously on the Internet, unless your site fosters an actual community (which Philly.com does not, no matter how many dollar signs wish it so), that douchebag and his tribe, lefty or righty, will grouse and grouse until any real debate about anything disappears entirely. And anyone who’s ever chanced upon this phenom on various Inky and DN stories knows that it is a festering, racist, ignorant sore upon these papers that threatens to overshadow what is actually being written by its correspondents. (Visit Dan Gross for an up-close look at, well, why we don’t really bother linking to Dan Gross anymore; sorry, we’re fucking snobs. We will not lead you horses to idiot prole water unless we know for sure that, you know, it’s important.) And fuck this “fostering debate” shit: Why can’t Philly.com draw a stronger line in the sand with its commenters? Think of it this way: Sites like Philebrity would never tolerate for a second the evil shit people say on Philly.com comments sections. Our credo has always been that “Commenting on Philebrity is a privilege, not a right.” And yet no one on the city’s biggest website seems to have ever had that same thought.
Inky: Hanging Writers Out To Dry Since The Internet Got Invented

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 18th, 2008 at 11:44 am.