This cartoon captures perfectly one of the reasons why comments get out of hand. I wish more people could say their piece, and then let it go.

I am a docent at OlyBlog, which is dedicated to hyperlocal news and discussion of topics related to life in and around Olympia, Washington. OlyBlog's mission is to promote citizen journalism and to provide a resource for sharing knowledge and discussion about Olympia (and immediately surrounding areas.)

OlyBlog is awesome and fun. However, throughout much of the history of OlyBlog (over 2 and 1/2 years now) there have been users of the site who participate in a way that is disruptive and discourages participation by a broader audience. Personally it has been aggravating and frustrating to deal with some of these individuals, there are about 10 or so of them, who bring an attitude of prejudice, of combativeness, of aggression and intolerance for any ideas but their own. Some users' behavior is downright nasty, hostile, provocative, antagonistic, hostile and dishonest. (sorry, yes I realize this isn't a thesaurus.)

From OMUG:

6:00 PM - 9:00 PM OMUG General Meeting @ 7pm:

Chris Brownell, a local blogger, will tell us about blogging and chat room participation. Blogging with your sweetie. (Olympia Community Center)

Mix and Meet: 6 pm
General Meeting: Business and then program: 7 pm
February 14 Program Valentine'

Hola OlyBlog, I was wondering if you are ever gonna have a public workshop on "blogging" & how to use all the cool OlyBlog features?

We're not alone here on OlyBlog in dealing with the issue of how to moderate discussion.

Calculated Risk:

I cannot make anyone stop responding to pointless or nuisance comments. You have to want to restrain yourself, because you understand that the only way to get rid of them is to fail to give them the attention they want. A "troll" is not just someone whose comments you disagree with, or even just a nasty or badly-worded comment. A troll is someone who does not, under any possible set of circumstances, care what you think about him or his comments. He merely wants attention. Negative attention will do. The more you disagree with him, the more he is able to tell himself that he is persecuted and victimized or the only voice of reason or one of the elite few who has the God's-eye view of the world or whatever his current delusion is. If he isn't merely a narcissist who thrives on feeling attacked, he's just some putz who enjoys irritating other people. Therefore, you "feed" the troll by paying any attention to him at all. It does not matter what you say in response. Any response to a troll just encourages the troll.

I've been thinking about this whole debate around gun culture on OlyBlog, and I've got a couple of questions. The first is, what exactly is the point of posting so much gun-related material on OlyBlog? Does anyone really think that there are going to be converts to the cause? I was looking on the NRA website and I noticed something interesting: there isn't a shooting range in Olympia, Lacey or Tumwater. Hmm. Why is that? I'm guessing that the population here wouldn't generate enough business to support it. So, first question: What's the goal?

Then, I think about the response to my offer to set up another blog for the gun folks to have their own chat-space. Why isn't this of interest to the local gun lobby? The only thing I can come up with is that they don't actually want to talk to each other, they want to argue with the rest of us. Is this possibly the case? Why would it be more attractive to continue to battle about these issues with a group of hardened pacifists (or folks otherwise resistant to gun culture)? I'd really like to know.

I want to emphasize (again) that I'm not against the occasional post about gun-related events or occurrences that are local in nature. That's what OlyBlog is for. I am against the evangelizing about the benefits of gun ownership.

If there is no resolution around this issue (like the creation of another blog for that stuff) then here's what's going to happen: I'll begin making posts that catalog the senseless and entirely avoidable deaths that occur as a result of easy access to handguns. I'm absolutely certain that I can exceed by a factor of 10 the number of lawful uses of handguns for self-defense. In short, we can use statistics, or we can do it the hard way.

I just want to open the topic of PM up for discussion--

--what are the OK and wrong ways to use PM?

Is [PM chatting on a blog] vs. [dialog back/forth in thread-space] detracting from the public dialog or not?

Or the same question expressed as: "Do private social spaces (maybe called "backdoors" or "pressure valves") benefit (or at least not constrain) public dialog and the construction of civil space online?

I'm not sure where I am on this one, all things considered~

any thoughts?

Maybe it's my imagination or wishful thinking, but I'm getting the definite impression that there are more productive, respectful, and edifying conversations taking place on the blog of late (like this one). People with really different viewpoints were able to say what they thought, back away when it became too intense, point out insensitive language, and move the ball forward. Good work!

I think there is something that I'm realizing about what blogging can actually achieve. It doesn't change people's minds that often, but just the ability to put out the information, a court ruling in the example above, allowing people to look at it carefully, and then move forward. Too often we get stuck, thinking the goal is to change minds. We change our own minds -- no one else can really do that.