If you look at websites that have been around for 10 years or 15 years, those that have communities that are actually constructive where the comment threads are interesting and the discussions are good and they are actually adding to the value of the place, are ones that tended to start very carefully. The people who founded them or who started them, the early members of the community, were all present. It was like a big company that just opened up some space and said to the world come on in and comment. Usually there was some kernel of committed individuals, people who felt that this was their place, and they were having a conversation about something that they cared about and that sort of established the initial norms of that space.
And then over time as new people would arrive they would look around and see, oh, this is the kind of place where people are saying things that they care about or they are putting some effort into their comments or they are saying things that they want other people to hear and they are not getting into fights with each other. There is a kind of contagion to good manners and bad manners and to not just manners but to the substance of what people are talking about that applies online as well as it does in-person conversations.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/futuretense/online-comments—ep/5795478#transcript
After a long winded discussion of blog civility this morning – that’s their solution? What we have in the climate war is a community of climate extremists who move freely between encampments on both sides. The home territory is the training ground for activists who venture out to skirmish in enemy territory. This is a very different dynamic to that described above – and a vigourous defense of the home territory is required to avoid the polarized discredication effect. The tactic is very simple. Be as uncivil as possible in commentary and that creates adverse perceptions of the content.
Uncivil discourse is a growing concern in American rhetoric, and this trend has expanded beyond traditional media to online sources, such as audience comments. Using an experiment given to a sample representative of the U.S. population, we examine the effects online incivility on perceptions toward a particular issue—namely, an emerging technology, nanotechnology. We found that exposure to uncivil blog comments can polarize risk perceptions of nanotechnology along the lines of religiosity and issue support. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcc4.12009/abstract
The activists self identify with groups and adopt group memes. They have negatives stereotypes of the opposition. Warmist or sceptic – and I am very commonly both at the very same time. Mind you – I am happy not to be a skydragon or one of the Borg Collective.
We now, with the internet, have the opportunity to talk to each other and actually look at things slightly differently, go into perhaps more depth than you can fit into a newspaper article. But the problem is that with the way that comments are run at the moment, quite often what you see is antagonistic minorities shouting at each other, rather than the broader middle ground having a meaningful discussion, because those people, those moderate views get drowned out by the sort of rage and hysteria from the extremes of the spectrum.
![\scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}](http://s0.wp.com/latex.php?latex=%5Cscriptstyle%5Crule%5B2.25ex%5D%7B0.01pt%7D%7B0.01pt%7D%5C%2C%5Cboldsymbol%7B%5Coverset%7B%5Cscriptstyle%5Ccirc%5Cwedge%5Ccirc%7D%7B%5Csmile%7D%5C%2C%5Cheartsuit%5C%2C%7B%5Cdisplaystyle%5Ctext%7B%5Cbfseries%21%21%21%7D%7D%5C%2C%5Cheartsuit%5C%2C%5Coverset%7B%5Cscriptstyle%5Ccirc%5Cwedge%5Ccirc%7D%7B%5Csmile%7D%7D%5C+%5Crule%5B-0.25ex%5D%7B0.01pt%7D%7B0.01pt%7D&bg=bbffcc&fg=0055ff&s=2 "\scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}")
