Online discourse powerful, but more civility would be nice

Online 'comments' let readers react immediately, restrained only by their good manners. Unfortunately, some writers don't have much restraining them.

I am sometimes at a loss to know whether the advances of e-mail and instant messaging are a blessing for reinvigorating people's interest in writing or a curse for the same reason. There is in the written word, the well-turned phrase, a certain power to evoke the human spirit that cannot be duplicated by any other means. But exercised without discipline or decency, it too easily recalls Jonathan Swift's faux-cultured woman who "For conversation well endued, / She calls it witty to be rude."

Thanks to the ease of modern writing tools, that woman, alas, has cloned herself endlessly and she appears almost everywhere we look on the electronic page -- in our e-mail, in the bullying of teenagers on AOL, in myriad undisciplined blogging rants and, to my sad purpose today, in unrestrained commentaries added and -- I readily acknowledge -- encouraged at the ends of reports on newspaper Web sites.

Good news stories initiate conversations. We want the stories you read in the Daily Herald and on dailyherald.com to excite your imagination and your intellect, to stir you to exchange your thoughts and feelings with other people equally excited. Virtually from the first leaf of newsprint squeezed off Gutenberg's original printing press, newspapers have provided space for general commentary from readers. Letters to the editor have become a distinguishing component of the daily newspaper, allowing readers to share their ideas about the news generally without filter or interference from the newspaper's editors.

The Internet has supercharged that experience. The "comments" function added to the end of all our stories enables readers to react immediately to stories or editorials they read and to do so restrained only by their personal standard for good manners. Unfortunately, somewhere in the process, many people who are moved to comment online don't have much restraining them in that area, seeming either to forget or to ignore that what they write applies to actual human beings and can be powerfully hurtful.

One of the first examples of this that caught our attention occurred almost the first day we made this function available. At the end of a story about a fatal car accident, a commenter wrote "serves him right." Since then, it has become common for the comments following reports on tragedies of all types to include disparaging remarks about victims in the harshest of terms. Writers ridicule the appearance of people who are pictured with stories. Some lash out with brutal and crude observations about people who open up painful or embarrassing pieces of their private lives to educate the public in stories.

In the interest of providing an open forum, our practice has been to stand back and let public discourse flow freely on our Web site, removing only the most offensive comments and those flagged as abuse by other commenters. In retrospect, if we err, it's probably in standing back too much. We're trying to address that.

And, it's encouraging to see that some writers often jump in to contradict or scold highly critical or insensitive remarks. Good conversation requires such give and take, to be sure. At the same time, it has been disconcerting, if nothing else, to note that many of the same people who condemn the media for sensationalism and insensitivity employ a tone and commentary in their own public discourse that make journalists look like Mahatma Gandhi.

Electronic messaging has opened a world of written communication and access to media that was previously unthinkable. What a fortunate and valuable advance that is. Yet, how disappointing it will be if this advance must be always accompanied by Swift's uncivil and boorish hag.