The netiquette of posts and comments
I was reading up on the horrible killing of Yale grad student/lab worker Annie Le, and it appears that the best starting place for news coverage is the New Haven Register.
In any event, when I read comments to their articles, I saw that they have a very nice, un-control freakish way of encouraging responses that remain on the good side of civility:
We encourage your feedback and dialog and ask you to follow a few simple guidelines when commenting on stories on nhregister.com.
1) Please post responsibly.
2) Be polite.
3) Don't hate.
4) If you object to someone's post, use the "Report Abuse" button and we'll review it.
5) Users who don't play by the rules will be blocked and won't be allowed to participate.
6) Self-promotion of businesses or advertisements of anything for sale are not permitted.
No criticism of UH intended or implied, though the Globe and Herald sites certainly could use a bit of this philosophy. I just thought this was a very good way of saying things.
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Comments
Posting guidelines and
Posting guidelines and having posters actually follow them are two very different exercises in futility.
The very foundation of our
The very foundation of our civil and criminal justice system rests on an advocacy model of opposing interests. In fact lawyers are duty bound to represent their clients interests to their utmost ability. I've seen the way lawyers use words as weapons, sometimes engaged in respectful debate and just as often engaged in personal attacks and intimidation. I think its incumbent on lawyers to lead the way to a more civil standard in public conversation.