Interaction

I got tied up with a variety of obligations involved with, you know, my actual job, so I didn't get around to putting together some thoughts on J.T.'s column on digital interaction. I think it's a pretty good piece ...

All too often, though, that mindset slides quickly from expressing a viewpoint to engaging in vilification, from advancing a reasoned argument into orchestrating an unrestrained abusiveness.

I remain convinced that the interactivity of Web 2.0, which provides people who otherwise might never speak with each other an opportunity to exchange views, retains the potential to be a viable vehicle for reasoned public discourse.

But I'm also realistic enough to recognize that it just as easily could become a high-tech version of a public restroom wall. And I wish that, sometimes, some of the folks scrawling in cyberspace would recognize that, for them, maybe it's time to turn the computer off.

I think this is pretty spot-on. Again, as I've noted before, I don't allow comments here, and I don't allow comments because some folks abused the function by hijacking various threads and personally attacking either me or folks they disagreed with. Conservations on, say, a local ordinance related to the pricing of water would rapidly digress into a handful of folks claiming that the president - either George W. Bush or Barack Obama - was on the verge of instilling a dictatorship.

I appreciate, encourage and value respectful disagreements and alternate points of view, but I don't have time for crazy.

And, unfortunately, a lot of the comments on various blogs and news sites - including the Athens Banner-Herald's - has lent some credence to those types of nonsensical diatribes. Again, I agree with J.T. that there are plenty of valid viewpoints out there, but 10-paragraph opuses from Winfield J. Abbe that merely repeat the same thing over and over again don't meet the merit bar for me.