If you thought the Writer's Strike was over, you're right, but someone has joined the cause late. A popular blogger over on dailykos.com has decided to boycott the site because of abusive comments toward the candidate he or she supports: Hillary Clinton. If you're not familiar with dailykos, it's a progressive blog generally designed to strengthen the Democratic party. The blogger, known by the name "Alegre," has received 1258 comments in the past ten days, both in support and dissent of her decision to no longer post at dailykos. A full list of Alegre's reasons for leaving the site can be found in her last blog entry here.
Alegre's difficulties with abusive blog comments is another example of people's inability to control themselves when posting in an anonymous form. I'm sure that everyone has at one point in time or another read a blog or online news article and had the joy of reading a long line of "user comments" which are essentially writing on the bathroom wall. Posters attack the ideas or people mentioned not only by using argument fallacies, but by name calling and using threatening language toward other posters. It's as if being online and anonymous has created a sense of invincibility in people. The fact that this has spilled into presidential politics isn't a surprise. The only reason it took so long was because the blog world had to wait for the next presidential election cycle.
Places like CNN and Fox News seem to have responded to the problem of abusive comments by having someone monitor exactly what is posted, and only actually post the material once someone has read it and agreed it's fit to be seen by humans eyes. But this takes time and money, and even still some comments slip through the cracks.
While I can understand Alegre's frustration with abusive comments, my only question to him/her would be what are the alternatives? It seems that every blog with a polarizing topic is subject to the standard group of idiots that post drivel at the bottom. The only answer seems to be heavy moderation, in which someone spends most of their time reading the comments to remove the material that isn't fit to read.
Now that I've written this, please don't post anything mean in the comments section.