Edgewater Hotel Sign Comes Down
The Art of Not Knowing
If You Tweet It, He Will Come
Historicist: "The city that nobody loves"
The Daily Photoist: November 20, 2009
Pictured: not Susan G. Cole.
We sort of agree with Susan G. Cole. There, we said it.
NOW's entertainment editor has a piece online today about how she does not like most anonymous internet commenters, born out of her reaction to Google being forced to reveal the identity of an anonymous blogger who called model Liskula Cohen a "psychotic, lying whore" and a "skank." Cole writes:
I'm constantly on the receiving end of some very nasty trash talk, courtesy of anonymous bloggers and commenters, and outraged by it. Why should online commentators get away with saying whatever they feel like without being made accountable, while those of us who use a byline to offer unpopular opinions have to take the heat?
And:
As a perpetual target myself, I'm hoping that users will adjust to online excess and learn which comments to take seriously and which to reject.Frankly, except for whistle blowers and those offering scandalous tidbits probing government incompetence or corruption, I assume anonymous bloggers and commentators either have an axe to grind or are simply craven cowards. You should, too.
Even though she ends up disagreeing with the decision to reveal the name of the "skank"-calling blogger—because, she says, anonymity sometimes lets people speak truth to (skanky?) power—she's mostly right. The internet is a strange and horrible place, and it can bring out strange and horrible things in many of the people who use it, especially when there's little or no accountability for what's said. That was never clearer than when Cole wrote an ill-advised obituary for Martin Streek, suggesting that his suicide was the result of a lost battle with drugs. (It was a pretty bad obituary, and we wrote about it, and some of Cole's other recent work, then.) Cole would eventually write a follow-up, apologizing for her being "misconstrued." "To all who were outraged by my post," she wrote, "please know that I did not intend to make any kind of innuendo and regret that my post added to your personal pain."
The worst of the comments on both obituaries are now gone from NOW's site, but we distinctly remember them getting more and more ugly, eventually becoming less and less about Streek and more and more about how Cole was a woman (!!) and gay (!!!!!!!) and not particularly young (!!!!!!!!!). You can probably guess what she got called. What's saddest, though, is that that reaction makes sense by the logic of internet: people were already angry because someone they loved killed themselves, and then someone else came along, and seemed to incorrectly postulate on the cause of the death. Instead of dealing with it as some people would in the real world—getting briefly angry about it, and moving on, maybe with a terse letter or call to the editor—people found an angry echo chamber that they could yell into, without social norms, without filters, without tact, and without names other than Streek's and Cole's.
And sure, some people did go so far as to make an angry Facebook group that aimed to get Cole fired as a result of the obituary, which means that the reaction wasn't altogether anonymous (that Facebook group, by the way, has since been renamed to "titfucking Susan G. Cole is my secret fantasy"). And Cole's surely overreaching now by suggesting that everyone who comments anonymously online is either someone with an "axe to grind" or a "craven coward." But the internet's one hell of an enabler.
You may now say totally awful things about Torontoist and its contributors in the comments.
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It never occurred to me that facebook was laissez-faire enough to allow groups to have names like 'titfucking.'
just sayin'...
The internet is a strange and horrible place, and it can bring out strange and horrible things in many of the people who use it, especially when there's little or no accountability for what's said.
:D
Shhh! Geez, not so loud. "Skankblogger" is my safeword!
I'LL BE YOUR SKANKBLOGGER
How is it that in the year 2009 we still have discussions about internet use and the "kids get off my lawn" crowd still doesn't understand the difference between pseudonymous and anonymous?
There are many commenters here, for instance, like montauk and rek that I enjoy reading. They are not anonymous, even though I assume those aren't their names on their birth certificates. They have a history known to the readers here, and their pseudonyms are protected in the sense that others don't purport to comment under those tags. The flip side - and much less enjoyable - would be a thread full of comments by "Guest" and "Anonymous", and thankfully we don't have that.
Torontoist used to have an anonymous commenting system, then switched to mixed (you didn't have to register, but you were stuck with Guest for a name), and now is entirely registered commenting.
I opposed to switch, and when it happened I lost my name, and only two years later got it back.
...sorry, but to finish my point: and my reading enjoyment is not enhanced were I to know the real names of these people.
I'd argue that there is a real and tangible difference between commenting systems like NOW's (where anyone can post under any name) and systems like ours (which require a valid, working email address to sign up, and which duplicate accounts aren't permitted in). It's not like all that many of you would suddenly become assholes if you didn't have to provide an email address when you signed up, and it's not like anyone other than the site's staff can ever see that email address anyway, and it's not like the area below every post here is a utopia—but even the smallest measures can create a very different overall environment.
...which is why NOW really should look into requiring registration to leave comments.
In fact, I've had a few realizations lately, ones which will no doubt inform commenting policy at Torontoist. They are as follows:
1. Those of you who have no better occupation than scouring our articles for typos are henceforth banned, for all eternity, from the hallowed grounds of my comments section, you perposterous pedants. Yes. Perposterous. No longer will I indulge your relentless nitpickery as though the very fate of the Free World rests solely on Torontoist's adherence to your obtuse beckonings. I am no fool, I recognize the devil spawn of Blogto and Spacing and the Star and the National Post and Toronto Sun and above all, the Globe and Mail (JUST KIDDING GLOBE AND MAIL!! HA! HA! LOVE YOU GUYS!) when I see them and I REFUSE TO BE A VICTIM. The next time you are tempted to inform me on a missing "e" or lowercase "t" I'll blow my algae-infested spittle all over your face.
2. My brother-in-law is a graffiti artist. None of you repugnant right-wing tyrants are familiar with fraternal obligation, I realize, as you no doubt devour competing offspring as they flee the afflicted uterus of your unwilling maternal host, but if you want to explain why this publication refuses to support his "lifestyle" during the next gaping chasm of awkward silence at Thanksgiving be my guest. Until then, shut the fuck up and enjoy the "art". Which reminds me, you abominable scum feedlings, until my ex-girlfriend leaves the ironically-bearded "creative marketing" fuck who convinced her that a chrome Kitchen-Aid stand mixer with paddle attachment and matching toaster was a better bargain than FIVE YEARS OF FINANCIAL AND EMOTIONAL SUPPORT, SHEILA, FIVE YEARS you can bet your bottom that the hammer of Thor will be down on every billboard that needlessly reminds me of my cavernous despair.
3. Yes. We do receive the occasional gift basket or complimentary muffin in return for some casual coverage of local advertising. But would you not do the same in our position? If you were forced to write in the collective first person as a "creative decision" to honor the malformed fetus growing out of your shoulder because your mother goes into hysterics when you forget it's "birthday" wouldn't you feel entitled to the occasional sample-size packet of Proctor Gamble skincare products or novelty beer helmet? Would the relentless despair of your bleak existence not perhaps be brightened by powdered cocoa and 10% off custom signage on an order of $75 or more? Would not a week's worth of discounted yoga classes perhaps give you impetus to live another day? Does it have to be all you, you, you? Can't be have a little help-me-help-you in this joint? Hands? Reaching hands? Touching me? Touching you? OH GOD SHEILA WHY SHEILA WHY
not enough all-caps, david. epic fail.
but funny. "hammer of thor" is coke-all-over-monitor funny.
"algae-infested spittle"
What. Have. You. Been. Doing?
If he's been drinking lake water, no wonder he's got algae breath and is crazy.
I AM THAT I AM.
Geez David, are you trolling your own article? There are some interesting levels of meta happening here.
First off: DUDE.
Secondly, one stainless-steel appliance does not a strumpet make. Add a second one and, thus, an unattainable kitchen motif, and all morals fly out the window like a blogging model's panties. Not that I'd know anything about that.
Those of you who have no better occupation than scouring our articles for typos are henceforth banned, for all eternity, from the hallowed grounds of my comments section, you perposterous pedants. Yes. Perposterous.
I've been online since 1993, back in the heyday of trn usenet. Spelling flames were already lame then. So, yes, it is perposterous...
Good point David. A good illustration of the difference can be found by comparing the comments on Torontoist and BlogTO, which for the sake of argument I will say have a readership (and potential commentariat) that largely overlaps. Here there is a cast of regulars, plus a lot of occasional commenters. There's some snark and ad hominem in the comments, but it tends to follow a decipherable arc over time, and people have to own what they have said in the past. There... it's often just a jumble of people snarking from the comfortable shadows of pseudonymity.
The internet is a community which happens to be fully documented. People say all sorts of crazy stuff in the real world too. I'm am undecided on the defamation angle though.
I can't believe nobody has posted this link yet. John Gabriels Greater Theory of the Internet. It explains everything.
And for once, I agree with Cole. While the anonymity of the internet has its drawbacks, the advantages are greater.
Wow, I almost forgot about that.
That gets raised every time Torontoist writes about Internet fights. What it fails to explain is what to do about the fuckwads.
I think we will find a cure for cancer before that happens.
So, these comments:
http://torontoist.com/2009/08/susan_g_cole_makes_a_good_point_about_the_internet.php#comment-2323384
http://torontoist.com/2009/08/susan_g_cole_makes_a_good_point_about_the_internet.php#comment-2323380
http://torontoist.com/2009/08/susan_g_cole_makes_a_good_point_about_the_internet.php#comment-2323401
Were written by montauk, and not by me. She changed her icon and display name to mine, and I've just changed them back.
I thought I was going crazy.
I knew something was fishy, those posts had a flavor of Montauk's special sauce that I usualy read from her posts. Pitty, I was looking forward to you being my Skankblogger.
I think the NOW comments will have to change, but I would rather them as they are, TBH. I like the lightly monitored approach. Free, (relatively) easy, democratic. Unfortch valid opinions often get buried by the flamers.
But I think TOist's registration is a little flawed too. I recall the editor that's not David got into the habit of outing commenters who simply disagreed with him. While that's probably cool by your comment policy, I personally think it's unfair.
The comments section of Jezebel is best, in my opinion.
Removing comments—or banning users—solely on the grounds of our staff or contributors disagreeing with them is not cool by our comment policy, and we don't do it. Proof: your comment!
No, not removing/deleting comments, but revealing commenters' names and occupations because you disagree with them...ie Jerrold from BlogTO. He commented under a user name of his choosing that was not his real name – which is valid. You (you as a site, not you David) didn't like what he was saying, and revealed who he was to the rest of your readers. You outed him.
I don't know who Montauk is and I think she would rather that, since she chose a user name that is not her full/real name. If you were post her full/real name and job, as you've done before, well I think that's uncool. That's all.
I think you're right that the few instances where that happened were uncool, and, ultimately, bad decisions on our part.
I remember why we did it, though, and you surely do too: it was not because of a disagreement, but because we were aware of undisclosed conflicts of interest on an individual commenter's part—to borrow from Cole's article, they had an axe to grind, one we knew about—and felt like it was important for our readers to know about those conflicts of interest, because knowing about them would frame a person's comments in a very different way. Still, in the future, I think we're more likely to handle stuff like that discreetly; I think we'd only ever "out" someone if what they did was very serious. (Let's say we write a negative piece about some company on Torontoist, and that company's CEO created a commenting account, posted under a fake name, and pretended to be a pleased customer of that company.)
In other words—and this holds true for many other corners of the internet, especially with respect to stuff like libel, as the "skank" case demonstrates—privacy's something you are entitled to have, but not something you're necessarily entitled to hide behind.
1) I am essentially the CEO of NOW's comment section, leaving positive comments about it, yet you haven't outed me. This leads me to believe you outed Jerrold for more reasons than just that...you didn't like what he was saying and you didn't like that he was your competition. But you've acknowledged it was a mistake so that's OK by me.
2) In comment sections, how does one know who is a CEO, who is a disgruntled ex-employee, and who is an innocent? Your comment implies you must do the background check on each commenter (which you did with Jerrold), and that's as flawed as letting the CEO comment in anonymity.
Unless you get the name/IP address of each and every commenter, do a check, and then based on that decide he/she is objective enough to comment, it's inherently unfair to call out certain commenters for their affiliations with the subject being written about...
I was out-of-town (and offline) when the Streek posts went up. When I got back and was forced to deal with some out-of-bounds comments, I noticed 40-60 comments (or more) came from the same IP.
Do I remove, even though none are particularly (relative to others) offensive? If so, I look like an authoritarian. Do I out the person commenting (I know who it is)? No, because that's big brother-y. And besides all that, just because the same person/group is commenting like crazy and has a stake in the subject, is that enough reason to remove their collective/repetitive points of view? I'm not sure it is. So I ignore.
It's not the best policy, but, as I hope I made clear, neither is yours.
Just to make this clear:
No-one on staff has the time to or interest in researching who each and every commenter is—we have way better things to do. This "outing" business happened twice (?) in the past few years (here's the thread that you keep bringing up from February 2008, if anyone wants to look at it), and the few times it's happened has not been because we extensively research critical commenters or other nonsense like that. (Who is toronto_dude? It doesn't really matter! I have other things to do!) As you know from having access to similar tools on NOW's backend—and, when you worked here, Torontoist's—some systems all but tell you when one person has been posting under multiple usernames, or if, say, someone, like a CEO, uses their work email address to comment on the site.
Either way, as I said, we'd handle such a case differently now, if we "handled it" or ever noticed it at all, but there were certainly no motives behind any "outing" other than those that I already explained.
And anyway, you're not the same as someone who comes on and uses a pseudonym: your commenter name is your name ("Joshua E"), and you use your account to comment about Torontoist and intermittently talk about NOW, and as a result it really wouldn't take a genius to infer (or, via Google, discover) that you worked at NOW, or that you used to work on Torontoist. You've sometimes got an axe to grind, but your name's behind it, just as mine is if I ever comment on NOW (or BlogTO, or Eye, or...). Susan G. Cole would be totally proud of us!
But: yes, of course Torontoist's commenting system isn't the best of all possible systems. I make absolutely no claims to utopia. There are surely always things we can improve here. I do think, judging by reading the comments on both publications, that Torontoist's system is better than NOW's, but that's my personal opinion, coloured by my own subjective beliefs about what a good commenting system is and isn't, and no doubt also (full disclosure!) affected by my position as Torontoist's Editor.
I also want this to be perfectly clear: I didn't out "quest." He outed himself (see David's link to the comment thread). I only suggested that he out himself, because the jig was up, and I even said in my original comment that I wasn't going to say who it was.
It happened because someone was posting things under the username "quest," which at the time looked identical to the guest user accounts because of the link underline. "quest" was not only continually posting critical comments about Torontoist editorial policy (which is fine) but also replying to themselves as if a multitude of "guests" (not "quests") were backing up their position.
So, because things started seeming kinda fishy over time, all I had to do was click "quest's" IP number to get a list of all their comments (which takes all of two seconds), which also spat back the other comments from the other names registered at that computer. We knew long before he outed himself who "quest" was, but he was gaming the comments and it became relevant, IMO, based on the context of his previous comments, to call him out.
Back then, because we allowed anonymous commenters, it was the only way to see the comments from a single user, and it was not uncommon (as per our comment policy) to check comment history if things seemed fishy to see if there was a history of flaming, abuse, whatever. It's the same as clicking someone's username now and seeing their past posts. It's not like it's this special investigative vendetta that you seem to continually claim, Josh.
It's still possible to sort different usernames by IP to see if there is duplication, but we can't be arsed to do it and have better things to do unless something stands out as suspicious or abusive, which could possibly require a warning or bannination—which almost never happens.
Montauk = brilliant!
Oh god, LOL(literally, not just typing that like most), Montauk, you had me at "afflicted uterus". You complete me.
From the Torontoist post:
She doesn't suggest that all anonymous online comments actually are from craven cowards or axe-grinders. She says that she, pesonally, operates under that pragmatic assumption when evaluating the veracity or motivation of such comments. I tend to do the same thing, and over time I think most people will need to do so.Mr Topping,
I've been reading your ranting about NOW Magazine for some time now. You sure do like to pick on them.
I'm not sure where your obsession with slamming them comes from. It strike me as there are 2 possibilities:
1- you actually work for NOW Magazine, and help drive traffic to their website with your stint here.
2- you are one of the disaffected kids who likely tried getting a job as writer with NOW but they turned you down. So, you ended up at this shitty website, with little to no revenue stream, and dream up ways to further bash them, and Susan Cole.
Quite frankly sir, I don't give a toss about NOW or what they write. It's free, i pick it from time to time for music listing. If you don't like (sorry, hate them) then stop writing about them every other week.
or you can go back to "edgy" photos of subway stations!
LOL
Your point seems to be that being free means a publication shouldn't be accountable for what they publish, i.e. nobody should bother complaining, and only a total loser would.
Because Torontoist is free, and here you are being ironic.
FTW!
No, I'm not making any points about accountability on anything. Did you even read my post?
Topping has some bizarre pathological hard on for bashing anything from NOW. He's starting to make me think of the Larouchite's with their tables on street corners. Failed photographer turns to blogger and tries to impress the world. Sad.
but yeah, let's get back to the incredible reach and influence this soapbox has in Toronto.
Dude,
Torontoist often makes a point of bashing certain journalists and publications from the "mainstream" (or, in the case of NOW, "alternative") press. See also Rosie DiManno, plus that poor, defenseless zombie magazine that they mercilessly tore to shreds yesterday.