There are some topics I go to time and time again (not just words) because they cause me great concern. This week I’m diving back into civility, which too few seem to practice nowadays.

I’ve made no secret of my animus toward anonymous commenters, especially those who spend the bulk of their time trolling others and making online comment boards an unpleasant place to be (here on the blog it’s not really a problem, as new commenters have to be approved, and if they tip their hands, they won’t be; but on the newspaper site, it’s a huge problem).

And because those people are always insisting that I believe a troll is anyone who disagrees with me (seriously?), here again is the definition, agreed upon by multiple dictionaries (which, again, record how words are used at a specific point in time), as I wrote in September 2023: A troll is “someone who aims to antagonize others online by deliberately posting inflammatory, irrelevant, or offensive comments or other disruptive content. That may be someone cutting and pasting articles from elsewhere in the comments on something that is at best only tangentially related, or someone who just alights on the boards to intentionally misinterpret what someone has written and/or redefine terms to suit their argument because they want to get the best of the ‘progs’ or the ‘Rethuglicans.’ It’s not to advance discussion; it’s to stop it by pointing a laser pointer at the wall.”

While that laser pointer might be fun to chase every once in a while, it’s generally best to leave it be (which tends to be some older cats’ reaction; it’s just not worth the effort most of the time). Ignore the trolls, because reacting to them gives them the attention they crave and just encourages them further. And that way lies massive incivility.

Not all anonymous commenters are trolls; some have very good reasons for posting anonymously, such as work relations or past threats (I know a few of them personally, and can confirm this; some also write letters to the Voices page under their real names). But some are trolls because they delight in uncivil and disruptive behavior; having the luxury of an anonymous profile for commenting gives them the freedom to be their trolly selves, with almost no consequences attached. Sure, there may be the occasional timeout, but in many forums, banning a commenter just means they can come back as soon as they change their profile name. I know of one on the newspaper’s site who’s had at least 10 different profile names; every time he was banned, he’d just make up another one, as it was the profile name, not the real account associated with it, that was banned.

Not exactly a way to encourage civility now, is it? I’d say a better way would be to insist on real names being used (perhaps through Facebook sign-ins or personal Google accounts, for example), so that the person posting threatening or disruptive content is actually held responsible for what they say. That’s one of the reasons Voices doesn’t allow anonymous letters. We can be held just as responsible, if not more so, than the person whose letter we print if the letter says something demonstrably untrue that can’t be construed as opinion, especially if it libels someone. (And to be clear, the Voices page and the comments on the newspaper’s website are totally separate, and, in my opinion, the rules against uncivil behavior are not enforced in any consistent, cogent manner. Still, a commenter may be published on the Voices page if they back their words [in most cases opinion, which you can’t really fact-check] with their real name. In a recent case, I had no idea that a letter I printed was by a notorious troll on the website until I was informed by the person who wrote the letter he was responding to. That person took it as a far bigger breach of Voices policy than I or my boss thought it to be. It was definitely mild compared to what the troll tends to post online.)

Standing behind your words is a brave thing. It’s doubly so, considering that some people take it upon themselves to find the addresses and/or phone numbers of writers to the Voices page (which we don’t publish, for very good reason, nor do we provide them for people who ask [we might forward a message, but that’s it] but you can find just about anything now, especially when motivated by anger and hate).

A longtime letter-writer (who’s not really a firebrand or extremist of any kind) contacted me last week to let me know that he’d “had two voicemails from the same ‘unknown’ caller that were so vile, hateful and obscene that I would be embarrassed quoting them to you. This person knew my background because he mentioned my time on the school board and what seemed to set him off was my use of the word “excellent” to describe the local schools. … I don’t mind someone disagreeing with something I write, in fact I expect that these days. But to be aggressively vulgar and obscene has no place in public discourse. It really sickened me. It’s fueled by Trump. He is setting the tone, and his base is just as base as he is. Oh well, that’s another letter to write. 

“In your position this may happen with some degree of regularity and if it does, you aren’t getting paid enough.”

Sadly, that’s where we are now. There have been reports for years of some of our letter-writers, mostly liberal-leaning, receiving anonymous letters (usually from Alabama) deriding something they said in a letter to Voices (one letter-writer told me that her anonymous letter indicated that the Alabama sender had a brother in Arkansas who shared letters with him). And now there are anonymous callers doing the same, and most likely some writers are receiving nasty emails or social-media posts from these people (set your Facebook posts to friends rather than public, and it will eliminate some of that).

It’s another symptom of the coarsening of our society, in some cases oddly being led by some of the people who claim that everything went wrong when we took the Bible out of schools, yet they have no problem excusing the worst sorts of people as long as they share the same party affiliation (which the Bible frowns on … hmmm). We divide everything up by race, religion, political beliefs (making believe that people within those groups are monolithic in thought), then rant and rave when “the other side” won’t capitulate to our every demand because in the course of things we’ve forgotten that the way government works is through compromise and pragmatism to make the best deal for the most people. We don’t discuss things in a civil manner anymore; we treat life as a zero-sum game, and if we’re not getting the whole pie, we’re losing, and that ticks us off. We taunt, name-call and aggressively make our opinions known … as long we don’t have to face consequences for our words and actions.

Because, you know, taking responsibility is what civil, rational and sane people do. They discuss and attack the argument, not the person. Sometimes the argument becomes the person (as in a certain president who makes everything about himself), but the logic of arguments should always be paramount.

We don’t have to live a life led by trolls, and people truly interested in preserving a civil society based on fairness and rules would want civility (no, it’s not incivility to point out another’s incivility; that’s called accountability) to return. Sure, make your opinion known, but sign your name to it. Take responsibility, which is what I was always taught. Don’t hide behind an anonymous avatar online (or a hidden number on the phone) if you want anyone to truly value your opinion. Make the effort to actually discuss topics rather than disrupt civil conversation.

Criticism is a part of life (I’m sure I have more than a few anonymous voicemails still on the phone at work from the guy who used to call, pre-pandemic, at least once every couple of weeks to call me a b- – – – for having the audacity to be a woman with an opinion). The truly brave aren’t afraid to sign their name to something they’ve written, and to be civil in disagreement with others. And most bring the receipts when they do, backing up their opinion with facts, regardless of those who disagree with reality.

That bravery and civility are what I love about so many of our letter-writers. May their tribe increase.