Negative Posts in the Tulsa World Comments Section

[KingMutt]

Whenever I read the Tulsa World on-line, I am amazed by the number of truly hateful and negative posts people write in the "comments" section.  This weekend I read a lot of horrible posts about a young lawyer who was killed in a car wreck and posts regarding the woman who shot a man in her condo last week.  The amount of personal information posted was astounding. The Tulsa World finally took the comments section off these stories, but it was wild.

It seems whether the story is Oral Roberts, immigration, the Iraq War, a fatal accident, or a shooting, people go off the deep end with hateful inective and personal attacks or self-righteous pronouncements.

Aside from the obvious answer of anonymity, do you guys think there are any other reasons why people just "go off?"

[KingMutt]

should read invective sorry for my spelling

[Steve]

quote:Originally posted by KingMutt

Whenever I read the Tulsa World on-line, I am amazed by the number of truly hateful and negative posts people write in the "comments" section.  This weekend I read a lot of horrible posts about a young lawyer who was killed in a car wreck and posts regarding the woman who shot a man in her condo last week.  The amount of personal information posted was astounding. The Tulsa World finally took the comments section off these stories, but it was wild.

That type of thing seems to be "de rigueur" on internet sites that are not closely monitored, which is why I never read the public comments on news articles, no matter what the website.  You have to wade through 50 pages of chaff just for one intelligent comment.

I think that is why the Tulsa World discontinued the "Call the Editor" column from the printed paper several years ago, because of rude, baseless trash calls.  There must be a lot of bitter, uneducated people out there with way too much time on their hands.

[RecycleMichael]

I think many people are cynical about the news and the World asks for comments.

I am amazed at how many comment, but like this forum, it is really relatively few compared to how any just read the words.

This is the new challenge for all media. How do you encourage good people to get buy-in to your product without inviting the crazy ones in as well?

[TheArtist]

There are a few people on there that seem to say only negative things 90% of the time, no matter what the story is and often twist the story to mean something it doesnt, just so they can spew their invectives. After a bit you learn who those posters are and just learn to ignore them. It cant be that everything is horrible, it has to be that they have nothing real to say.

It is also perhaps more likely that people in our society get worked up more over something they can comment negatively on versus something they could say something positive about. Except for those few sad, always negative people. I have seen them post comments after positive,"uplifting" stories ... "who cares!?" "what a stupid story!"... Again, you just learn to ignore them on all topics.

[grahambino]

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=071226_1__LIBER02577

what gives?
im shocked and saddened i havent seen any
'THEY WUR PROBIBLE ILLEGIL IMIGRANTS!'
comments!?

have the racists taken the day off?

[inteller]

quote:Originally posted by grahambino

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=071226_1__LIBER02577

what gives?
im shocked and saddened i havent seen any
'THEY WUR PROBIBLE ILLEGIL IMIGRANTS!'
comments!?

have the racists taken the day off?

it looks fine to me [}:)]

[sauerkraut]

I guess I'm guilty too, I have posted many comments there. Many of the comments were too far overboard.[xx(]

[RuralDweller]

Can't speak for anybody else but as for myself, I've pretty much quit reading most of the comments on the World's stories.  The intent of the comments section is good but, given the fact that the IP's aren't recorded or the overall forum monitored, it's pretty much turned into a verbal garbage dump.  Don't get me wrong, there's some good comments out there but generally speaking, you have to read thru a ton of trash to glean out the few worthwhile comments.