Please use the...er, comments section

Earlier this week, you were very nearly treated to a full-blown rant on the banality and utter pointlessness of most of what makes up the 24-hour news cycle. Following Obama's visits to Ireland and the UK, where TV viewers especially were subjected to endless hours of journalists talking about BBQ menus, 'The Beast', Michelle Obama's clothes and the preparations at Downing Street before Obama's arrival there, I was just about ready to explode with a 'IF THERE'S NOTHING TO REPORT THEN GET OFF THE TV!' But, alas, I didn't have time to finish the post, and the next day Ratko Mladic was arrested and it seemed like a bit of an odd time to be complaining about the 24-hour news cycle when I was glued to the TV hoping for any new scrap of information on Mladic's extradition.

So instead, I'm having a ponder about something that rarely fails to get my blood boiling: the comment section of news websites. Their purpose, I suppose, is to foster debate, to allow for opinions on the story where the journalist has (hopefully) provided objective facts. Kind of a 'letter to the editor' section for each individual story. But where the letters section of a newspaper is usually a selection of at least somewhat thought out, intelligent, legible thoughts, the comments section on a story, as you'll know if you've ever ventured into those depths, tends to be a collection of the most venomous, ridiculous, moralising and just plain crazy 'thoughts', usually dispatched with no consideration for comprehension, let alone spelling and grammar.

I am a frequent comment reader and occasional comment poster. I comment usually only when my disbelief at the stupidity of either the article itself or the existing comments has reached a specific point, namely where I wish I could shake the writers and scream sense into their faces. I end up feeling like I'm on a crusade to just push a bit of common sense on people, even though everyone knows that the people who frequently comment on these boards are rarely the type to ever change their opinions in the slightest, regardless of the facts. I'm told it would be better for my sanity if I simply stopped reading them.

But I can't. I'm addicted, in a way. When the Globe and Mail's Judith Timson wrote an article on the SlutWalk phenomenon a couple of weeks ago, hundreds of comments followed (503, at last count). I was curious - I didn't really have a reaction to the piece, so I wanted to see what other people thought. Big mistake. The main focus of the discussion in the comments seemed to be about whether dressing 'like a slut' was the same as, say, leaving your car unlocked with valuables in plain view, or going to a bar wearing all of your most expensive clothes and jewelery, flashing wads of cash around, getting wasted, and leaving with people you don't know. As in, those actions are of course liable to get you robbed, and frankly you'd be to blame for acting so stupidly, and, as a consequence, of course dressing like a slut is likely to get you raped, and you're to blame for dressing so stupidly.

Now, I could write a whole post just about the misconceptions around that. I think my frustration with the comments section is that I think I have a chance to engage with this. This is false; posting is just like shouting as loud as you can into an empty cave, and seemingly has no effect on the people who have already formed opinions based on misconceptions and have no intention of hearing the facts. You can scream 'til you're blue in the face about studies that show that clothing isn't a risk factor for rape, that rape is in most cases a crime of power and not sex, based on exploiting weakness and vulnerability and not about being turned on, that while a short skirt might attract some unwanted attention, leers and whistles, it won't turn those oglers into rapists, that men are not just rapists waiting to be triggered by a low cut top, that a victim is never under any circumstances to blame for being raped...but none of these things matter. There will still be a hundred posts after yours perpetuating the same myths that only pretty girls in tight dresses get raped, and frankly they probably had it coming.

The Globe and Mail also seems to have changed its policy recently regarding stories on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It has long been the case that these stories are closed to comments because they more than most tend to devolve into racial and anti-semitic abuse. But I noticed last week following Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu's speeches that the comments were open and the, er, debate in full swing. And the racial and anti-semitic abuse, the old myths and hopeless stereotypes were all there.

My question is this: is the comments section a good thing? Does it allow for an exchange of opinions, a forum to offer differing points of view, a chance to educate people, and an opportunity to respond to the article? Or is it simply impossible to have a reasoned debate in a forum with no real moderation (aside from removing posts flagged as offensive or spam - I mean there's no direction to the debate)? Posters have long criticised the Globe for banning comments on Israeli-Palestinian stories. But now that comments are allowed, is there really any point? Can you have a meaningful discussion about the conflict when every post questioning Israeli policy is immediately deemed anti-semitic and terrorist-supporting, regardless of content, and every post criticising Palestinian leadership or tactics is deemed apartheid-supporting, racist or, the zenith of Internet criticism, akin to Nazism?

I'd genuinely like to hear ideas on this one. Do you read comment sections, and why? For the entertainment of finding posts exposing the most ludicrous opinions based on nothingness? In hopes of finding or contributing to genuine intelligent debate? Do they really have a purpose beyond letting people vent their pre-conceived opinions? Should I really just stop reading them altogether?