Response to CaliforniaMike's conservative vs. liberal survey

Kudos to you Mike! You have come up with a brilliant formula to attract page views: get all the liberals and conservatives to go at each other.

And, I don’t blame you one bit, because I noticed your recent article “Did right wing talk lead to murder?” –which I found to be very thought provoking—just sat there with only 29 page views.

Many of us have had that happen on articles we have spent hours researching, writing, finding just the right image; than polishing up our “baby” to send it out into the world.

We hold our breath to see if it will be accepted with thousands of page views or sit there like the proverbial turd in a punch bowl—with only a few people willing to hold their noses and open that first page.

It is a total crap shoot as to what articles, headlines, subjects, or view points will garner those sought after readers.

So, what is a serious Allvoices writer to do? Do we sacrifice quality and integrity for quantity and sensationalism? Maybe a mix of both? I don’t know the answer.

But I do feel the tone and vision of the Allvoices community ends up being diminished more with every comment thread that escalates into a hateful, name calling, ugly, belittling, blood-sucking fest.

I try to imagine what a first time reader from Africa, Ethiopia, Colorado, Sneaky-snooze Idaho, or anywhere Earth--would think of such vitriolic rants.

I don’t imagine they would be very impressed and might consider not coming back.

I write for more than one web site, so I know that similar tirades go on every where, but I have never seen it as bad as it has gotten here on Allvoices lately. I have been called all the usual names and I was even told to take some PMS medicine before responding to a comment.

Heck, I even had one disgruntled conservative AV blogger write to me on my personal Allvoices e-mail, to further challenge and harass me. This person didn’t like my fairly benign “liberal” responses on a comment thread, so I was told to stop my “personal attacks”. When I defended my right to comment on any issue, just like everyone else, I was called names and told to “go to hell”. I didn’t even open the last message the person sent to me.

Frankly, life is too short.

But I have read interviews with the founder of Allvoices and she clearly envisioned a global community, where people from all parts of the world could express themselves and share the things going on in their neighborhoods from all corners of the globe.

I won’t presume to speak for her, but I don’t think these comment threads of late are what she had in mind.

Yes, I have written on politically controversial subjects, like everyone else, but when did the labels and name calling escalate from mild-mannered adjectives like “ignorant” or “sanctimonious” or “self-righteous” into mean spirited things like “idiot” or “bed-wetting" or “smart ass” or “go to hell” or “moron” or "piss-head" and other such negatives and profanity?

One thing I have realized recently is that the time it has taken me to respond to so many negative degrading comments, without any reasonable hope of changing anyone’s mind-- is precious time that I could be writing something worthwhile that might actually make a difference in the world.

So, Mike--I am one of your liberal friends, but I hope you will forgive me for not joining your comment thread to express my personal views on the meaning of conservative vs. liberal.

However, I do want to say “congratulations big time” on passing the 200,000 mark. You deserve it!