On Rude Comments
Tuesday, August 11th, 2009
A visitor to WashingtonWatch.com writes in about the tenor of discussion on H.R. 3491, the Thomas G. Schubert Agent Orange Fairness Act:
With all due respect WashingtonWatch.com why is it that people are allowed to leave vicious & mean spirited comments about recipients of a bill. Why do you allow these people to continually leave these comments without blocking them. I agree everyone is entitled to vote & state their position but insults are not necessary. Esp. when the recipients are widows of veterans who have already suffered enough. I would appreciate it if you could actually respond to my concern. I also don\’t understand how people can be allowed to make these comments without even having to identify themselves. It is just wrong.
It’s a genuine problem, but not one we can solve. Here’s my response:
Thanks for your note. I’m sorry about the harsh tone some people adopt on the site, but many bills in Congress are about controversial issues.
There are thousands and thousands of bills in every Congress, and intense discussions ongoing about many of them all the time. It would be prohibitively time-consuming to try moderating all the conversations – especially when so much of our time is consumed with our earmarks project. Instead, we treat discussions on the site as discussions among adults.
It is the responsibility of the participants to manage their own conversations. There are a few highly successful “trolls” on the site – people who gratify themselves by offending others. I recommend ignoring them. Join together with the other normal, well-adjusted participants to shun any troll. Set a policy among yourselves of never responding to trolls and never speaking about trolls. Eventually – after even more aggressive attempts to draw attention – they will go away.
WashingtonWatch.com is a free speech zone. We don’t require people to identify themselves before speaking. In order to encourage good behavior, we post the names of logged in users in light blue. It shows that the speaker is a stable identity, who will take credit or responsibility for the things they say. Others can be ignored if they are not willing to be identified even by a handle they’ve created on our site.
Thanks again. Sorry that we can’t moderate all the discussions all the time. I hope you can join together with others to improve the situation. I will make a note of this issue on this bill to help encourage thoughtful debaters to organize joint action (i.e. silence) against rude behavior and trolls.
We’ve discussed rude comments here on the blog before. More posts about comments and our comment system can be found here. It’s up to you, users, to manage your discussions on bills.
Today is the official anniversary of the signing of the Armistice that ended World War I, and a day that we remember and honor all veterans.



In a May, 1788 letter to Colonel Edward Carrington, Thomas Jefferson wrote a famous line: “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.”
Here’s something every lobbyist and congressman in Washington, D.C. knows: If you can’t get a program built and funded outright, start with a pilot program. Let a constituency grow around it, and work to extend it and expand it.