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Big news! I learned it in a tweet:
The Baltimore Sun has closed the comment section on its articles and my satisfaction with life has already significantly increased.

Yes, it’s true.


Certain local folks, especially a particular former BOE member, are going to have to get a new hobby.

I shut down the comments section directly attached to the blog a while back. I was no longer willing to tolerate trolls who could easily create false identities to say things they’d never dare say in daylight. I direct all my commenters to the blog’s page on Facebook. It may have cut down on the overall quantity of comments, but it has made a difference for the better. 

In order to comment here, you have to be willing to stand behind your words with your identity. I don’t think that, in the case of a small, local blog, that this is an overly burdensome hurdle to clear. 

The ability to post under pseudonyms can be extremely useful for protecting privacy. I get that. These days an employer can scan your social media for unsuitable opinions. And there are crazy people who will trace your name to your location and do you harm. 

Be that as it may, a very dark side of humanity turns up in the comment section. And these people are “why we can’t have nice things” as the saying goes. This is the second recent change to the BaltSun comment policy. Clearly the structure they put in place to monitor the problem was not as successful as they had hoped.

I have read the occasional insightful comment on the Baltimore Sun website. On the other hand, I also learned to my surprise that I was married to a wealthy Howard County developer and that I was a moron. And that’s mild compared to what other locals have endured. 

You may be able to get a refund for your “points”, whatever they are, but you will never, ever, get back the time you spent reading the comments. In the meantime, feel free to comment here:







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