Majority Whip Blunt On Global Warming: "Information Not Adequate Yet...To Do Anything Meaningful"... | The Huffington Post

Majority Whip Blunt On Global Warming: "Information Not Adequate Yet...To Do Anything Meaningful"... | The Huffington Post

The comments of political threads can be hairy, but often are chock-full of good points, coming from both sides. If you can tolerate the noise, the polarized nature of political blogs these days leads to some very interesting discussion. If a community is educated-- like the Huffington Post's audience-- ideas must be discussed in a rational manner. Trolls cannot be eliminated, but they can be sufficiently discouraged through light moderation and social norms. Dissent should be encouraged, ideally, but because of group-think and other factors political blogs tend to lean decidedly to the right or left.

But even in this polarized environment, useful discussion emerges from time to time. In a "healthy" community like HuffPo (as of date), commentors are careful and thoughtful about their comments, trying to persuade and educate, or say something funny (which is also persuasive and educational in a way). This, as opposed to baiting behaviour, attempting to disrupt discussion or anger people (i.e. trolling). Educated readers are less likely to get baited, and subsequently the "trolls" have to get smarter. This, in of itself is a good thing. Smart trolls can be funny too, or otherwise make one think from their perspective. This, to me is healthy, and what political blogs should aim for. The political divide on the blogging scene clearly reduces the benefits of communicating across traditional barriers that blogging provides.

As bloggers sense this reality, I anticipate that political blogs will tend to move to the centre as they become more popular, just as a newspaper or magazine would.