Additionally, Facebook has it’s share of Trolls, but on a larger scale. There have been well publicized instances of hate on Facebook, some requiring police investigations and courts, other instances where nothing could be done. Facebook should be the last place you should use to stop trolls.

You mentioned quality of the comment and not quantity were needed for commenting. Please apply this same standard to the stories posted on Newsok. Some of the stories posted, should have been reconsidered. I can’t count the number of stories here that looked like blogs with one to two paragraphs, and most of which was pulled from a national wire service. If this website were a tv station, I could understand it. This is a print publication, it should do better.

Finally, if this publication were in Syria or some other country that restricted it’s citizen rights, how long would it take for the commenter to be arrested, killed, harassed, etc? Even in the US, if someone commented on an article using their real name and one of the trolls to particular offense to this, then using that person’s real name was able to track them down, harass them repeatedly or otherwise cause bodily harm. What do you think the legal ramification would be? Or better yet, what do you think it would cost the publication to settle?

Personally, I think there is a better way to stop hateful comments. But it is your publication and money, and you get to run it how you need to.

Internet Zombies

What are they: Brain-dead individuals who weigh in during an internet discussion forum, whose comments only serve to suck the life out of any civilized gathering of individuals attempting to use good sound judgment as an avenue to deal with life issues. Opposed to civilized reasoning, these cyberspace phantoms are undead to everything except common sense and simple practical thinking. Internet zombies abhor common sense and sound reasoning as a way to disentangle themselves from their circumstances.

What they do: It always starts with one. They show up in comment sections on the internet and begin to spout an opposing opinion. However, they are easily dispatched with a couple of good responses. (just like a movie zombie is quickly taken out by a member of a defending party). Then another appears, maybe two. They’re still harmless at this point because their comments are ridiculous and easily rebutted. (Just like the defending party in a zombie movie begin taking turns dispatching of the zombies using humorous creative methods.) But then, just like in the movies, the numbers quickly increase. Those in control of the forum attempt to keep things clean and reasonable but begin to wear down. Because they have a life, they are not able to maintain the pace of supporting their original comment.

Before long a string of 5 to 10 totally ridiculous, outlandish opinions, that no real living human being would dare be ignorant enough to make public, appear on the comment section…each one increasing in its degree of galactic stupidity. If not for the spattering of sensible inputs throughout the posts, the moderator would quickly assume the whole world had been overrun by internet zombies.

Help arrives and one or two sensible commentators will get the upper hand for a while, but the longer the forum runs, the longer the internet zombies have to increase their numbers. Soon the numbers grow geometrically. The moderators and commenters are so absolutely stunned and frustrated by the cascade of incredibly hairbrained, ludicrous, farcical comments spewing forth from the internet zombies, they are forced to abandon the forum.

How to stop them: With the absence of common sense and practical reasoning to feed from, the internet zombies quickly withdraw back into their world of confusion and despair… waiting… reading… for that next moment to attack.