Toward free, civil exchange

AgentPierce apparently will remain a secret agent.

Recently, I challenged AgentPierce, one of my anonymous online friends, to reveal his true identity.

He declined. He said he feared for his safety. In response to one of my blog posts at newsobserver.com, he wrote, "My only shield from the nut jobs is my anonymity."

AgentPierce, my friend: You are one of the nut jobs.

Not really. I picked a fight with him because I know his identity and knew he would enjoy the give-and-take.

While AgentPierce often posts comments critical of The News & Observer, he does so with a keen mind and a sharp sense of humor.

Our online policy directs commenters to be civil; to not make personal attacks; to stay on topic; to avoid hate speech; and to not use threatening language. We reserve the right to delete posts that don't follow our guidelines.

That's not a problem with AgentPierce. Unfortunately, it is with many other commenters at newsobserver.com and at any Internet site that allows comments.

Kelly Buckley of Charlotte spoke recently with The N&O staff. Her son Stephen Russell drowned in Jordan Lake last summer. Russell was a rising senior at N.C. State who would have graduated today.

Russell, who grew up in Canada, was the goalie for State's club hockey team. The N&O reported on his death.

One anonymous reader posted a comment on our online story. NCSU needed to look at its athletic requirements for student-athletes, he or she said, because Russell was not in good shape if he couldn't swim across the cove.

We removed the comment, but not before his mother read it. "I was absolutely crushed all over again," she said. "I had lost my child and less than 72 hours later, I had to deal with the opinions of strangers who knew nothing about the kind of person Stephen was or the circumstances surrounding his death. ... It just wasn't fair that someone without the courage to leave their name could be allowed to disrespect his memory."

I am embarrassed that we provided the forum for someone to leave such a comment.

Anyone with a news website is struggling with this issue. As a news organization, we're in the business of promoting democracy. The free exchange of ideas is part of our mission.

But traditionally, the price of admission to join that debate has been to identify yourself, as writers of letters to the editors have done for decades. That improves the quality of debate, because writers are accountable for their comments.

Unfortunately, verifying the identities of all who leave online comments would be impossible. There are too many.

We delete inappropriate comments when they are brought to our attention. I don't want to deploy an N&O staffer to screen comments full time, which is what it would take to closely monitor comments; I'd rather that staffer report news.

We're looking at some ideas that would preserve online commenting but prevent the worst abuses. As AgentPierce wrote, "The Internet has indeed spawned a species of quite deranged opinionators."