The Spin Board is Devolving

The original purpose of Mediapost's Spin Board was to provide a feedback forum for media professionals to debate the issues raised by Spin columnists. Lately though, it has become a forum for numerous personal attacks. (See schulmeister's post in this thread, and Perry's post in this thread for examples of what I'm talking about.) I can understand disagreeing with someone's views and wanting to debate them, but callous attacks that add nothing to the discussion are starting to become acceptable at the board. So, I hereby invite these individuals who post drive-by attacks to enjoy a nice, tall, frosty glass of shut the fuck up.

Spin columnists take time out of their busy schedules each week to write a column they hope will foster some discussion and add some value to our industry's agenda. And we encourage rational debate on the issues we raise. Even the ads for The Online Spin encourage readers to visit the board to tell us why we're wrong. As far as I can tell, though, no one's asking anyone to attack writers personally.

These attacks show the posters' online naivete in more ways than one.

• They've obviously never been a contributing member of an online community. People who contribute positively know how to engage in rational debate.
• They've got "bulletproof syndrome." That is, they say things via the online medium that they would never say to someone face to face. That shows inexperience with the online medium.

But nothing's more shocking than the flagrant lack of respect for people. You just don't treat people that way, especially in a professional setting.