Foul language and d-bag attitudes— when it comes to user comments we’ve seen them all; however, is there a way around this behavior? Is a gaming community able to find a solution to produce a much more civil environment in terms of user comments?
In two different studies, one by Ian Rowe, Ph.D. candidate and Assistant Lecturer from the University of Kent at Canterbury, and the other by Daegon Cho and Alessandro Acquisti of Carnegie Mellon University, we are able to gather what causes incivility and civility comments on the internet.
According to Rowe’s study, when an article from the Washington Post was placed both on the site and the other on Facebook, the comments made through Facebook were much more civil than the ones on the site.
Cho and Acquisiti tried to determine why the commentators from Facebook were much more civil than those that are not. The obvious result clearly pointed that it must be due to the fact that those commenting from Facebook were not anonymous to the community. This means that a Facebooker subconsciously fears becoming a sort of outcast to their friends, family and other members of the community if they were to write a “rude” comment. In addition, since they are commenting through their Facebook profile, members of the community will be able to find them and bash them for their rude comment.
With that said, the study reveals how the comments made without the use of a Facebook sign-in are much more uncivil than those with, because they are anonymous.
How can the gaming community use this?
If gaming communities wanted to create a much more civil gaming community, they should try using the Facebook approach. With this approach, new commentators will be required to sign in using their Facebook accounts.
Will this remove all incivility? No. This is not a solution or promise to remove all incivility; however, if a gaming site wanted to remove some incivility this could be an option.
Is this the only “solution?”
Another “solution” could be to moderate comments coming in to the site. Perhaps this means there will be someone reviewing them before they are approved, or perhaps this means clearly stating near the comments box that the site does not approve of particular uncivil comments or spam.
What are the drawbacks?
If both or one of these “solutions” were to be put in place, the gaming community might protest against this. Why? In any community, people want to feel free to express what they truly think about a particular topic. Perhaps, some commentators may feel that they are unable to do so with any of these two solutions.
However, what a commentator needs to realize is that this in no way will be disallowing them from speaking their minds. There are many available ways to present what you want to discuss or say (whether it is in approval or disapproval of something). If a commentator wants to say something in approval or disapproval there is no need to present it in an uncivil manner.
