This Is Not Schadenfreude

So, there was a news story going around the other day about how men get more enjoyment than women from watching misfortune happen to people who deserve it.

This is known as Schadenfreude, a German word that means "taking pleasure in the misfortune of others." I have no opinion on the matter, other than to say that I can personally have known more than a few women who make me doubt the validity of that study.

Actually, I guess that is an opinion.

For another opinion, check out Journaler Onemoretina's take on the story.

Anyway, the following item is definitely not Schadenfreude -- I'm not particularly superstitious, but I do believe that laughing at other people's mistakes and indulging in Schadenfreude generates bad karma.

There's a lot of buzz going on right now in both the regular media and the big ole sphere o' blogs about the Washington Post's recent decision to shut off comments to one of their blogs, post.blog.

They did it due to a flood of personal attacks and profanity in comments made in response to a column that ran last Sunday by Post Ombudsman Deborah Howell; the column linked Democratic politicians to lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Now, other than the irony of having the ombudsman (who is generally supposed to fix problems) do something that gets the paper in trouble, I don't think this is a huge story. Maybe I'm just colored by our recent and similar experience with nasty comments in the Star Jones blog.

Another thing I found interesting is the tut-tutting from blogs that don't take comments themselves. A friend of mine sent me a link to this fishbowlDC entry entitled 'Post Wusses Out', where after calling the Posties wusses and saying "The free-wheeling world of blogging appears to be too much forthe Washington Post", they followed up with an e-mailed response by WashingtonPost.com Editor Jim Brady (whom I know personally, in the interest of full disclosure) where he said:

"Am I just missing something ot does DC Fishbowl not allow comments on any of its posts? Instead of criticizing us for not allowing comments on one of our 30 blogs, maybe you could explain to your readers why you don't allow ANY comments on posts."

Yes, he had to e-mail his response, since fishbowlDC doesn't take public comments. Glass houses and all that.

Generally speaking, it's not all that uncommon for high trafficked blogs to not allow comments (see BoingBoing.net), or to require a paying membership to comment (like MetaFilter), or limit commenting privileges to selected people (like Gawker), or take other steps to limit who can comment to the blog.

I have a hard enough time trying to do my own business, let alone try to mind someone else's. As a blogger, obviously I prefer that blogs take comments -- in my personal opinion, a blog that doesn't take comments isn't a blog... it's just kind of "bloggy."

But like I said earlier, celebrity and other high-profile, high-traffic blogs and Web sites have whole other considerations when it comes to managing comments. It's up to each individual organization or blogger to determine at what point managing comments and feedback overwhelms whatever else they were trying to do with the blog.

Anyway, you can see the discussion transcript from the live chat today where Executive Editor Brady discussed the issue to find out what he has to say on the matter.

Generally speaking, I'm a big fan of the way the Post is trying to integrate blogs and other interactive community content into the Web site. Not to say I agree with everything they do, but they are trying new and interesting things -- they're going to make mistakes and mis-steps, just like everyone else, but that comes with the territory.

By way of background, here's a Washingtonian magazine article on the Post's blog strategy, which I'd been planning to discuss in the larger context of online journalism.

Also,you might want to check out Post columnist and blogger Joel Achenbach's comment policy, which in part says:

But as we refine the policy, this blog takes a giant leap and hereby announces a new and incontrovertible rule. We will not permit comments that employ the following words: is, are, am, was, were, be, have been, being, and any and all permutations, conjugations and excitations of the verb "to be."

[In the words of esteemed pundit Foghorn Leghorn, "That's a joke, son, dontcha get it?"]

Thanks -- Joe