A couple of Reader Rep commenters went low last week, with another ugly display of uncivil discourse allowed by the flimsy fences of online news management systems.

I have argued in the past that reader comments are valuable and important but also need specific guidelines, identification standards and active moderation, which is a job still done best by humans.

In this most recent case, a column about our new political reality opened a window, apparently, for reader “Glenn Oshiro” to connect sexual innuendo to Hawaii’s U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and for “Richard Johnson, Esq.” to respond by calling him a “nasty, misogynistic individual,” which later in the stream grew into more back-and-forth banter between the two.

I rarely respond to such material, but I did flag those as inappropriate for violating Civil Beat’s guidelines on comments, which include: “We do not tolerate personal attacks against other readers, our staff and even the people we cover.”

Yet, as I write this, a couple of days later, those comments still are appearing on the site, which highlights some of the frustrations both readers and journalists have with such inconsistent publishing systems, relying primarily on the wisdom of faceless algorithms.

As another example, reader “Kenneth Conklin” apparently has made multiple inappropriate and flagged comments, which concerned Civil Beat editors to the point in which all of his comments now have to go through a human review first.

Because Civil Beat doesn’t employ a “Kenneth Conklin” editor, though, it sometimes takes hours before an editor reads his comments and – when appropriate – post them. He is very upset about that, and he has written me emails to express his displeasure with being, as he described it, “censored.” He also has posted his frustrations with Civil Beat and its staff on at least on one other media organization’s site, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, and a blog by Civil Beat columnist Ian Lind. So you can get the gist of his arguments in either of those places.

As much as I am not looking forward to the nastygrams today, I will address this situation with reader comments, including Conklin’s particulars, and how those relate to other readers I am trying to protect and defend as well.

Think of it more as an ephemeral connection, in which everyone involved teeters precariously on a small knob of higher common ground, surrounded by a vast valley, trying to just understand each other for a second.

No. 1, no individual reader is the center of public discourse on Civil Beat or any other news site. No writer or editor is, either.

Journalists come and go, and so do readers. Yet when they are together in this place – even if it is for just a single moment – something special can happen among them. Epiphanies come from all sorts of odd juxtapositions, if the media ecology is sustained properly.

This phenomenon could be labeled in a bureaucratic way, like “civil engagement,” but I like to think of it more as an ephemeral connection, in which everyone involved teeters precariously on a small knob of higher common ground, surrounded by a vast valley, trying to just understand each other for a second. 

For another type of metaphor, this media channel could be considered like an open park. This park has a central square, where people from throughout the state and the world can gather and share ideas. But then along comes a self-indulgent fellow who wants to urinate in the bushes. And pretty soon, the park feels dark and unsafe. People start to scatter. The moment is over.

If you wonder why reader comments usually aren’t dialectical dreamlands, where people respectfully argue ideas until the best one wins, that’s not because the concept is too idealistic; it’s because not everybody respects and pursues such an ideal.

Commenters can be fascinating when they are thoughtfully counter-political, or a devil’s advocate, or when they deftly shatter illusions of our meta-narratives. To be blunt about it, though, commenters are nothing but boring and tiresome when they act like obnoxious brutes aggressively trying to take over conversations.

Civil Beat, by the way, has a very open commenting system, with several significant loopholes, like anonymity, and flagging software that doesn’t always work, and a busy staff not always able to immediately respond to problem people. Imagine your workplace and how it handles unruly and unreasonable customers, and maybe you can sympathize with this sort of organizational dysfunction.

Conklin, per the emails he has sent me, acknowledges that he has had numerous comments rejected by Civil Beat for being inappropriate. He has been placed by editors into a special group of troublemakers who have to have all of their comments reviewed before being posted. Some of these blurbs are fine and get published. Some of them are not and get deleted. Some of them get posted relatively promptly. Some of them don’t.

Commenters can be fascinating when they are thoughtfully counter-political, or a devil’s advocate, or when they deftly shatter illusions of our meta-narratives.

Conklin does not seem to understand or appreciate the pragmatics, though, of the nonexistent “Kenneth Conklin editor,” who sits around all day waiting to see if he submits a comment, so that comment can be immediately vetted and posted. If he did, Conklin would accept the idea that he had a chance to play but blew it. Conklin forfeited his free pass with his earlier behavior. Maybe he can earn it back someday. But right now, he’s on the proverbial double-secret probation.

Civil Beat, as a private nonprofit organization, can do that sort of thing. It also can shut down its reader comments, whenever editors feel like they are more hassle than they are worth, like many other media organizations – such as National Public Radio, Reuters and Popular Science – already have done. Migrating the discourse to social media would be an easy transition. But some important aspects of these focused conversations, tethered right to the source material, also would get lost in such mass diffusion.

From that perspective, the opportunity to debate and discuss specific stories here at Civil Beat via reader comments is a precious perch, away from all of the rest of the noise. It’s an unusually unrestrained and unencumbered system for community discourse, despite experiences by some who feel it’s not open enough.

The reader comments section has its purpose. That’s not to push the limits of the First Amendment. Or publish manifestos and rants.

Instead, I suggest viewing this sort of section and its purpose as it really is, much more like a privilege than a right. It will be around only as long as people treat it that way.