A Note from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper
As publisher of one of the all-to-few online news sites that asks its readers to link their real names to the comments they post, it is necessary every once in a while to remind our growing number of readers why we have that policy.
State your name or stand down as the worthless coward that you are
It seems particularly necessary to restate this policy at a time when an Ontario election is revving up and a growing number of individuals are tempted to take advantage of the anonymity of the internet to fire off particularly disparaging remarks about some of the candidates and parties, and those who support them, without their names being attached to their stink bombs.
We have had a policy, which who can find posted at the top of Niagara At Large’s home page by clicking on ‘Comments Policy’, since this online site’s inception of not posting comments (save for the most exceptional circumstances involving someone we know and who may be damaged personally or professional if their name was revealed sharing information of vital interest to the greater public) where no real name is attached.
This policy has served us well since the majority of comments we receive from those who offer up a bogus name and email address are so ignorant and disparaging to others that they don’t merit the time of day. Most of those comments have been aimed at others who offer their views to this site and they, save for an unfortunate few that have bled through our moderator in the past, have not got through. Some have been aimed at this publisher and I will offer up this one as an example of what I am referring to as the kind of insulting nonsense that adds nothing to a civil debate in our society. Here this one goes in response to a piece I wrote about a Thorold man who was arrested, detained and finally released without charges during the G20 summit in Toronto a year ago last June: “I am sure there is much more to the story than this. Doug has a habit of only telling one side and sensationalizing things. Doug is a dipshit.”
The author of this comment wrote another, within a matter of minutes, under the same email name; ‘Obama’, calling me a “fool” and wondering if I felt the people who died in the towers of the World Trade Centre “deserved death” 10 years ago because of a column I wrote questioning the way the U.S. Bush administration, in particularly, responded to that terrible time. I doubt this commenter, who likely does not have an ounce of the courage so many others showed on that awful day, has as many friends and relatives as I do in the United States who were personally touched by people who suffered losses on that day and for all the time since with wars still in the works.
That is just one example of the kind of coward using the internet to throw hand grenades at others without every having the courage to share their name and or any willingness to be held accountable for their views. These people are as gutless as the sniper that take shots at the rest of us from behind the bushes. They deserve the same kind of contempt that snipers do during times of war and I challenge other online news sites and bloggers to show them that contempt by not posting their comments unless they have the guts to reveal their real names.
In a democracy where even some of these anonymous online flame-throwers have the nerve to demand more openness and transparency from our governments and the rest of us, let’s all walk the walk.
(Niagara At Large invites you who care to share your first and last name to share your views below.)
Niagara At Large 
You are absolutely right Doug. The people who do not sign their names are cowards.
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Doug, I have an idea – why not create a “Wall of Shame” where you post the most stupid and ignorant comments and make fun of them? If they don’t use their real names, they don’t deserve anything else but ridicule.
I’ve seen that on other sites and it is a hoot. Another thing – in my experience it isn’t that hard to recognize an individual’s prose style. We could make guesses on their identity.
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I was just going to click on the “like” button but decided to comment. I was happy when the canary cage carpet we used to toil for changed to that format from anonymous postings. It does tend to eliminate the dingbats.
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Mr. Draper, I am appalled by your suggestion that people should be held accountable for their behaviour.
Of course there was another side to the story of Mr. Pruyn’s arrest at the G20; only a rabble-rouser like you, Mr. Draper, wouldn’t want it known that beneath his quiet, seemingly respectable, bespectacled exterior lies just the sort of dastardly troublemaker who might well rip off his own leg just to provoke unsuspecting police officers into beating him up. For all they knew, his prosthesis might have housed a high-velocity rifle, or one of Mr. Hussein’s elusive Weapons of Mass Destruction.
It will be a sad day indeed for this country when the people we pay to protect us from harm are expected to be held accountable and to adhere to the same laws as the rest of us. Is this what thousands of our brave servicemen and women have fought and died for? We should all be grateful for their sacrifice, shut up, and do as we’re told. That’s the Canadian way, and no Pinko amputee-sympathizer such as you is going to change it.
Terry Nicholls
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@ Terry: now THAT’S sarcasm! 🙂
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Absolutely, Doug! I have argued for this on other forums. One example is the St. Catharines Standard website, there were comments printed in response to Grant LaFleche and Don Fraser’s diary on a food bank diet that LaFleche and some others have taken up for that week. Many of these comments are horrible. If the words “welfare recipient”, “single parent” or “person living in poverty” were replaced by “Jew”, “African Canadian”, or any other disadvantaged group, some of these comments might almost tantamount to a violation of human rights standards. But, of course, the cowards, who wrote them, likely on their employer’s computers, will never be held to account for some of the awful things they think and say about others in the community. I use my real name even in those boards, as I feel accountable for what I say.
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