Speak Less Than Thou Knowest

The ability to comment underneath online sports journalism is a sad and bad thing.

It used to be the case that sport was discussed face to face in pubs, cafés, at work or in the home. Theories of evolution were crucial to this working: if you or your views were offensive or wrong then everyone else would have the option of staying away from you and your views would permeate no further than your body odour.

These days, however, everyone has an automatic audience, no matter how much of a loonie they are.

Why should the views of some punter have equal footing on a page as a journalist? Even if that journalist is a second-rater who writes to a script and insists on including a gratuitous reference to Shakespeare in a rugby report that does little to suggest that he has actually read Julius Caesar but rather that he has read something about the film The Ides of March. Unbelievable.

Some commenters are such regulars on the Times that they deserve their own head shot. Maybe I'll shoot their head for them.

So if you have genuine views, set up your own website and write them out fully. Then you can spend your days checking the stats page to see if anyone actually reads it - that's democratic. Or at least, then people can just leave comments on your blog and all the offensive, stupid people can be happy and ignorant in the same place.

I know what you're thinking. Fraser, you angry little hypocrite. And yes, I comment every now and again. Heck, I've commented as myself on articles about me - you should see the way some people run for the hills when the object of their displeasure turns up. There's no need for them to run though, I don't know who they are. They're hiding already, behind clever pseudonyms. Yet run they do.

So am I just as guilty? No, I profess to a more noble cause of smoking out the bullshitters, the liars and the creeps and making them so scared and so embarrassed that they shy away from the computer and wish they'd never picked up a rugby ball. Except in most cases...

Some sites think the number of comments they receive validates them. They wear the numbers of comments as a badge of honour. They might moralise about everyone having the right of opinion. This is wrong. If their journalism is good enough, people should be flocking to their site anyway to read the words, not going there to let off some steam and spout some of their own views. A comments section shows a total lack of faith in what your website is trying to achieve.