So all of a sudden everyone is talking about you, the Internet reader — or, more specifically, the Internet commenter. On Thursday, Slate‘s Katie Roiphe took a close and thoughtful look at something that most of us who write online have long presumed as par for the course: the angry commenter. “It’s easy to see how one might disagree with or dislike an article,” Roiphe writes, “but what is more bewildering and bears examination is the response of hating the writer’s guts. One would think, reading some of these comments, that the writer has done something to the commenter, that there has been some deep personal transgression.” (Roiphe’s piece has, predictably, prompted nearly a thousand comments — most of them angry.) Over at the Atlantic, Rebecca J. Rosen notes that comments “continue to be terrible, and it’s not only because of trolls and morons. Internet comments are hard to read and harder to engage with. Even in places with smart, thoughtful readers, the comment sections tend to be more like lists of unconnected ideas than genuine conversations.” … Read More