Gadget Blog Engadget bans comments
By Ria Sharma

Are we witnessing the slow but sure demise of the troll commentators on the internet? While most anonymous (anon) commentators put forward balanced facts and reasoned argument, some use the shadows to hurl abuse, personal criticism and racist/sexist rants. Some popular Indian blogs like India Uncut no longer allow comments.

Some like Mumbai-based Compulsive Confessor had stopped comments but now allow them after due moderation. It is not uncommon for Indian bloggers to keep requesting anon commentators to observe a modicum of decency in online conversations.

On Jan 27, 2010 right of centre Indian blog Offstumped suddenly closed all comments on an article by an IIT graduate titled ‘Why am I paying for Ashley Tellis’ salary?’

Mumbai-based Mid-Day allowed unfettered comments, but they are now moderated.

While countries like China ban anon comments, most democracies allowed them till recently when a change in public consciousness allowed for leashing of vicious anon comments.

Perhaps, the last bastion of anon commentators were Gadget sites which are thronged by young men who are used to the cut and thrust of healthy debate plastered with four letter words.

No longer!  Engadget and Gizmodo are the two most popular gadget and consumer electronics blogs in the world.  Engadget draws 2.4 Million visitors every month and is the No. 2 tech blog on Technorati’s Top 100 Blogs list.

Engadget, which was named AdWeek's “Reader's Choice Blog of the Decade” has now turned off comments for a bit to shake off ‘trolls and spammers’. Engadget told their readers

“
Hey guys, we know you like to have your fun, voice your opinions, and argue over your favorite gear, but over the past few days the tone in comments has really gotten out of hand. What is normally a charged -- but fun -- environment for our users and editors has become mean, ugly, pointless, and frankly threatening in some situations... and that's just not acceptable. Some of you out there in the world of anonymous grandstanding have gotten the impression that you run the place, but that's simply not the case.

Luckily, our commenting community makes up only a small percentage of our readership (and the bad eggs an even smaller part of that number), so while they may be loud, they don't speak for most people who come to Engadget looking for tech news. Regardless, we're going to crank things down for a little bit to let everyone just cool off, and we'll switch them back on when we feel like we've shaken some of the trolls and spammers loose from the branches (AKA swing the banhammer in our downtime). See you on the other side!
“

The tide is slowly but surely turning against anon commentators who only want to abuse people under the guise of ‘democratically expressing their honest views’. There is no place in civil society for such people who enjoy aggressing others.