Reply to Sergei Korzun

Dear Seryozha, you, too, have known me for a million years and know how squeamish I am about dirty statements, attacks and insults.

But your open letter raises completely different questions - has the Internet shifted the boundaries of what is acceptable in relationships, has the Internet shifted the boundaries of what is acceptable in anonymity, and who ultimately determines these boundaries until time puts everything in its place.

I, of course, share your feelings about the ugly comments that often end up on our site.
But I absolutely do not share your conclusions.

1. Yes, there are trolls.
We are fighting them - 14509 (krasnoramochniki) have received the right to immediately send a complaint to the moderator if it is not an inappropriate comment. It might be worth expanding this number. About a thousand comments a day are ignored or hidden.

2. We gave 36 users the right to moderate the feeds themselves.
It might make sense to expand this number.

3. BUT, Seryozha, the majority of users whose comments make you (and me) feel disgusted and angry are not trolls.
These are unhappy people, offended by life, who do not know how to listen, do not know how to hear anyone but themselves, do not know how to formulate their thoughts, and are not ready for a meaningful discussion. And this is not their fault, but their misfortune. They write all this out of their own powerlessness, out of their own resentment for their lives, for their loved ones, for their friends.

Yes, they assert themselves at their own expense, at your expense, at our expense. But these are our next door neighbors, our subway neighbors, the parents and older brothers and sisters of the children of our classmates.

4. Don’t notice them, Seryozha, if you can’t teach them to write with dignity.
But I won't turn them off. We will endure.

Alexey Venediktov.

Original