I have thought further about things and listened to input from experienced bloggers in the Pittsburgh area. Here are two recommendations that were made to me:
One, anonymous comments are a terrible idea. Enforcing a "no anonymous comments" policy is difficult (because people can adopt fake names), and tends to cut down on the number of people who comment. But the improvement in civility is significant, and for every person who walks away because they wanted to be anonymous, there will be someone else who shows up because they like the reasonable tone of the place. Also, even though some people will say that they have to be anonymous because they are afraid of retribution, the truth is that if retribution is out there, then retribution will find you, whether or not you're anonymous. If people want to avoid retribution, then they should lock themselves in their bedrooms.
Two, call out bullying for what it is: efforts to use the Internet to intimidate or silence people who don't agree with the speaker. We teach our kids not to bully, but we (the collective "we") engage in it all the time. The blogosphere is full of behavior that we would not tolerate in our own children. A lot of your anonymous commenters are using anonymity to bully, just as much as some members of your School Board have bullied the community. Even some of your "signed" commenters engage in bullying.
I have reason to believe that some of the comments submitted came from our elected officials. This blog will not be used to enable those who continue to bully the residents of Mt. Lebanon.
I realize that the amount of comments will drop significantly, but so will the bullying. I am sorry that it had to come to this, but I have had enough.
