That’s an excellent point Mike, and an aspect that both designers of 2.0 sites and participants should consider. I know I just linked to the article, but Clay’s keynote actually referred to it to: In the late 1990′s a request to start a culture group for Tibet on a Usenet was shot down because so many Chinese users didn’t think Tibet was a seperate country, so why have a seperate culture group. It points out that there’s a balance between censorship, the tyranny of the majority, free expression and abuse of freedom that must be struck.

If everything is unicorns and butterflies communication is not going to be interesting or engaging. The recent guest posts on my blog are related to the film and the book series Twilight. There are a number of people who hate both and a number of people who have visited my blog because of that.

As a result I have had people engage the guest writer with debate and others who just comment obscenities and move on. I have seen the obscenities, but I haven’t deleted them. Why? Because not everything in the world is butterflies and unicorns. Some things and some people are ugly, that’s just who they are.

Even real life communities have those citizens that you aren’t fond of, but regardless they are part of the community.

Should you desphinn and thumb down bad comments? Absolutely, but make sure you’re not the one being knee jerk about your reaction. Often times people make comments that seem like flame comments when really they have an underlying genuine message.