So, this is an interesting angle. It seems like Saranow is saying that the loud, asocial person yapping on her cell phone in public, the 50-year-old guy stealing newspapers from his neighbor and sociopathic motorists who endanger other people are all, essentially, NORMAL while these online communities that are sprouting up and doing what old fashioned offline communities once did to enforce civility and social norms are “weird and creepy” and “vigilantes” and “shame sites.”

Public information is public information. The fact that people can find and utilize more public information nowadays than in the past is a positive development, not a negative one.

Shaming fellow citizens who behave unacceptably is a time-honored way of maintaining civility in society.

Of course, there's the flip side of the same coin, when you just like wearing different clothing or certain music or whatever, and everyone shames or shuns you because you're different... But until there are sites called "WeirdoWatch.com" and "SpotTheLooney.net" I think we're safe.

The author elided the distinction between illegal conduct that puts others in physical danger and truly trivial acts like loud cell phone conversations, apparently to enhance the sweep of the story. She also ignored the extent to which face-to-face confrontations are used in conjunction with online shaming or for practical reasons is not possible, in order to construst her "surreptitious antisocial weirdo" stereotype. Where does one "blogslap" bad journalism?

I didn't take the article as "celebrating" Goldman at all. Sure, it gave his side of the story, as did Streetsblog, but, bluntly, he's now had his behavior exposed to all of his business partners, and probably many of his personal friends as well. I would guess that a vanishingly small fraction of them read Streetsblog, but that many or most read the WSJ.

In reply to the question of whether Saranow didn't prove her point, I think this is a classic case of having to put on a thin veneer of disapproval in order to cover a juicy scandal story: an old tabloid trick, no? The huge numbers of details that could have been left out points in that direction. (They would have anonymized the "victims" if they had been truly concerned about them.)

The larger question of whether and when WierdoWatch.com shows up is a very good one which I don't think anyone can quite predict.

One of the undercurrents behind the article is that American society has a very hard time with being held accountable at the wheel. That's why the NYPD does next to nothing on traffic law enforcement and why so many freak out at the idea of red light and speed cameras. A big part of the American middle class likes its traffic law enforcement to be as minimal and inefficient as possible. (Also note recent NY Times piece on parking [enforcement] rage in SF).

Orcutt, great point. That's exactly right.

I asked a few people who read the article whether they thought Saranow was pro-shamers or pro-miscreants. Oddly, the responses were across the map. Certainly, Saranow -- intentionally or not -- let Mr. IDRVFAST hang himself. And, the picture didn't help him.

My favorite quote, alluded to above, was from Mr. IDRVFAST:

There is no accountability [online].

As for the Streetsblog part of the story, I thought it cynical that the step-by-step account of Goldman's outing left out that I non-anonymously contacted Goldman. That certainly cuts against the thesis that there's no accountability.

Of course, it might just be sour grapes on my part for not getting a moment of fame in the WSJ. (Mordecai, that last sentence is meant to be sarcastic.)

I really do think that the article failed to offer perspective of the type offered by Slick. That there are very few public shaming examples and just a ton of bad driving.

Finally, I note with some amusement that Saranow wasn't able to find a single example of someone who was wrongfully shamed (except the detail-less and ambiguous account of the alleged cuckolder).

I believe the danger of this piece is in how it easily allows the reader to identify with the motorist- "That could have been me driving recklessly and hitting someone. Now these people have the audacity to create consequences!”

As far as I can tell, public shaming got a city construction contractor to stop storing its materials in a bike lane, even as those materials were piling up and obstructing the nearby crosswalk:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/43954081@N00/361593183/

Jennifer Saranow, eat your heart out!