How to Argue on the Internet

Todd Essig is a clinical psychologist in New York. Ray Sweha is Chevy Volt enthusiast in Boston. My acquaintance with each of them started awkwardly, when we jousted online about articles published on Forbes.com. We've never had a clear-the-air meeting in person, where most reconciliation takes place. Yet somehow we found a way to mend relations -- and strike up good rapport -- within the confines of the web.

That surprise deserves a closer look.

Usually Internet arguments turn ugly in a hurry and never get better. As Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos once told me, being online "turns off the politeness gene." Even a mild disagreement online is at risk of morphing into outrageous name-calling. In 1990, attorney Mike Godwin immortalized this peril in what has become known as Godwin's Law. Its assertion: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches certainty."

It hardly matters whether combatants are angry teenagers matching wits on YouTube -- or affluent bond traders and academics squabbling on sophisticated sites such as Bloomberg.com or WashingtonPost.com. In setting after setting, online nastiness breaks out. Just a few weeks ago, PopularScience.com shuttered the comments section on its site, explaining that "trolls and spambots" were so far out of control that ordinary readers didn't know what to believe any more.

To produce better outcomes, there's no better place to start than the basics of conflict resolution. The U.S. Navy's website provides a great primer that includes the following advice:

• Think before you react.
• Listen actively -- and be ready to begin your reply with a calm, respectful summary of the other person's point.
• Attack the problem, not the person.
• Make sense of the other side's underlying interests.
• Focus on the future; don't forever rehash the past.
• Come up with an outcome that makes everyone better off than they are today.

Ray Sweha and I didn't have the Navy's maxims at our fingertips last year when we began a disagreement about the merits of GM's Volt electric car. Yet we made surprising progress anyway. Our encounter started right after I published an article chronicling my frustrations with a Volt loaner car that was supposed to be effortless to recharge -- and wasn't. That account touched a nerve with GM's public relations department, which branded my article "pointless." But when Sweha weighed in, he took a different, far more effective tack.

"Think of the Volt as your first smart phone," Sweha said in the opening sentence of his comment. "It has tons of functionality and it is confusing at first. But very soon you figure it out and start enjoying it." What followed were a slew of detailed pointers about how to get better results from the car. And then, in a masterstroke, Sweha closed with the following: "Are you related to Max Anders? If so, he's such a nice guy."

Truth is, I've never heard of Max Anders. Yet how could I stay churlish after a friendly gesture like that? I wrote a followup article a few days later in which I praised Volt owners in general for writing "with an authentic American spirit of providing some neighborly help." And I singled out Sweha for his diligence in helping me track down discount electricity rates. The Volt still isn't the right car for me. But now I've got a deeper appreciation for the ways it can connect with other drivers' tastes.

What about putting those Navy and Sweha teachings to work when I'm the one starting the dickering? A test case arose quite recently, when fellow Forbes contributor Todd Essig argued strongly in one of his articles that healthy young adults should make health coverage a top priority. He urged them to sign up for the insurance being offered under the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare.)

Now I've got strong reservations about the ACA in general. I'm also not thrilled that this law is about to bring a 114% leap in the cost of my individual health coverage. It would have been easy to start shouting. But instead ... deep breath ... I started my comment with a paragraph that praised one of Essig's points. Only after finding common ground did I offer some contrary ideas about other ways that young adults should be spending their money. (My list starts with investing in your own training and skills; it goes on to include paying extra to live in a safe neighborhood, arranging reliable transportation and the like.)

Voila! The next round was Essig's, and he brought the conversation to a beautiful resolution. He liked one of my points a lot; he gently disagreed on the merits of some others, and he wrapped up with a slight adjustment to his original position. Net/net: he kept the core of his argument intact but let me believe that my input had added something of value.

We can't expect every Internet argument to work out so smoothly. Some comments come from people so full of rage that it may be impossible to steer such exchanges toward civil territory. But I've come away from these exchanges believing that every now and then, it is possible to have a spirited debate online, without turning it into a digital version of World War II. And that's a big relief.

Photo by Steve Fair, London Olympics 2012