COSTA MESA UNPLUGGED:

It’s the grit and gun-slinging of the Old West that lends the frontier era of American history its draw.

When mining towns and trading posts rose from the dust, rule and law were missing in action.

And so six-shooters and shotguns were the preferred tools to settle grievances, mete out justice and appropriate respect.

The evolution of the Internet has been like that.

Law and technology have been either reluctant or slow or both in taming the saloon brawls that characterize the public square and debate halls of the ether.

These days, the chaos of Internet debate is T-boning the canons and traditions of western journalism. The technology — and those who recklessly abuse it — is challenging the crafts governing tenets of authorship, attribution, accuracy and accountability.

Need a snapshot of the carnage? Then grab a glass of Merlot, have a seat and spend an hour navigating your way through the Daily Pilot’s comment blogs.

Here’s what you’ll find: off-topic slander, identity theft, sandbox taunting, cowardly anonymity, racism, reverse racism, narcissism, paranoia, transference and mirroring (terms of psychotherapy, if you’re curious), bravado, narrow minds, snap judgments, outright numb-skullery and one-man campaigns camouflaged to look like political juggernauts.

What’s missing? Educated opinion, civility, respect and real names.

By its current machinery, anyone (and I mean, anyone) can post a comment to a story, column or editorial on the Daily Pilot’s website.

You can offer an opinion as a Costa Mesa resident, even if you live in Nashua. Try getting a letter to the editor published in the print edition of any daily newspaper in the United States under that ruse.

You can level false charges so long as you hide behind a pseudonym (the preferred method of posters who haven’t the guts to do as much face-to-face or with their identity in plain sight).

You can post under the name Jolly Joe, Westside Improver, Oh Gee, Peculiar, Apparently, I See RtR (Return to Reason), and even Truth. The borders of imagination are the only limit.

Up until last Sunday, you could even post a missive using the name Byron de Arakal.

That’s exactly what one shadow-lurking poster did in a comment about the Daily Pilot’s story on the dust up surrounding the screening of an R-rated movie to a group of special education kids at Newport Heights Elementary School.

I’ve since given the editors of this fine daily the heads up that I’ll only post responses to comments made in response to a Costa Mesa Unplugged column. If my name pops up as the author of a post on any other story, it should be sent to the electronic round file.

But even then, the current machinery still allows a faux Byron de Arakal to post as Byron de Arakal in a blog comment under this column.

So I’m still not spared the possibility that I’ll have to track down identity thieves with my lawyer in tow.

Instead of the Daily Pilot comment blog functioning as the important and essential tool of public debate and dialogue that it should be, it’s instead disintegrated into a virtual Old West gunfight. It’s become a nest of electronic taggers and vandals. And while it may make for “South Park�-style entertainment or a potent elixir for some sad sack with grinding psychological gears, it contributes little to the healthy, civil and intellectual hashing of the issues that confront the Newport-Mesa community.

That needs to change. And soon.

I’m partial to a gatekeeping system of some sort. A registration system that demands an individual provide their real name, a valid e-mail address and a telephone number if they want the privilege of participating in the Daily Pilot’s comment blog. Sort of like a virtual ICE agent.

Will such a system chase away current participants? Probably. Think of it, though, as self-deportation.

But it will also elevate the quality and substance of the discourse. And I’ll take honest, civil discussion over anonymous, meaningless noise every time.

BYRON DE ARAKAL is a former Costa Mesa parks and recreation commissioner. Readers can reach him at [email protected].