Over the last year, a reader calling himself "merwinwfinzork" has posted 15,739 comments on OregonLive.

That's an average of 43 a day, and it makes him the site's most prolific commenter.

He doesn't want his name revealed ("I don't need the publicity," he says), so for the purpose of this column, we'll call him Merwin.

I reached out to Merwin and recently spent a half-day with him to learn about why he enjoys being in the comments and how he squares that with worries that "we have coarsened the public dialogue way too much."

Merwin greeted me at his small farm and home nestled in the rolling hills of Oregon’s wine country. He’s in his 70s, and when we met he wore navy sweatpants and a baseball cap with a Shakespearean reference on it. This is his semi-retirement. A bit of land, a few animals — I got to meet the llama that serves as his OregonLive avatar — and time to putter in his garden and with his classic car.

It's a comfortable life.

He doesn't use Facebook or Twitter, and doesn't comment on any other news sites. But before he starts his daily chores, Merwin ritually logs on to OregonLive. He'll hop back on a few times throughout the day.

"You end up talking to people, some of whom are perfectly rational people, although not many because really rational people don't do this," he said. "And if that sounds like sort of a tacit confession, I guess maybe it is."

Merwin has been on OregonLive's online comment threads since the early days of the website. He inserts himself into discussions about public policy and education as the self-appointed voice of reason, correcting other commenters and swiftly rebuking those whom he considers to be ill-informed.

A few of his dismissals:

"Dunno how to say this more politely, but You are merely Wrong in your surety."

"You, like others, have No idea what you're talking about."

"You are a good example of a false conclusion."

He gets his fair share of insults in return. His favorite was when someone in the comments called him a "Nazi Communist."

"I really liked that," Merwin said, "because it bespeaks a level of what I like to call adamant ignorance that's hard to comprehend."

Merwin describes himself as a former Democrat and a current independent, but he also likes the term "moderate extremist." He holds a nontraditional mix of beliefs: He calls religion "organized superstition"; He's got a conceal carry permit but makes fun of "gun fondlers"; He enjoys confounding commenters who attempt to peg him as far-left by defending George W. Bush and decrying an overblown hysteria over Portland's glass-factory emissions.

This is a man with one constant: He always thinks he's right.

"I've taken it on as sort of a mission," Merwin said of the comments. "I don't know, I'll probably give it up one of these days, but when I find this kind of nonsense, I'm going to engage with it."

That idea fascinates me. I engage with the comments because it's my job. But I often do it with a heavy heart because I suspect my responses do little to change the public dialogue. Merwin admits to this sense, too.

"I don't believe for a minute that I've actually changed anybody's vote or gotten them to contribute a dollar," he said.

"Then why?" I asked.

"The center cannot hold," he said, quoting a Yeats poem. "I think the center has to hold because I think if the center loses its grip, then I don't have a good feeling about the future of the Republic."

The only way for the center to hold, Merwin believes, is if we are forced to confront uncomfortable truths. With millions of voices now broadcasting their messages online, it's far too easy to filter your information intake to only what you want to hear. This is the coarsening of the dialogue - the Us vs. Them mentality - that's dominated not just online comments but national politics.

The vibrancy of public dialogue is important, Merwin said, because, as a democracy, "that's how we figure things out."

Even the self-described egotist says he's learned a few things from other commenters.

The Coral Project is a collaboration between the Washington Post, The New York Times and software company Mozilla to create free, open-source software that can monitor media comment sections and reward civil conversation. In the same way that a coral reef nurtures diverse biological communities, the Coral Project wants to nurture conversations in online communities.

When I talked last week with Greg Barber, the head of strategy and partnerships for the Coral Project, I was in a dark place. I'd just written two columns discussing race, and reading some of the comments was brutal.

"Have we lost all civility?" I asked him. "Is this the death of democracy? Talk me off the ledge."

Greg tells me in a soothing, therapist voice, "You are not alone." He's heard everything I had to say from other journalists. The solution, he said, is not "Don't read the comments." It's "listen to the commenters."

"What users are looking for, at least what they tell us, is for people to hear them. For their voice to be heard," Greg said. And sometimes, "the way that you get your voice heard is to scream really loud."

This appears to be true. I try to respond to all emails I get about my column, including harsh ones from unhappy readers. Nearly every time, I get a reply that reads "I can't believe you responded," and each follow up email gets progressively kinder. We generally end the conversation still disagreeing, but we've connected, we've seen each other as fellow humans.

That's what's missing in many online comments: a basic recognition of our shared humanity.

I asked both Merwin and Greg if ending anonymity is the way to bring civility back online. Neither thought that was the solution. Anonymity lets us be more honest with our public dialogue. People like Merwin who value their privacy, or who are afraid to share an opinion because of the nature of their job, wouldn't be able to jump into the conversation.

Plus, you can find plenty of nasty things posted on Facebook, with a name and a profile pic.

The solution seems to be a combination of rewarding constructive comments, disincentivizing crude comments and just letting people know they've been heard.

I think that's why Merwin keeps posting his opinion, even if he's shouting into the online wind, even without evidence that he's changing hearts or minds.

Merwin just wants to be heard.

"It needs to be said," he told me. "That seed needs to be planted in the world."

-- Samantha Swindler

@editorswindler / 503-294-4031

sswindler@oregonian.com