Pay-It-Forward Movement Finds Niche on Web

The Internet is home to a small but growing trend that would seem anathema to hard-headed bloggers and pithy posters who regularly lay waste to others online: niceness. In Philadelphia, New York, and elsewhere, the Inquirer finds, civic-minded netizens are setting up sites that extol, and even enable, random acts of kindness.

“These sites may be in response to a certain amount of sadness about the way Americans are positioned in the world,” said one webmaster whose site allows New Yorkers to post stories of everyday compassion. Another proprietor was slightly less philosophical about her project. “I thought there should be something to encourage people to be nice. It's such a harried society. Maybe we need a reminder.” (More kindness stories.)