That's the shit that scares me vis a vis free speech. While I am on record as not being the biggest fan of Tube as a person, I do not deny that the moderation on this board is among the most excellent of any place I visit, and furthermore Tube banning me is literally nothing when compared to having my borrowing and purchasing ability hindered by my choice of hobby or my criticism of the government.
Wait tube didn't make you guys have to put in your credit score and mothers maiden name and last 3 places you lived to get a forum account?
I thought that was standard!
so that's how he affords all of those pizza parties...
Yeah this is a terrible take on this and is outright trying to miss the point of the joke. The point isn't "Taking down comment sections is bad", it's "the system your putting in place to replace them is even more outdated and is being used to stifle actual conversation on the piece." Youtube comments are (sadly) better conversation makers than gloried fan letters.
Well, ignoring the fact that this was not likely a direct response to the PA comic, as was brought up earlier, I'm going to have to disagree about the "outdated" model being intrinsically worse. Requiring people to jump through an additional hoop or two to make their voices heard, even very minor hoops, filters out a LOT of the crap. The amount of effort that even the most vile of people are willing to expend to shitpost on the internet is surprisingly low. Someone said earlier in the defense of comments sections that they shouldn't get rid of the comments sections because that's too easy and nothing worth doing is easy. I say that cuts both ways.
as a shitposter,
more seriously: what exactly qualifies as "actual conversation" for the people decrying censorship? because from one perspective it might be suppressing "free speech", from someone else's point of view it's clearing out the dross and allowing better dialogue to shine through. Do you think you can have it both ways? Most people simply don't have the time/energy to sift through 30 pages of shitposting just to find 2-3 threads of discussion that actually came to fruition.
Yeah this is a terrible take on this and is outright trying to miss the point of the joke. The point isn't "Taking down comment sections is bad", it's "the system your putting in place to replace them is even more outdated and is being used to stifle actual conversation on the piece." Youtube comments are (sadly) better conversation makers than gloried fan letters.
Motherboard's comments section was meant to help speak with the creators. Motherboard's creators were having a lot of trouble talking to people because the comments section was filled with awful dreck. Not criticism of their articles but rather people simply trying to attract attention. Largely in part because they were either unable or unwilling to moderate them. If a person would like to inform the creators of either positive or negative criticism they still can. No one is stifled, people simply don't get the automatic benefit of everyone else's attention.
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
Except he's right. Comment sections are a plague and produce the worst discourse that exists on the internet outside of 4Chan. Ah well, was considering droppin' this comic anyway.
Going back to the Mary Sue thing for a moment, I'm not familiar with the site, but I don't necessarily think there's anything wrong with creating an "echo chamber" of sorts. What if a group of feminists wants to discuss some finer points of feminist theory without anti-feminists coming in from outside and shitting up their discussion? Is that so wrong?
Or, to pick a less controversial example, what if a website dedicated to, say, Final Fantasy, wanted to have a discussion among fans about some specific aspect of the series. Would they be wrong to delete the "dissenting opinions" of people coming through just to say Final Fantasy sucks? I don't think so. Sometimes not everyone is invited to a discussion and that's okay.
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
Going back to the Mary Sue thing for a moment, I'm not familiar with the site, but I don't necessarily think there's anything wrong with creating an "echo chamber" of sorts. What if a group of feminists wants to discuss some finer points of feminist theory without anti-feminists coming in from outside and shitting up their discussion? Is that so wrong?
Or, to pick a less controversial example, what if a website dedicated to, say, Final Fantasy, wanted to have a discussion among fans about some specific aspect of the series. Would they be wrong to delete the "dissenting opinions" of people coming through just to say Final Fantasy sucks? I don't think so. Sometimes not everyone is invited to a discussion and that's okay.
This is also a very good point. If I'm running a forum dedicated to the intricacies of tabletop gaming, I don't somehow "owe" a platform to the people who want to post "Roleplaying? get a life nerds lol."
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
It's kinda funny you say "no one is owed a response". Reddit and 4chan have not only come under fire in this thread but pretty want legal or economic actions to hit and hurt them.
This comic isn't demanding the right to be heard or whatever or demanding their own space on the site to be heard. It's making fun of the idea that it's further conversation and it's doing it ON THEIR OWN SITE, THEY MADE, IN THEIR COMIC. They 100% have the right to this and their opinion expressed here. They are even nice enough to let you have it without removing it or banning you.
I...I'm unclear if you are being serious or not.
Had you read my entire comment and comprehended it, you'd know that I took no issue with the comic. My comment was lamenting about the emotionally-heated comment section in this thread. You even exampled my sentiments by mentioning the bolded part.
If you would like to argue the same point as me, I would very much like if better grammar and syntax were used.
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I'm going to have to agree with @Preacher from previous page. I can't exactly tell what your point is anymore. Are you agreeing with me? Are you disagreeing with me? Both? Neither?
I'm not being obtuse here. I'm saying people are oversensitive to claims of censorship, which began when someone complained that this website is also engaging in heavy moderation and therefore something about "hypocrisy". Followed by jokes about banning the word duck and not just admitting it and stating there's nothing hypocritical about it.
Can you elaborate on what you mean when you say, "People are oversensitive to claims of censorship"? I think this might be the part where I am not sure what people/oversensitivity you are describing exactly. When people are being oversensitive to claims of censorship, what form does that take?
To be 100% clear on this.
Someone complains the mods removed something, claiming it's censorship (it is). Instead of going, yeah but everyone self censors every day who cares, there are weird reaction to deny this is happening at all.
It's really weird to me this conversation is dragging on this weird point, when it was in response to a post overall I liked and just got mildly annoyed that it somewhat followed the trend of annoying and unironic "Freeze Peach" which is used to completely shut down conversations in a manner no different than calling someone a MRA or SJW (something I brought up earlier something people seemed to have understood then)
I had to google "Freeze peach", I think using weird terminology that not everyone is aware of may be part of where we're not understanding you. This isn't Reddit or 4chan. Though terms like MRA and SJW have spread far enough that they aren't localized to specific areas of the internet (although even those terms are not ones that everyone knows necessarily), if you start saying things like "My soggy knees" and "freeze peach", a lot of people will just be confused.
To be completely honest, I believed they were improperly typing NRA. I don't follow internet slang and abbreviations, but I can't say I'm lost without that knowledge. It's as simple as understanding that it's in reference to some group of people that the one naming them want to put down for whatever injustice was once done unto them.
Except he's right. Comment sections are a plague and produce the worst discourse that exists on the internet outside of 4Chan. Ah well, was considering droppin' this comic anyway.
So, you think 4Chan's comment sections aren't "a plague and produce the worst discourse"?
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there’s no such thing as just reading anymore — passively absorbing information being presented to you — without an invitation to voice your opinion. i can’t even be alone in goddamned books anymore. a dotted underline appears: “153 people highlighted this,” the kindle tells me. why on earth would that matter to me. get out of my book
comment sections have value as avenues for discussion as long as discussion actually can occur there. youtube still has comments, but they could be replaced site-wide with a picture of a small horse, and be of greater service to its users. sometimes you need to know what a horse looks like. how many legs, etc.
the bleated message of the internet is: everything that pops into your head is important. your most fleeting thought matters every bit as much as what you just read. your hottest possible take needs to be made visible this instant.
i want conversation, exchange, analysis, thought, dissection. i want discourse. but we live in a post-discourse society. “i read this article” is a modern colloquialism which means “i saw most of the words in this headline.”
we need to be exposed to opposing views. it rounds us as people. it tests our arguments, and allows us to rethink or discard bad ones. but in such a landscape, purposefully-truncated methods of communication — the tweet, the status update, the collapsible comment — become 140-character lathes to sharpen existing beliefs to little points, to jab at someone else with, who then prepare their own pointy stick in rebuttal
at some sad point on the curve, comments are just a way to drive up pageviews
but what do you believe? sound off below!
This is a great example of a principle that I continually try to drive home regarding PA's "commentary" comics: It is entirely possible to have differing opinions over something and it not be a big deal. Krib Straub is obviously chill with Mike and Jerry. Furthermore, the comic presents their "opinion" in the most humorous way they can outline it. Usually that is a form of mockery. Often that mockery is of things they actually like. See Destiny for a great example of that. Jerry's newsposts usually present a pretty middle-of-the-road, fair analysis of the topic. But that's not funny in a comic. That's also the reason why the characters always look so silly. They're not trying to use some sterotypical image to demean the person represented. Mike just likes drawing silly people. "Positive" characters, including all depictions of the PA staff, are equally silly looking.
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
You got love how on the Motherboard twitter page... they are tearing into Gabe's art and calling him a homo-shamer, homophone and such.
I checked their Twitter account, but I don't see it. Where is this?
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
edited October 2015
Comment sections were a great idea, which collapsed under the reality of the internet trolling brigades and similar. They have long since become mostly worthless and many platforms simply refuse to moderate them. Usually the result are endless long racist screeds about Obama, someone insisting the Jews control the world and similar general trolling. Typically, this has nothing to do with the actual substance of what was posted.
I think the increasing number of outlets and even prominent youtubers, who are considering (or have) shutting off comments demonstrates this frustration. Personally I don't think comment sections, unless moderated, have any significant value anymore. The fact the phrase "Don't read the comments" is so prevalent is sufficient proof of that.
Additionally the internet has so many places to air opinions, that it honestly does not make a huge difference. Many sites - quite rightly - have realized that a lot of discussion on their articles happens off site. Subreddits, Facebook, Twitter and so on have the majority of actual discussion nowadays. Companies are realizing this and increasingly deciding not to use their own comments systems/sections anymore.
This isn't oppressing peoples "Freeze Peach" (which has become so mockable due to the shrill whining of oppression and censorship without understanding what either word actually means), it's companies recognizing these conversations are heading elsewhere anyway.
Why maintain an entirely costly system for having people insult you, when facebook, twitter and so on do it for free?
I also don't believe in a majority of these sites taking down comments to control some kind of agenda and get rid of either certain views or criticism towards their content.. I mean their comments sections aren't going to be the only place talking about their content and or views toward things, and its probably the less important spot when it comes to silencing opinion if that's what they were doing.
In the case of sites with truly awful views you don't see the pointing at of their content on their site itself, but reported upon on other platforms. (sure you may see it linked by some one else there)
Rubycat on
PSN: Rubycat3 / NintentdoID: Rubycat
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Goose!That's me, honeyShow me the way home, honeyRegistered Userregular
I'm pretty sure complaining about hypocrisy while being a hypocrite is... hypocritical? ironic? one of those for sure.
This is how to put together that sentence. I'm not trying to be passive-aggressive, from your post about writing English I thought you might find this useful.
Thanks, in Spanish there is no difference between hipocrite as a noun and as an adjective. I didn't even know "hipocritical" was a thing XD
Well, the part about heavy speech restriction was taken from a mod's comment (not in the same words, of course) and it's not a bad thing per se; I mean, several countries made it illegal to deny that the Holocaust happened, and I think it's an amazing decision (which I wish other countries would adopt too, and extend it to other kinds of idiotic declarations like "evolution is just a theory" or "global warming is a myth"). The part about doing it in a hostile or rude manner is a subjective opinion and, as such, is obviously open to discussion.
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I'm going to have to agree with Preacher from previous page. I can't exactly tell what your point is anymore. Are you agreeing with me? Are you disagreeing with me? Both? Neither?
I'm not being obtuse here. I'm saying people are oversensitive to claims of censorship, which began when someone complained that this website is also engaging in heavy moderation and therefore something about "hypocrisy". Followed by jokes about banning the word duck and not just admitting it and stating there's nothing hypocritical about it.
Why you suddenly agree with Preacher's weird rant claiming that thinking Mary Sue removing comments that revealed troubling aspects of a UN report is 9/11 truthurism, I don't get.
This post still provides little to no clarity.
I think I'll just consider you a goose and call it a day.
Do you imagine that this post was somehow more constructive?
I asked for more clarity, is that not constructive?
Not when you respond to an honest attempt (however flawed) at providing that clarity with the closest thing to "you're a shithead" that the forum rules allow.
Graham's number would be an under-estimation of how many times I've wanted to type that out but ended up deleting it and just reaffirming myself that drawing mod aggro just isn't worth it.
One of these days, though, I'm going to slip up and Tube will be right there to cut me deep with his e-glare.
I could not disagree more with the apparent philosophy behind shutting down comment sections. First off, yes there is an overwhelming amount of vile crap in them. But language is powerful, people. It really is, and a lot of that power comes through the repetition of phrases and ideas which become planted in people's minds. And what better way to cast out linguistic seeds than the internet? You have a global audience, and one that goes beyond even the people actively commenting. In fact, those that refrain from commenting altogether might be the most rational and open to such ideas, if you can present them intelligently. I submit that anyone who cares passionately about a topic should take the possible light blow to their mental and emotional health (seriously, check with your doctor before doing what I'm advocating :P ), read the article and/or video and comments in question and make a judgement on whether to participate, and then take a few minutes of your time to present your opinion to the world. You might be surprised who is listening and what can come of it. My personal cause? Improving basic science literacy and deconstructing what I see as the false dichotomy between science and spirituality (in fact, the latter might be even more important given the rise of religious fundamentalism and the youtube pseudo-science charlatan). It isn't pretty out there, and something more than a revival of Cosmos clearly NEEDS to be done. You don't want to disappoint Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, do you?
After all, how else are things like American politics ever going to change if you can't even take a few minutes to do that? There sure as hell isn't any reasonable communication happening on national television, either, so what the hell, right? Feel free to tell me how naive or insane you think I am, anyone
The disconnect is assuming that comments sections are the primary or only way to communicate on the internet. They are not. The conversation on the internet as a whole has moved away from comments sections and onto social media sites, who make it their whole business to capture your opinion and signal-repeat it.
Running a comments section costs bandwidth, and it costs time for those who end up moderating them. The only justification that they had to make was "Hey, this takes too much effort and money for us to maintain." It's the same reason why phone booths are going to way of the dodo (although there are some innovative ways to keep them alive out there, like having them double as public WiFi hotspots, but they are rare).
Of course, they didn't do that. And that's the humor of it.
Comments section are also an interesting "tragedy of the commons" case study, in that it only takes one silly goose acting in bad faith to ruin it for everyone else. Only one bot creating an account and repeatedly posting cheap viagra ads can basically prevent any dialog from actually happening. Sure, there are counter-measures, but then you get locked into an arms race between your content and the sophistication of the trolls and bots. At some point, there will have to be a decision on what you want to spend your time on... creating content or fighting trolls and bots.
Er, they more or less did. They also said the comments weren't achieving what it was they wanted to use them for. People seem to just not care about that part.
The disconnect is assuming that comments sections are the primary or only way to communicate on the internet. They are not. The conversation on the internet as a whole has moved away from comments sections and onto social media sites, who make it their whole business to capture your opinion and signal-repeat it.
There's the assumption that Facebook/Twitter/Reddit are improvements over comment sections. And I'm going to be honest: There's no way that Twitter witch hunts and the like are an improvement.
I don't do facebook, really, and am not convinced twitter is a meaningful place for discussion, what with the low character limits. So, I try to voice myself when I feel it's appropriate in various places and have been toying with the idea of making my own youtube channel as well as writing a book. The specific thing with the motherboard site means fuck-all to me
To give some context to where I'm coming from, I'm not imagining that comment section activism, or however you want to think of what I described above, is going to start having appreciable effects in the real world any time soon. But you gotta start somewhere, right? And speaking of the real world, and provide further context of my experience: I've run into people in the real world in my field (anthro/archaeology) who apparently believe this shit. For instance, a graduate student anthropologist who did not believe in human evolution, climate change, or the moon landing. And that is just what he talked about, so who knows the rest. And yeah, when I started hearing this I spoke up and shot down the bullshit such as I could and I think maybe got him to start thinking critically about it all. And really you can substitute 'basic critical thinking skills' for 'basic science literacy' and still be talking about the same thing.
Eupfhoria on
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
Twitter tends to be bad for discussion because of the formatting, but there are still places like Reddit that are there for general discussion.
Hell, even GopherGlamour eventually got the right idea and just made their own discussion space on 8chan when their discussion was shut down elsewhere.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
There's the assumption that Facebook/Twitter/Reddit are improvements over comment sections. And I'm going to be honest: There's no way that Twitter witch hunts and the like are an improvement.
I'm not implying that it's better.* I'm saying that's where the conversation is going, for better or for worse. People don't flock to comment sections anymore (if they ever did) for content they enjoy. They consume the content they enjoy (whether it's food or a movie or a website) then propagate it on their social media feeds. In some cases, this is very similar to people taking pictures of their food and posting it on Instagram.
For every "Twitter witchhunt", there are billions of tweets and users that are simply having the usual conversations that people used to have on the comments section of blogs or various fan forums. "I don't like social media" doesn't change the fact that many Internet denizens DO like social media or tolerate enough to use it because that's where the people are.
Yes, "eewwww" and all that. I don't have a Facebook page or a Twitter account either. The very idea of maintaining a personal page just to tell everyone what I ate or when I'm pooping just sounds like too much work to me. But I recognize that the success of social media sites also means that the comments section on a news post or a blog is no longer necessary for expression and critical dialog as it once was. If I said, "If you are removing the comments, then you are removing critical discussion", it would be a specious claim (I'm not implying that anyone has said this, although some of the posts early in the thread make me wonder).
No one is saying that having this critical dialog is NOT useful (at least, to my knowledge... there have been over 10 pages on this thread ). But critical dialog doesn't have to be in the comments section anymore. It never did, in the first place. The conversation is probably most valuable where the people are actually going, and it's not at the bottom of web-pages with a "Username: " "Comment: " field. I mean, "Do Not Read The Comments" is practically a mantra now; people recognize that it's noise at the bottom of the page, not the signal that they want to hear.
There is value in having comments, but that value comes with costs as well, costs that weren't so well-defined 10 years ago as they are now (Who's going to moderate it? Who's going to ban the trolls? Who's going to delete the spam? Who is going to spend their TIME to do this? Why are we spending bandwidth hosting people who hate us?). In 10 years, we'll all be complaining about the newfangled 3D VirtuaPost XLs that have taken over the conversational dialog on the MindMatrix.
* Of course, one way to look at it is from a content creator's point of view. While you enslave your data to a social media site and are dependent on their policies, losing some creative control, you also can take advantage of their exposure, their moderation policies, and their propagation tools. In other words, they do a lot of work FOR you. And they do it without you paying for the bandwidth or the moderation. It's the same reason why instead of having a personal webpage, a lot of content creators simply have a Facebook page or a Wordpress blog. Not everyone is a web designer.
Posts
I can't think of any words that sound the same as Gabe but have a different spelling and meaning.
so that's how he affords all of those pizza parties...
So close! I thought I had him. Maybe he's only slightly homophonic.
as a shitposter,
more seriously: what exactly qualifies as "actual conversation" for the people decrying censorship? because from one perspective it might be suppressing "free speech", from someone else's point of view it's clearing out the dross and allowing better dialogue to shine through. Do you think you can have it both ways? Most people simply don't have the time/energy to sift through 30 pages of shitposting just to find 2-3 threads of discussion that actually came to fruition.
steam | xbox live: IGNORANT HARLOT | psn: MadRoll | nintendo network: spinach
3ds: 1504-5717-8252
Motherboard's comments section was meant to help speak with the creators. Motherboard's creators were having a lot of trouble talking to people because the comments section was filled with awful dreck. Not criticism of their articles but rather people simply trying to attract attention. Largely in part because they were either unable or unwilling to moderate them. If a person would like to inform the creators of either positive or negative criticism they still can. No one is stifled, people simply don't get the automatic benefit of everyone else's attention.
It was very late last night when I posted that ascii penis and I really didn't consider that some workplaces might have a problem with it.
If you want to see it tho you can PM, it was very magnificent.
Or, to pick a less controversial example, what if a website dedicated to, say, Final Fantasy, wanted to have a discussion among fans about some specific aspect of the series. Would they be wrong to delete the "dissenting opinions" of people coming through just to say Final Fantasy sucks? I don't think so. Sometimes not everyone is invited to a discussion and that's okay.
This is also a very good point. If I'm running a forum dedicated to the intricacies of tabletop gaming, I don't somehow "owe" a platform to the people who want to post "Roleplaying? get a life nerds lol."
Almost had him twice!
Also thanks for immediately jumping to the same place my mind did.
I...I'm unclear if you are being serious or not.
Had you read my entire comment and comprehended it, you'd know that I took no issue with the comic. My comment was lamenting about the emotionally-heated comment section in this thread. You even exampled my sentiments by mentioning the bolded part.
If you would like to argue the same point as me, I would very much like if better grammar and syntax were used.
Yelling at butts will never NOT be funny. Thanks, Psy!
Also, Abby is awesome. Keep up with TLH because it's the tits!
I love League of Legends, but seriously...screw you, Teemo.
To be completely honest, I believed they were improperly typing NRA. I don't follow internet slang and abbreviations, but I can't say I'm lost without that knowledge. It's as simple as understanding that it's in reference to some group of people that the one naming them want to put down for whatever injustice was once done unto them.
Yelling at butts will never NOT be funny. Thanks, Psy!
Also, Abby is awesome. Keep up with TLH because it's the tits!
I love League of Legends, but seriously...screw you, Teemo.
So, you think 4Chan's comment sections aren't "a plague and produce the worst discourse"?
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Yelling at butts will never NOT be funny. Thanks, Psy!
Also, Abby is awesome. Keep up with TLH because it's the tits!
I love League of Legends, but seriously...screw you, Teemo.
I think you mean a homily.
An anomaly? What is this, Voyager?! No investigating anomalies until we get home, ok!
So, like, a big bowl of grits
This is my favourite dumb Mike joke, every time
This is a great example of a principle that I continually try to drive home regarding PA's "commentary" comics: It is entirely possible to have differing opinions over something and it not be a big deal. Krib Straub is obviously chill with Mike and Jerry. Furthermore, the comic presents their "opinion" in the most humorous way they can outline it. Usually that is a form of mockery. Often that mockery is of things they actually like. See Destiny for a great example of that. Jerry's newsposts usually present a pretty middle-of-the-road, fair analysis of the topic. But that's not funny in a comic. That's also the reason why the characters always look so silly. They're not trying to use some sterotypical image to demean the person represented. Mike just likes drawing silly people. "Positive" characters, including all depictions of the PA staff, are equally silly looking.
OH SURE YOU ALL AWESOME THIS POST BUT NONE OF YOU WANT TO SEE IT, WELL I'LL JUST KEEP IT TO MYSELF THEN.
I checked their Twitter account, but I don't see it. Where is this?
I think the increasing number of outlets and even prominent youtubers, who are considering (or have) shutting off comments demonstrates this frustration. Personally I don't think comment sections, unless moderated, have any significant value anymore. The fact the phrase "Don't read the comments" is so prevalent is sufficient proof of that.
Additionally the internet has so many places to air opinions, that it honestly does not make a huge difference. Many sites - quite rightly - have realized that a lot of discussion on their articles happens off site. Subreddits, Facebook, Twitter and so on have the majority of actual discussion nowadays. Companies are realizing this and increasingly deciding not to use their own comments systems/sections anymore.
This isn't oppressing peoples "Freeze Peach" (which has become so mockable due to the shrill whining of oppression and censorship without understanding what either word actually means), it's companies recognizing these conversations are heading elsewhere anyway.
Why maintain an entirely costly system for having people insult you, when facebook, twitter and so on do it for free?
In the case of sites with truly awful views you don't see the pointing at of their content on their site itself, but reported upon on other platforms. (sure you may see it linked by some one else there)
What?
The potential splendor and majesty of a Cambiata-created penis could never live up to the actual reality, so why invite disappointment?
Thanks, in Spanish there is no difference between hipocrite as a noun and as an adjective. I didn't even know "hipocritical" was a thing XD
Well, the part about heavy speech restriction was taken from a mod's comment (not in the same words, of course) and it's not a bad thing per se; I mean, several countries made it illegal to deny that the Holocaust happened, and I think it's an amazing decision (which I wish other countries would adopt too, and extend it to other kinds of idiotic declarations like "evolution is just a theory" or "global warming is a myth"). The part about doing it in a hostile or rude manner is a subjective opinion and, as such, is obviously open to discussion.
Graham's number would be an under-estimation of how many times I've wanted to type that out but ended up deleting it and just reaffirming myself that drawing mod aggro just isn't worth it.
One of these days, though, I'm going to slip up and Tube will be right there to cut me deep with his e-glare.
Yelling at butts will never NOT be funny. Thanks, Psy!
Also, Abby is awesome. Keep up with TLH because it's the tits!
I love League of Legends, but seriously...screw you, Teemo.
After all, how else are things like American politics ever going to change if you can't even take a few minutes to do that? There sure as hell isn't any reasonable communication happening on national television, either, so what the hell, right? Feel free to tell me how naive or insane you think I am, anyone
Running a comments section costs bandwidth, and it costs time for those who end up moderating them. The only justification that they had to make was "Hey, this takes too much effort and money for us to maintain." It's the same reason why phone booths are going to way of the dodo (although there are some innovative ways to keep them alive out there, like having them double as public WiFi hotspots, but they are rare).
Of course, they didn't do that.
Comments section are also an interesting "tragedy of the commons" case study, in that it only takes one silly goose acting in bad faith to ruin it for everyone else. Only one bot creating an account and repeatedly posting cheap viagra ads can basically prevent any dialog from actually happening. Sure, there are counter-measures, but then you get locked into an arms race between your content and the sophistication of the trolls and bots. At some point, there will have to be a decision on what you want to spend your time on... creating content or fighting trolls and bots.
ewwwww.
To give some context to where I'm coming from, I'm not imagining that comment section activism, or however you want to think of what I described above, is going to start having appreciable effects in the real world any time soon. But you gotta start somewhere, right? And speaking of the real world, and provide further context of my experience: I've run into people in the real world in my field (anthro/archaeology) who apparently believe this shit. For instance, a graduate student anthropologist who did not believe in human evolution, climate change, or the moon landing. And that is just what he talked about, so who knows the rest. And yeah, when I started hearing this I spoke up and shot down the bullshit such as I could and I think maybe got him to start thinking critically about it all. And really you can substitute 'basic critical thinking skills' for 'basic science literacy' and still be talking about the same thing.
Hell, even GopherGlamour eventually got the right idea and just made their own discussion space on 8chan when their discussion was shut down elsewhere.
For every "Twitter witchhunt", there are billions of tweets and users that are simply having the usual conversations that people used to have on the comments section of blogs or various fan forums. "I don't like social media" doesn't change the fact that many Internet denizens DO like social media or tolerate enough to use it because that's where the people are.
Yes, "eewwww" and all that. I don't have a Facebook page or a Twitter account either. The very idea of maintaining a personal page just to tell everyone what I ate or when I'm pooping just sounds like too much work to me. But I recognize that the success of social media sites also means that the comments section on a news post or a blog is no longer necessary for expression and critical dialog as it once was. If I said, "If you are removing the comments, then you are removing critical discussion", it would be a specious claim (I'm not implying that anyone has said this, although some of the posts early in the thread make me wonder).
No one is saying that having this critical dialog is NOT useful (at least, to my knowledge... there have been over 10 pages on this thread
There is value in having comments, but that value comes with costs as well, costs that weren't so well-defined 10 years ago as they are now (Who's going to moderate it? Who's going to ban the trolls? Who's going to delete the spam? Who is going to spend their TIME to do this? Why are we spending bandwidth hosting people who hate us?). In 10 years, we'll all be complaining about the newfangled 3D VirtuaPost XLs that have taken over the conversational dialog on the MindMatrix.
* Of course, one way to look at it is from a content creator's point of view. While you enslave your data to a social media site and are dependent on their policies, losing some creative control, you also can take advantage of their exposure, their moderation policies, and their propagation tools. In other words, they do a lot of work FOR you. And they do it without you paying for the bandwidth or the moderation. It's the same reason why instead of having a personal webpage, a lot of content creators simply have a Facebook page or a Wordpress blog. Not everyone is a web designer.