commenting and world war 3
May. 20th, 2011 04:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hnpccI read the Slacktivist "Left Behind" and other posts. I used to read the comments too, but then the threads got stupid. And by "stupid" I mean up to 700+ comments in a very short space of time (overnight on occasion). There were a couple of reasons for this. The comments weren't offically moderated, although a self-appointed group of people did try and keep some order, and frequently went off topic - often massively off topic. Sometimes this was entertaining, other times it was bloody annoying. Either way I came to the conclusion that I really didn't have time to wade through an enormous volume of ranting about tipping in the US or sexism or sheep or whatever in order to find comments about the post that I was interested in.
So I stopped commenting and reading other people's comments.
Then slacktivist moved to a new site. This site had a couple of different features - that the comments were threaded and you could "like" or "dislike" them being some of them. (Unfortunately the registering system to comment is even worse than the previous place, so I haven't bothered there either.) The comments were still unmoderated however and because this site was part of a much larger religious site there were new people. Some of whom, inevitably, were trolls who came into what was felt to be an established community and started wreaking havoc.
This upset quite a few people.
Then, there was a split. Some people continued on at the old site, taking it over and providing new content there. Some people stayed with the new site. Quite a few people (including me) kept reading both. The old site has had quite a few interesting articles on it, and one that came up yesterday was about gender balance - or more accurately lack of it - in Dr Seuss. I was interested enough to go over and read the comments.
Which promptly reminded me again why I stopped. Seriously, read the first page of comments. Just the first page. There are some thoughtful posts. And then there's the other stuff. I get that people get frustrated by feeling that they're saying the same thing over and over again. I get that feeling like other people just "don't get it" is annoying. But dear God, either put up a bloody FAQ about what you are or aren't allowed to ask, or what you should read first before commenting on anything, or be civil or better yet - don't comment if it annoys you that much. Sticking warnings like "this is the last warning before I go nuclear and killfile you" is unhelpful in my opinion (although it does quieten things down once the person only sees people they agree with.)
(The comments do calm down further down, but only when the person originally being screamed at clarifies and apologises. The appropriateness or not of screaming at them straight off the bat and "nuking" is "not up for discussion" apparently. Helpful.)
There was also this quite interesting post about setting up a comment section, with input from Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden. I don't necessarily agree with all their ideas - I would much,much rather have had threaded commenting previously, not least so I didn't have to wade through the tipping argument in particular - although I concede the point about the two people continuing the argument (see the comments linked above). It's not just a threading problem, that one.
Either way, between feeling like I'm likely to be piled on on one site if anything I say is disagreed with or misinterpreted and being unable to actually work out how to register to comment at all on the other site I'm unlikely to bother. Which does at least give me more time to do what I probably should be doing anyway. I'm finding that where I tend to read comments now either the communities are much smaller and more focused or the boards are tightly moderated and the signal:noise ratio is much better. Yeah you miss some of the bantered asides, but thank God you can follow a conversation without world war 3 over grammar breaking out and hijacking the thread. No matter how entertaining that can be.
So I stopped commenting and reading other people's comments.
Then slacktivist moved to a new site. This site had a couple of different features - that the comments were threaded and you could "like" or "dislike" them being some of them. (Unfortunately the registering system to comment is even worse than the previous place, so I haven't bothered there either.) The comments were still unmoderated however and because this site was part of a much larger religious site there were new people. Some of whom, inevitably, were trolls who came into what was felt to be an established community and started wreaking havoc.
This upset quite a few people.
Then, there was a split. Some people continued on at the old site, taking it over and providing new content there. Some people stayed with the new site. Quite a few people (including me) kept reading both. The old site has had quite a few interesting articles on it, and one that came up yesterday was about gender balance - or more accurately lack of it - in Dr Seuss. I was interested enough to go over and read the comments.
Which promptly reminded me again why I stopped. Seriously, read the first page of comments. Just the first page. There are some thoughtful posts. And then there's the other stuff. I get that people get frustrated by feeling that they're saying the same thing over and over again. I get that feeling like other people just "don't get it" is annoying. But dear God, either put up a bloody FAQ about what you are or aren't allowed to ask, or what you should read first before commenting on anything, or be civil or better yet - don't comment if it annoys you that much. Sticking warnings like "this is the last warning before I go nuclear and killfile you" is unhelpful in my opinion (although it does quieten things down once the person only sees people they agree with.)
(The comments do calm down further down, but only when the person originally being screamed at clarifies and apologises. The appropriateness or not of screaming at them straight off the bat and "nuking" is "not up for discussion" apparently. Helpful.)
There was also this quite interesting post about setting up a comment section, with input from Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden. I don't necessarily agree with all their ideas - I would much,much rather have had threaded commenting previously, not least so I didn't have to wade through the tipping argument in particular - although I concede the point about the two people continuing the argument (see the comments linked above). It's not just a threading problem, that one.
Either way, between feeling like I'm likely to be piled on on one site if anything I say is disagreed with or misinterpreted and being unable to actually work out how to register to comment at all on the other site I'm unlikely to bother. Which does at least give me more time to do what I probably should be doing anyway. I'm finding that where I tend to read comments now either the communities are much smaller and more focused or the boards are tightly moderated and the signal:noise ratio is much better. Yeah you miss some of the bantered asides, but thank God you can follow a conversation without world war 3 over grammar breaking out and hijacking the thread. No matter how entertaining that can be.
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no subject
Date: 2011-05-20 07:22 am (UTC)And you're right, that was one fast leap into a flame war. Generally it takes two pages or so, but misogyny, real or perceived, is a hot button topic for MG, so not all that surprising.
The silliest flamewar I've ever been involved in was whether manual drivers were better than automatic ones.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-20 12:48 pm (UTC)I don't know. I find her way of arguing with people to be fairly close to bullying if not actual bullying at times. I also don't think there's any point trying to bring that up - people have tried and the general consensus is basically "that's how she is, deal with it. She's been here longer." OK, but it does mean that a lot of people get put off actually commenting - which is fine if all you want is a groupthink situation but less so if you want some diversity in there. All of which came out after the argument when she ended up taking a break - and not a lot changed, really.
I did end up reading the rest of the comments for that post and they were very interesting. Still not planning on commenting though. Apart from anything else I really do not have time at the moment.