Online comments are being phased out

[KamaAina]

http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/21/tech/web/online-comment-sections/index.html

Influential tech blog Re/code announced Thursday that it has shut off the comment forums on its story pages. Instead, the website is steering commenters to social media.

"We thought about this decision long and hard, since we do value reader opinion," co-executive editor Kara Swisher wrote. "But we concluded that, as social media has continued its robust growth, the bulk of discussion of our stories is increasingly taking place there, making onsite comments less and less used and less and less useful."

The announcement was just the latest in a recent wave of prominent websites removing or significantly scaling back their comment sections. Reuters, Popular Science and the Chicago Sun-Times have recently nixed comments.

Fairly or not, comment forums have gained a reputation as a haven for Internet trolls. Several of the sites that have banned comments noted the lack of civility in their decisions.

Really? I never noticed!

[Wilms]

1. Can you imagine?

DU with only OPs. No replies allowed.

[Liberal Veteran]

2. With some OPs, no imagination is necessary.

We routinely will see an OP that says...."OMG! I can't believe he just said that!" in the subject and the body message is something even more vague "I can't believe they allow such a stupid person to comment".

Leading one to wonder: Who? Said what? Where did they say it? What the hell are you even talking about?

[NYC Liberal]

9. Call Congress RIGHT FUCKING NOW

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=1871714

[Liberal Veteran]

13. Yep. That was the one that popped into my mind first.

[NYC Liberal]

14. Or the infamous...

"mainly because half the people I was with believed it until I explained the situation to them"

[Liberal Veteran]

15. I must have missed that one. That is hilarious. -nt

[Hekate]

17. Good times. Good times.....

[Ex Lurker]

3. Trolling is a problem. OTOH, publications are routinely embarrassed when commenters point out

glaring errors, double standards, or logical fallacies.. I can't help thinking that also plays a part.

[Liberal Veteran]

4. Lack of moderation is also a problem.

Headline: Mother Panda Having Trouble Keeping Up With Newborn Twins.

Comments: "This wouldn't be a problem if Obama"..... or "Liberals think they should have just aborted the babies like the millions they kill every year with taxpayer dollars!" and of course, "My sister had a similar problem until she started working from home on the internet making $100000 per year. http:\\www.scamworkfromhome.com"

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. I hand moderate RSD

because of bullies and trolls.

If you try to get though a post about the latest widget, a few have tried, not going through. You attack me, or my readers, it is not going though either.

But that takes time. Some can be done with spam settings and IP bans.

[tanyev]

6. Good riddance.

If comments aren't effectively moderated they quickly turn into a fetid cesspool. And most sites do very little moderating.

[PeaceNikki]

7. good.

[HughBeaumont]

8. I still insist that trolling pages is primarily a one-sided conservative phenomenon.

Think about it. Why would any of us go to sites like The Washington Examiner, The Washington Times, CSN News or The Comical Conservative? I just don't get how anyone with a brain stem sees essay-trading with people you vehemently disagree with and genuinely hate as a constructive use of one's time.

One of the more reasoned arguments was "What's the use of debate with people who already agree with you? How is that going to help you get out of the echo chamber?"

See, that assumes you're going to be debating with, say, an Eisenhower Conservative, or a Bush I moderate.

98% of the time online, however, you're going to encounter people who:

* treat the notion of the "Free Market" like a religious fundamentalist treats their Bible; infallible and incapable of error or corruption.

* believe there's such a thing as a "skills gap".

* believe in Horatio Alger fantasia.

* believe in discredited (by their architects, no less) cockamamie crapola like Trickle Down economics.

* think "foreign policy" means "blast the Bejesus out of random sovereign men, women and children who never threatened us in any way, shape or form".

* thinks the planet is the white man's birthright.

* have economic beliefs almost entirely rooted in victim-blaming, victim-denying, red-baiting and false dilemmas.

* believes there's no such thing as "bad luck".

* thinks life isn't fair by nature, when it's mostly not fair by design. Oh, and uses that chestnut as their main "go-to".

* play dumb when you point out their racism, sexism and misogyny.

* wouldn't be satisfied unless the poor were eating bugs and living in mud huts.

* think homogenized 1960s sitcoms should be models for modern values.

* have absolutely no concept of the admission of error.

[daredtowork]

11. Great summary! nt

[daredtowork]

10. I have mixed feelings about this

On the one hand I don't use facebook, and I defend the right to anonymity. Identity favors real world hierarchies: retaliation can be wrought against against people who don't have resources to defend themselves, which can abrogate their civil rights. Money speaks loudest and wins. Anonymity levels. There is also the problem of real-life stalking and Internet strangers calling your place of work or otherwise trying to interfere with your real life. The police can't do anything about this.

On the other hand, anonymity enables trolling. Many of the forums that allow anonymity also seem to harbor misogynist and racist cabals. They may perform cultural reinforcement from there which can be unleashed into the real world. My preference would be anonymity with fairly socially enlightened modding.

Most online spaces, however, are private property. They don't have to be socially enlightened if they don't want to be. Moreover, social media businesses (such as Reddit) compete with other social media businesses for attendance, and the attendees may prefer Donald Trump to Gandhi. This is why Reddit, despite attempting to implement a privacy policy, still allows awful misogynist and racist groups to form under it's territory: if they don't allow it, those jackasses will just go to Voat to get their mutual reinforcement there. And they will take those jackass opinions to any place that doesn't have a good mod.

Good human mods cost money. Instead of shutting down comments and forbidding anonymity, good human mods should be paid and paid well. We need more employment in the world. Find a revenue stream that pays for this job. Have people subscribe to pay for a modded comments section.

I would very much like to comment on articles in the East Bay Express, but I can't because they don't accept anonymous comments, and I won't use my real name for comments because you never know what that will trigger. There are some serious nutcases in a comment section in a local news venue, and a friend of mine has been actively doxxed and real-life stalked by some of them. That news venue still pays for modding (though I'm sure it is exhausting) because so far the ability to comment is leading to clicks on their articles. I hope they continue to use this model though the trolling is pretty epic.

[KamaAina]

12. I use mine

Maybe I'll watch that.

You could always use a nom de plume like "Anastasia Beaverhausen" (from Will & Grace ).

[daredtowork]

16. I tried to make a up a "real sounding" name

Somehow East Bay Express knew that wasn't my real name and wouldn't let me use it.

I then wrote them and gave them my concerns about using my real name. Still no dice.

[Mr Dixon]

18. IMO

Agreed the comment section are the worst, they should be shut down and make the trolls head over to social media sites to post their review which would include their actual information and not some made up names and locations. Just like in the real world, no hiding behind keyboards if your bold enough to say then say it.