I'll think of that the next time me and a bunch of Finns are chased through the streets by a bunch of Neonazis - obviously the guys got it wrong because they're hating all foreigners (with a few exceptions) equally. Our right over here (the ones which make such claims) are not even all too friendly towards the US!Originally Posted by Loki
When the stars threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
As far as I know, the editors don't select the comments.
Hope is the denial of reality
This has already been covered, but after sleeping on this I wanted to rehash everything that’s been covered and you have either ignored or misunderstood.
There is no incentive for a user to waste their time writing out rebuttals or responses to an article that’s been published on a website. This goes back into not understanding Web 2.0; you provide the content, the host makes the money. Comment posters don't get anything financially out of a comment, they rarely (if ever) get a response from the author; and the worst type of response is some other anonymous user trying to speak for the author. Commenters do however get attention, its why trolling is so popular. Why else would this thread reach 3 pages? Why has our front page suffered so much? You asked this:
But you refuse to respond, or understand, any type of explanation or rebuttal that refuses to concede ground on your thinly veiled attempt to call Huffington Post commenters a special level of stupid. To top it off you've insulted GGT and Being in this same thread!
Again, what you're taking away from reading the comments is based on your lacking understanding of how social media online works. Sites can take different approaches in handling how user input is accepted, displayed, used, or ignored. Huffington Post comments are displayed automatically, Economist's are not. That immediate attention whoring gratification is removed. We don't even have to get into how the Economist and Huffington Post take different stances on how comment abuse is weeded or controlled. This doesn't magically mean that the Economist's readers are smarter than other websites' users. Some sites use comment ranking, like Reddit. It allows users to vote on which comments they feel are appropriate, good comments at top, FFFFUUUUUU comments at the bottom; but this doesn't mean everything is college level material. The internet is viral in nature, this is why memes take so long to die. It’s why Facebook has the god damn "Like" button. You claimed this:
And this statement is simply wrong. News agitation sites are huge online. Its why even sites like the Economist have buttons for everywhere from Reddit to Twitter to spread their stories. You don't have to try harder to find the information in the Economist, you only need to know someone online who has already found it.
Stepping back from the specifics of the discussion, we also have Shitcock Syndrome
Ha, shitcock syndrome, that's a new one for me!
Good explanation about media content and its users, OG.
I'm wondering if Loki simply chose the wrong example to support his thesis that the voting public in a democracy is too stupid to value "expertise".
Two things:
1) Article comments are, as a rule, stupid.
2) Terms like 'Huffington Post reader' are not meaningful in this context, as Ominium Gamum explains.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
1. Go to the Economist and then tell me that. Or if sports is your thing, go here: http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/ I think you'll find at least half the posters in both places are well-informed and contribute valid opinions.
2. I disagree. I think you're conflating people getting news from different media to assuming that the same people get their news from the same cross-section of media sources. I'm sure, for example, that a decent chunk of Economist readers also read Yahoo news, but I'm equally sure that a vast majority of Yahoo news readers don't read the Economist.
Hope is the denial of reality
The Economist edits user comments. I told you that at least a page ago.
I think you're conflating a whole bunch of stuff. It's interesting though, that you claim to be an academic that's bothered by the average person not understanding expert opinion. But you can't differentiate between news sites, opinion blogs, or anonymous comments.2. I disagree. I think you're conflating people getting news from different media to assuming that the same people get their news from the same cross-section of media sources. I'm sure, for example, that a decent chunk of Economist readers also read Yahoo news, but I'm equally sure that a vast majority of Yahoo news readers don't read the Economist.
1) Those are exceptions. Most articles comments I've read are stupid, across all media sources. You've also picked a topic that is a stupid magnet, i.e. the relationship between religion and violence.
2) You're still stuck in the print news frame of reference here, Loki. The idea of people getting getting their news from specific media sources (i.e. this person gets their news from sources A and B, while this person gets them from B and C) isn't necessarily very descriptive of the way things work on the Internet. You should think about this thread as an example of why. Everyone who's looked at this thread probably went to the article to look at the comments you were talking and possibly read the article itself. We're not 'Huffington post readers' we saw the article because you linked it.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
Its already been covered for possible reasons why Economist's comments are the way they are. 1) They are not displayed by default 2)Edited and policed by staff 3)Signing up to comment requires 2 different pages, one for personal info and another for your screenname (screen name also has to be approved before it can be used). These are all steps taken by the Economist to weed out the comments you are using againist other sites. It doesn't mean that the Economist's reader base is any more sophicated. Your mlb website on the other hand is still specialized and unknown to the internet at large. Less than a page of comments for an article thats weekend old? Thats not helping your case, hell any specific example here isn't going to help you.
Of course being specialized hasn't stopped the MLB commenters from having their fun:
User 1:
You forgot to add under the good:
Prayed to by younger relievers as major deity of closing
Reply from User 2:
and by those who cannot finish their burritos at tacobell.
First off, we need to make the distiction between reader and commenter, not always one in the same. Secondly, thanks to moderating being different at different locations, there is nothing to show that the the indepth posters you claim are at the Economist aren't the same people making the shitcock comments you keep harping on Yahoo News for.2. I disagree. I think you're conflating people getting news from different media to assuming that the same people get their news from the same cross-section of media sources. I'm sure, for example, that a decent chunk of Economist readers also read Yahoo news, but I'm equally sure that a vast majority of Yahoo news readers don't read the Economist.
Last edited by Ominous Gamer; 11-28-2010 at 05:59 PM.
I don't think they're exceptions per se. They suggest that people who seek out specialist knowledge tend to be more informed and more willing to contribute decent information. Someone wouldn't read the Economist or the baseball site unless they were deeply interested in the areas they cover. Uninformed (and frankly, stupid) people still go to the websites of the NY Times, Times of London, Huffington Post, etc. Unfortunately, that means the only people who become more informed are those that are already informed.
I don't think someone who reads one article from somewhere can be considered a regular reader of that website. Just because the internet in theory allows people to pick and choose what to read and when doesn't mean that's how it works in practice. Most people have their preference in terms of news type (mainstream papers, blogs, the redits, fringe papers, etc.), and aren't going to look at other news types most of the time. They also have certain ideological beliefs and are unlikely to read sources that won't reaffirm those beliefs (not too many rightists reading the Huffington Post, and you won't find too many leftists reading the Wall Street Journal).
Hope is the denial of reality
Only regular uses are able to comment on website content?
The crazy thing about Reddit? It doesn't produce any of its content itself. It links to external sources, its entire concept is built around the idea of "internet in theory allows people to pick and choose what to read and when." This goes back to Web 2.0, link sharing sites, and social media online being beyond your comprehension.
Last edited by Ominous Gamer; 11-28-2010 at 06:10 PM.
Your thesis is wrong, Dr. Loki. How many times, and how many people need to tell you that before you consider being wrong?
Still thinking in the terms of Print Media, Loki.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlink
You know what they are, you use them and yet you don't understand the implications. It's not about getting news from a particular source, so much as following a link to a particular article that someone posted on twitter, reddit, facebook, a forum, IM, a blog etc. Of course, people still do the whole 'prefered news source bit', but there's really no way to tell whether a comment has come from a regular reader or someone who's just followed a link in from a person who just wrote a highly critical blog. There's a reason you find comments on the Daily Mail site saying stuff like "Typical Daily Mail nonsense". Sites which make you register before commenting are probably less prone to comments from people who aren't regular readers, as the sign up process is a barrier to passing morons writing "sut up fag" on impulse, but even so it's still very difficult to tell where these people came from.
The light that once I thought compassion still casting shadows in your action
The words you shared were cold transactions that bring me to curse what you've done
When you're up there absorbed in greatness with such success you've grown complacent
I hope you scorch your many faces when you fly too close to the sun
Who do you think does? You surely realize far more gets sent to them than they print, right?
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
Try writing one and report back.
Hope is the denial of reality
http://www.economist.com/node/17582000/comments?page=1
The latest comment is from 16 minutes ago. Considering the amount of articles on the site, it's highly unlikely that they get filtered before they're posted. And given the existence of stupid comments, it's unlikely they get filtered afterward (excluding comments removed for racism, libel, etc.).
Hope is the denial of reality
and I'm still waiting for my screenname to get approved, I'm still listed as "generated" followed by some random numbers.
Of course no one claimed prepublishing filtering except for Loki right now...
A report system, especially one thats used, is in and of itself, a deterrent towards the postings you're complaining about at other websites. Again, specific examples of the internet not being a cesspit don't work here.
http://www.economist.com/comment/761103#comment-761103
"All the "analysts" who claim this is the result of an impending succession are no more informed than you are. This is Kremlinology all over again (which turned out to be wrong more often than not, including on virtually all the important questions). The only ones who know why this is happening are the North Korean leadership and probably a few Chinese leaders. Everyone else is just guessing. We do know that the soldiers wouldn't fire without orders, so this wasn't an accident."
Comment appeared immediately (I had an account from when I had a subscription about 5 years ago). Looks like the "pen name" wasn't approved right away, but the comment was posted nevertheless.
Hope is the denial of reality
We've been trained to not respect authority and expertise as much as our grandparents did, both by ideological shifts and by our observations of how full of shit even rich and well-educated and heavily publicised people can be. We feel relatively smart, and we have the entirety of human knowledge available for feeding our intelligence. But we know some of our limits, so we can't let ourselves trust the enemy. Our stakes are low in the huffP commenting business, the threshold for participating is equally low, and so our standards are lower still. We suffer from assorted biases. We are psychologically messy. We live with the ever-present threat of destruction
Man, the observations that sparked this thread are not surprising. I think these problems are often alleviated when experts and laypeople can voluntarily engage in pleasant and pedagogical dialogue in a relaxed non-threatening non-adversarial context. That way you might even see a progression beyond the first salvos of distrust. Give people money, security, good health, time, and respect and more may listen to reason.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
IF PEOPLE ARE MISSING THE POINT in ridiculous ways then we may benefit from looking at the ways in which they're missing the point and what they're focusing on instead. We can then move forward by addressing their reasons for missing the point in ridiculous ways. Sometimes it's due to neurological damage, in which case our options are limited. Sometimes it's due to fear, stress, TOTAL DISTRUST of the enemy, in which case we can try taking it easy and inspiring confidence and assuring them that they will not die or lose their souls by giving us a chance. Sometimes it's because we're poor communicators. Maybe we're difficult to like
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
I brought up the article in question precisely because it shouldn't have led to any distrust. It was about an uncontroversial topic that people are unlikely to have had strong prior opinions about. I just feel bad for Dr. Toft, who took time away from her busy schedule to write something that she will not be rewarded for just to have people totally ignore what she wrote.IF PEOPLE ARE MISSING THE POINT in ridiculous ways then we may benefit from looking at the ways in which they're missing the point and what they're focusing on instead. We can then move forward by addressing their reasons for missing the point in ridiculous ways. Sometimes it's due to neurological damage, in which case our options are limited. Sometimes it's due to fear, stress, TOTAL DISTRUST of the enemy, in which case we can try taking it easy and inspiring confidence and assuring them that they will not die or lose their souls by giving us a chance. Sometimes it's because we're poor communicators. Maybe we're difficult to like
Hope is the denial of reality
There are many reasons for distrust. It's on the internet, it's in print, it's by an "expert", it's by someone I don't like (and I don't like anyone because I have only known rejection in my too-long life), it's beyond my comprehension. Also great reasons for quickly developing strong opinions about uncontroversial topics. Note how gladly we fight over banalities right here on this forum.
With that said I hope you noted that I listed a lot of things besides "distrust". I admit I forgot to consider the possibility of people simply being trained to behave in a certain way online ie. the possibility of people being freelance assholes
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
Unfortunately, there is no way to tell whether the other side understands what you say if all you get is a bunch of freelance assholes commenting.
Hope is the denial of reality
I find it somewhat amusing, but not unexpected that Loki has built this little world where he must be right by ignoring that which shows him to be wrong. Especially since this concept has been discussed on these forums before, and because he specifically complained about other people doing it in his opening post.
I find it more amusing that you refuse to acknowledge your mistake when being proven wrong.
Hope is the denial of reality
are we staying within the thread? if so, which mistake would you think that is?
I agree, it's not like they can all sit down together and have a chat or have a discussion on an online forum that they both value. One way may be to write a second article that addresses some of the sentiments/points in the comments. I think that second article should also include a brief personal reflection on the madness of it all, kinda like you did with this thread.
"One day, we shall die. All the other days, we shall live."
But then the terrorists win.
Hope is the denial of reality
I see. You got "print" and "online" confused again.
Last night as I lay in bed, looking up at the stars, I thought, “Where the hell is my ceiling?"
Oh, you were referring to the magazine. I wasn't referring to the "comments" (letters to the editor) there, which are obviously hand-picked.
Hope is the denial of reality
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