NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments • Hacker News Board

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#221

Post by djsumdog » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 8:44 PM UTC

gr3yh47 wrote: post #176

overcast wrote: post #170

This is an interesting move, and a topic I've been discussing with friends. I've stopped using sites like Reddit, because the comment sections are just toxic. I've gone as far as installing Chrome extensions that make comment sections disappear from popular sites like YouTube. It's too easy to get drawn into the negativity, and I'm completely over it. "Social Networking" has reached it's low point as far as I'm conce…

>Hacker News is about the only civil place I'm capable of contributing to a discussion to at this point. the interesting thing about this is that HN comment system seems to discourage dialogue - i.e. you are not notified when someone replies to your comment. It seems to be more geared towards comment-it-and-forget-it.

But you can still easily see comments if you look at your page.

Unlike Slashdot where you have to drill down quite a bit.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#222

Post by overcast » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 8:45 PM UTC

iamdave wrote: post #217

overcast wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, just over Reddit in general. Quit about a year ago.

Can't really say I blame you. Found any other interesting communities other than HN, obviously since we're both here?

Not really, spending my time on side projects, and hiking.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#223

Post by kayla210 » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 8:49 PM UTC

overcast wrote: post #170

This is an interesting move, and a topic I've been discussing with friends. I've stopped using sites like Reddit, because the comment sections are just toxic. I've gone as far as installing Chrome extensions that make comment sections disappear from popular sites like YouTube. It's too easy to get drawn into the negativity, and I'm completely over it. "Social Networking" has reached it's low point as far as I'm conce…

I actually enjoy articles that allow comments, because I like to read what people have to say about it before I actually read it. I don't really know why, maybe to gauge whether or not I want to get more information about the topic that the article title doesn't already provide.

I haven't read the article this thread is about yet, either, because the title gives me all the information I need at this moment. I know how crazy the comments were getting for NPR, which I started reading regularly a while back because they allowed comments on their posts. Now, I skip the comments if I'm reading an NPR article because most of the time it's some guy spewing something about how Obama is destroying the country when the article has nothing to do with politics in the slightest.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#224

Post by sotojuan » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 8:52 PM UTC

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #205

overcast wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, I get this response every time I talk about this topic. I really dislike the "well no one is making you use / buy / watch / listen" to something. People can be critical of something they want to succeed. It happens a lot in certain game communities. What if I WANT to talk about politics, in a civil manner? Any sufficiently popular subreddit, just devolves into complete trash.

That's probably due to the nature of politics. It certainly tends to get a lot of people riled quite easily. What's that thing about polite company not talking about politics, religion, or sex. The average person, myself definitely included, probably doesn't have much worth listening to on the subject anyway. To paraphrase PJ O'Rourke: though there certainly are many political commentators who might be worth listing…

It's not just r/politics—that's just one example.

r/programming is another good example. The community there is very hostile and actively downvote and hate on most new things that aren't C++/Java/.NET/Python sometimes. It's been stereotyped as a bunch of overly angry .NET/Java devs, not sure how accurate that is but the angry part is right. It's just a waste of time.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#225

Post by lucretian » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 8:59 PM UTC

robwilliams wrote: post #150

notadoc wrote: post #47

95% of internet comments are pure trash and basically internet pollution. The other 5% can be a mixture of deep insight, thoughtful discussion, and relevant opinion. Sorting out the trash and insisting on quality comments is an unsolved problem, perhaps with an eventual tech solution. The New York Times is probably the only site I know of that does comments well, and they are obviously heavily moderated. But, they're…

The New York Times comments are free from trolls and spam, but it's a frustratingly obvious echo chamber when it comes to politics. I'm a liberal guy but I can't stand it. David Brooks wrote an interesting column ( http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/09/opinion/the-great-affluenc... ) a week or so ago and most of the comments are just bashing him for being a Republican, as if that has anything to do with the subject matte…

i think your diagnosis is wrong. show me a conservative news outlet on the web with a high SNR of thoughtful and intelligent comments, free of frothing, conspiracy-laden bullshit. maybe the NYT is an echo chamber because modern conservative positions are so weak and contradictory, they can't stand the withering critique of a well-moderated forum. instead, they only survive in troll havens.

as for brooks' column, you might be missing some context. brooks has made a career of talking out of both sides of his mouth and (annoyingly) providing intellectual cover from the NYT for a plethora of bad conservative ideas. now that they're blowing up in his face, he's backing away from these stances.

this comment articulates it well:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/09/opinion/the-great-affluenc...

"He should realize that we’ve been trying to bring the tribal ethos to the U.S. for a long time, with strong local communities providing the sort of help and social services that bind people together and take care of each other as we get older, or fall short in some way.

But He Who Talks with Forked Tongue likes to imagine an egalitarian utopia where 99 percent of us are quietly stitching blankets while a few get to hoard the vital resources. When the tribesmen and women protested and occupied Wall Street, Brooks nearly went on the warpath, and wrote a column in the Times entitled “The Milquetoast Radicals,” (10/11/2011) in which he castigated the unwashed hippies who dared to protest the insane degree of income inequality in this country."

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#226

Post by pg_is_a_butt » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 9:02 PM UTC

overcast wrote: post #170

This is an interesting move, and a topic I've been discussing with friends. I've stopped using sites like Reddit, because the comment sections are just toxic. I've gone as far as installing Chrome extensions that make comment sections disappear from popular sites like YouTube. It's too easy to get drawn into the negativity, and I'm completely over it. "Social Networking" has reached it's low point as far as I'm conce…

you're an ignorant hypocrite.

keep posting negative comments about negative comments, lady.

you're all idiots.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#227

Post by runesoerensen » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 9:10 PM UTC

gr3yh47 wrote: post #176

overcast wrote: post #170

This is an interesting move, and a topic I've been discussing with friends. I've stopped using sites like Reddit, because the comment sections are just toxic. I've gone as far as installing Chrome extensions that make comment sections disappear from popular sites like YouTube. It's too easy to get drawn into the negativity, and I'm completely over it. "Social Networking" has reached it's low point as far as I'm conce…

>Hacker News is about the only civil place I'm capable of contributing to a discussion to at this point. the interesting thing about this is that HN comment system seems to discourage dialogue - i.e. you are not notified when someone replies to your comment. It seems to be more geared towards comment-it-and-forget-it.

It encourages dialogue between more than two people, which is often a good thing. The quality of a discussion usually improves when more people participate.

It's rarely a problem if someone forgets to follow up since someone else will usually do it, at least if their views are shared by other people.

That being said, the "threads" page is useful for finding and responding to new comments in your threads if necessary.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#228

Post by striking » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 9:10 PM UTC

gr3yh47 wrote: post #176

overcast wrote: post #170

This is an interesting move, and a topic I've been discussing with friends. I've stopped using sites like Reddit, because the comment sections are just toxic. I've gone as far as installing Chrome extensions that make comment sections disappear from popular sites like YouTube. It's too easy to get drawn into the negativity, and I'm completely over it. "Social Networking" has reached it's low point as far as I'm conce…

>Hacker News is about the only civil place I'm capable of contributing to a discussion to at this point. the interesting thing about this is that HN comment system seems to discourage dialogue - i.e. you are not notified when someone replies to your comment. It seems to be more geared towards comment-it-and-forget-it.

What if you try http://www.hnreplies.com/ ?

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#229

Post by deathhand » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 9:11 PM UTC

overcast wrote: post #222

iamdave wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't really say I blame you. Found any other interesting communities other than HN, obviously since we're both here?

Not really, spending my time on side projects, and hiking.

I don't think this comment adds to the discussion at all. The comment is actually a great microcosm to the dearth of comment quality. 1)You would never know about this reply unless you sought it out. 2) Once you replied to it you said nothing of value to anyone. You even threw in an off topic item. Let me guess, you don't have a TV either? Perhaps you are a vegan....

This is what is flawed about comments. It becomes an ego circle jerk...Which is necessary to even generate comments in the first place ("oo look how much Karma I get") but ultimately destroys a conversation.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#230

Post by rwallace » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 9:13 PM UTC

brandonl222 wrote: post #20

Cacti wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly the type of nonsense comments they're trying to avoid.

Yes, the truth does have a way of ruining a narrative...

I don't think that's exactly what's going on here. As it happens, I agree that the mainstream media tend to be uncritically accepting of anything that seems to fit a neoliberal narrative, and that this is a big problem. However, in this case the comment being criticized, came across as a rather aggressive and jarring pivot in what had been a pleasantly - even surprisingly - balanced discussion, and I think that's the main reason it got so many downvotes.