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NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

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Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#341

Post by markdown »

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…

The problem is that you've now created a bubble for yourself.

People did this on a national scale, then are surprised to see Donald Trump have so much support.

Too much negativity is debilitating, but sticking your head in the sand has its downsides.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#342

Post by markdown »

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…

> But Reddit is a toilet

I've found just the opposite. Coincidentally, I all the subs I'm subscribed to have less than 40k subscribers.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#343

Post by QuarterReptile »

guelo wrote: post #275
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

One of the issues that makes political discussions extra toxic is that because there are hundreds of millions of dollars spent on propaganda using the most sophisticated psychological techniques available everybody is full of outrage-inducing hatreds against "the other side". This makes it really hard to have a constructive exchange of ideas without falling into a minefield of unexamined, implanted mental prejudices,…

My least popular comment ever was downvoted for trying to point out the problem with assuming that the people who fought against the healthcare bill are the same ones who hate the idea of SS/Medicare reform. Are we really so camp-y in our politics that you can just assume that the people who don't like something you like are on 'the other side', and that we can ascribe the opposite of all our other preferences to those people as well?

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#344

Post by qu4z-2 »

edraferi wrote: post #294
basch wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it seems sites find it to complex to implement. slashdot nailed moderation, no one has attempted something similar. most systems are simple up/down vote or like/report i am also starting to wonder if the agegroup being hired to implement "social" for websites is now young enough to have missed slashdot in it s prime. the fact that people are still brainstorming from scratch instead of talking about how to improve sla…

> i am also starting to wonder if the agegroup being hired to implement "social" for websites is now young enough to have missed slashdot in it s prime. That's me! Can you explain the Slashdot model and why it worked? Or point to a good write up about it somewhere else?

Been a while, may not be entirely correct:

Slashdot's model was perhaps a little overcomplicated, but my favourite feature was the ability to tag up/down votes with flavours. +1 Informative was different to +1 Funny, and "Factually incorrect" was a different downvote to "Off-topic spam" (whatever they were called).

Other quirks off the top of my head: it capped at +5 and ... -1, I think? The score represented a thing closer to the up/down ratio than "Facebook likes". There was a dedicated -1 Overrated moderation for "I don't disagree that it's interesting, just not +5 interesting".

Also, logged in users got a fixed number of moderation points at random intervals, and you couldn't moderate in a story that you commented in. I'd like to believe this discouraged "throwing away" points on low-effort joke comments, but I'm not sure the facts of Slashdot comments entirely bears that out.

EDIT: And then there was meta-moderation...

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#345

Post by wutbrodo »

dcposch wrote: post #289
vertex-four wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right-libertarian views are generally most popular here - both "conservative" and "liberal" (American definitions of both) views are generally not popular. And god forbid you have views that would be considered slightly left of center in much of the EU.

That's just not true. For example, universal basic income--a leftist idea even by European standards--has been discussed several times on HN. Lots of substantive comments both for and against.

Yea, basic income isn't really that associated with leftism. The super-hard-right libertarian stance of "let people starve if they can't hack it" obviously doesn't like it, but otherwise it's basically a simple combination of wanting a social floor but without the attendant complexity, perverse incentives, and inefficiency of means-tested gov't programs. This view fits pretty comfortably in the center and center-right, while the left often just sees it as a way to low-key dismantle social programs that they're fond of.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#346

Post by michaelbuddy »

jamisteven wrote: post #4
michaelbuddy wrote: post #2

Their left leaning narrative can't take facts at this point. The sheer amount of lean really comes out of their choice of what to cover. They know it's easy to just offload comments onto another service. Any news source w/o comments is basically propaganda at this point.

Left leaning sure, but i have heard them blast people on the left plenty of times. If you listen to them regularly you would see that. The problem with most on the right is they hear one news outlet say something negative about the right and they turn off the channel and assume they are all on a right wing bashing spree. NPR is not this way in the least bit. This is coming from a republican.

With NPR it's entirely possibly that your commute in the morning is different content than mine. I can't possibly listen to them all day but I know one thing for sure. In general, they have positions on topics and they run that INTO the ground basically assuming everyone must agree with it. Then it becomes part of their narrative. They are very picky when to put on dissenting voices. Often times when they are needed, you get none. And NPR is horrible to Trump when they'd get respect if they'd buck the trend of the rest of media.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#347

Post by michaelbuddy »

dublinben wrote: post #21
michaelbuddy wrote: post #2

Their left leaning narrative can't take facts at this point. The sheer amount of lean really comes out of their choice of what to cover. They know it's easy to just offload comments onto another service. Any news source w/o comments is basically propaganda at this point.

Thanks for demonstrating better than I possibly could, exactly why this is a positive change for NPR. Their online comments were only a detraction from their stories.

Because you agree with their presentation of opinions. When you don't, you want to call them out, then and there. And they should hear it. They are after all paid in tax money and supposed to represent listeners and readers.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#348

Post by qu4z-2 »

latj wrote: post #323
godshatter wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It solves the problem for me, I guess. I won't be commenting anywhere you have to log in to facebook because I don't want them tracking me all over the web. While a facebook account gives some legitimacy, I also like sites where you can post anonymously or at least pseudonymously.

If you are using Tor Browser in Tails over a coffee shop wifi while you are laying down under a blanket in the back of a truck driven by a stateless hobo with no fingerprints who you intend to murder later in a country with a healthy democracy, you are probably still not anonymous. If you are not doing those things, you are definitely not anonymous.

Sure, but you're more anonymous.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#349

Post by michaelbuddy »

justinlardinois wrote: post #146
brandonl222 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Reality has a well-demonstrated liberal bias.

This was a great comment 10 years ago. Then a lot of us watching the daily show grew up became conservative and learned that Colbert is full of baloney, hence his terrible ratings on network TV.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#350

Post by vacri »

dominotw wrote: post #115
rexaliquid wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wayyy different orders of magnitude. From NPR's self reported estimates, ~10% of the US population listens to NPR radio weekly. Only ~0.013% of web users commented on articles. No telling how many regularly read the comments without contributing. Does anyone have lurker estimates?

> ~10% of the US population listens to NPR radio weekly ~30 million users per week would put NPR on par with some of the social networks. Amazing feat by NPR if that number is legit.

Anecdata: a few years ago I did a road trip through NV, UT, and CO, and for large swathes of that trip, the only radio station that wasn't glassy-eyed christian pap ("if we make 20k donations, it can ONLY by god's will!" and similar) was NPR. If I lived in the area, it would be the only sane choice for radio...
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