Getting Rid of Comments on Vice.com • Hacker News Board

Re: Getting Rid of Comments on Vice.com

#51

Post by kuschku » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 7:34 PM UTC

caseysoftware wrote: post #18

Fr0ntBack wrote: post #2

I think if you're getting mostly garbage comments, it should give you pause for thought. Yes, the format of the internet doesn't encourage thoughtful, polite comments. But equally there might be a problem with what you're writing if you're attracting trolls. This is certainly true of Vice.

Considering how much of the media was shocked SHOCKED by Brexit, the election of Trump, Sarkozy's loss, the fall of Merkel, and the rise of Le Pen, maybe they should pay more attention to the comments..

The "fall" of Merkel? You mean, she went from approval rates of 74% to about 50%?

Re: Getting Rid of Comments on Vice.com

#52

Post by Bedon292 » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 7:34 PM UTC

It has been a long time since I actually dove into a comments section on any news site and found anything other than inflammatory arguments. It seems like people target out these news sites intentionally to start these arguments with no intent of listening to the other side. I would much rather come somewhere like here, and actually seem to have mostly civil discussions even when people disagree.

Does anyone find the comment section of any news site informative and useful? If so, where?

Re: Getting Rid of Comments on Vice.com

#53

Post by prawn » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 7:34 PM UTC

Fr0ntBack wrote: post #2

I think if you're getting mostly garbage comments, it should give you pause for thought. Yes, the format of the internet doesn't encourage thoughtful, polite comments. But equally there might be a problem with what you're writing if you're attracting trolls. This is certainly true of Vice.

You can write something completely reasonable and still attract absolute dickheads - the internet is pretty special like that. I think a more realistic position is about how your commenting system motivates better comments, not to avoid criticism but to create a better product for your audience.

e.g., focus more on your commenting system than simply your content.

My local rag is a cesspool. No persistent identities, no karma, no community moderation, no other methods of promoting the best responses. You end up with drive-by insults and little of substance.

Re: Getting Rid of Comments on Vice.com

#54

Post by kevinburke » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 7:35 PM UTC

colordrops wrote: post #40

kevinburke wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems to me that the purpose is to further constrict dissent and control the message. Insofar as "control the message" means "we are tired of anonymous people in our comments section doxxing our authors and other people, and vile, racist attacks on our authors and groups of people", then yes, this is an attempt to "control the message." > Since NPR clearly had a pro-Hillary agenda, the comments section had to go…

> anonymous people in our comments section doxxing our authors and other people, and vile, racist attacks on our authors and groups of people", then yes, this is an attempt to "control the message." That is a cop-out and not true for all comment sections. > There's no evidence for this, and it's unrelated to the topic. That's a huge cop-out statement to shutdown conversation, and this is about as on-topic as possible…

Sorry - did you read the article? It was true for Vice:

> Too often they devolve into racist, misogynistic maelstroms where the loudest, most offensive, and stupidest opinions get pushed to the top and the more reasoned responses drowned out in the noise... we had to ban countless commenters over the years for threatening our writers and subjects, doxxing private citizens, and engaging in hate speech against pretty much every group imaginable.

> We don't have the time or desire to continue monitoring that crap moving forward.

Re: Getting Rid of Comments on Vice.com

#55

Post by djtriptych » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 7:35 PM UTC

frozenport wrote: post #9

Comments are one of the only time effective ways to challenge news stories. Indeed editorials in newspapers used to be a mode of public discourse. If we consider VICE a legitimate news outlet, then this a sad day.

Write a letter and sign your name.

Re: Getting Rid of Comments on Vice.com

#56

Post by colordrops » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 7:35 PM UTC

234dd57d2c8db wrote: post #43

kevinburke wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It seems to me that the purpose is to further constrict dissent and control the message. Insofar as "control the message" means "we are tired of anonymous people in our comments section doxxing our authors and other people, and vile, racist attacks on our authors and groups of people", then yes, this is an attempt to "control the message." > Since NPR clearly had a pro-Hillary agenda, the comments section had to go…

If you want to put your head in the sand, more power to you. Might benefit you though to look at the whole picture and really try to observe what's happening though.

I regularly participate in comment sections across many sites - how is that putting my head in the sand?

Re: Getting Rid of Comments on Vice.com

#57

Post by kevinburke » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 7:36 PM UTC

Fr0ntBack wrote: post #2

I think if you're getting mostly garbage comments, it should give you pause for thought. Yes, the format of the internet doesn't encourage thoughtful, polite comments. But equally there might be a problem with what you're writing if you're attracting trolls. This is certainly true of Vice.

I would recommend you read "The Internet of Garbage" by Sarah Jeong, which tackles this argument in a lot of depth. It's also very cheap for an e-book!

Re: Getting Rid of Comments on Vice.com

#58

Post by thaumaturgy » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 7:36 PM UTC

This seems like the ideal project for a ML experiment. Offer an integrated comments section, attach the ability for humans to moderate it, and then feed the moderated items into your favorite classifier for training and see if it can learn how to mute the louder nuisances without blocking more civil discussion.

Hand-moderating comments is a miserable job, it'd be a mercy if nobody had to do very much of it.

Re: Getting Rid of Comments on Vice.com

#59

Post by kevinburke » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 7:37 PM UTC

scythe wrote: post #49

I wish it didn't fall on me to point this out, but bigotry is a political position, and trolling is a personality flaw. Honestly, I've never read VICE comments. But if it follows the pattern I've been seeing elsewhere on the Internet, when VICE's comment section was a liberal trollfest, it was okay, but when the conservatives started winning, it had to be shut down. Then of course the editors blame trolling, which wa…

> when the conservatives started winning, it had to be shut down.

There's zero evidence for this. Please read the article.

Re: Getting Rid of Comments on Vice.com

#60

Post by swalsh » Tue, Dec 20, 2016, 7:37 PM UTC

Hacker News after all these years has managed to maintain a pretty high standard when it comes to comment quality (my comments excluded, of course, they are of much lower quality).

A large part of that is it was started with a pretty small group that set the tone and quality, and it has always been very aggressive towards new commenters in the form of limiting down-votes, and chastising lower quality comments. That bring to a slow boil method seems to be pretty effective. I've always been curious if it would be possible to scale up an online community to reach Reddit's size while maintaining an HN signal to noise ratio.