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Must answer questions before posting comments to prove you understand news

independent.co.uk

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Re: Must answer questions before posting comments to prove you understand news

#21

Post by yorwba »

protomyth wrote: post #16
yorwba wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then turn the questions into factual "Which Senators are named as pro-life in this article?", "Which country's representative threatened to exit the EU?". Even when you disagree, you should be able to give an accurate account of the opinion you disagree with.

The problem is if you disagree you get another confirmation of the leanings of the organization. I agree with everdev, you really need to stick with indisputable facts. Your first question is problematic because you might dispute the characterization regardless of what the article says.

What is the problem with confirming the leanings of the organization just before you are going to comment about completely disagreeing with the article's characterization?

If the article mentions that "Senator X of the pro-life camp said ..." you answer the quiz question with "X" (because it's an indisputable fact that the article calls X pro-life) and then you are free to comment how "pro-life" is a biased term, or that X is a shill for Y who supported murdering babies in the past, or whatever.

You don't have to agree with the article's stance to know how to answer the questions, you just have to know what the article's stance is.

Re: Must answer questions before posting comments to prove you understand news

#22

Post by yorwba »

cl0rkster wrote: post #19
yorwba wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then turn the questions into factual "Which Senators are named as pro-life in this article?", "Which country's representative threatened to exit the EU?". Even when you disagree, you should be able to give an accurate account of the opinion you disagree with.

According to the AP stylebook, "pro-life" would need to be replaced with "anti-abortion" because that is more neutral and carries fewer weighted connotations with it. I would suspect a large population would disagree with the AP conclusion, but it goes to show how difficult it is to avoid bias even in a simple fact-based question.

If the article uses "pro-life" in the text, then the question asking you to confirm that you read that part doesn't add any new bias.

If you didn't read the part but skimmed over it, you might be motivated to leave a comment to mention the AP stylebook's recommendation, to the benefit of other commenters.

Re: Must answer questions before posting comments to prove you understand news

#23

Post by personlurking »

spoiledtechie wrote: post #11
kristopolous wrote: post #8

I was under the impression that comments on news sites were mostly to divert the readership from directly contacting the author or the company through channels that are listened to; merely a solution to keep the wacko segment of the readership occupied and satiated. At least in practice, this is how it appears to function; they're almost exclusively 3rd party plugins and nobody that works for the news organizaion see…

On point. I would add that this is a false sense of the commentor getting their two cents in so they no longer care to participate any further.

One might say the same for elections every 4 years.

Re: Must answer questions before posting comments to prove you understand news

#25

Post by Myrmornis »

hashmal wrote: post #24
Myrmornis wrote: post #20

Great, now how about extending this to voting rights?

someone will quickly sneak in stuff like "is global warming real?" in the questions.

True, but maybe there could be some sort of democratic consensus system to establish the questions (one which by design avoids the superficial circularity).

Re: Must answer questions before posting comments to prove you understand news

#26

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

personlurking wrote: post #23
spoiledtechie wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On point. I would add that this is a false sense of the commentor getting their two cents in so they no longer care to participate any further.

One might say the same for elections every 4 years.

My pet theory is that the purpose of the USA 2016 do was to keep a large disaffected segment inside the tent.

(Inside pissing out instead of outside pissing in, as the phrase goes. Until they go away or whatever, that's another day's problem.)

Re: Must answer questions before posting comments to prove you understand news

#27

Post by kristopolous »

B1FF_PSUVM wrote: post #26
personlurking wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One might say the same for elections every 4 years.

My pet theory is that the purpose of the USA 2016 do was to keep a large disaffected segment inside the tent. (Inside pissing out instead of outside pissing in, as the phrase goes. Until they go away or whatever, that's another day's problem.)

It split the tent. A ten thousand year old idea. Now poor screwed over urban dwellers and poor screwed over rural dwellers are fiercely blaming each other for messing everything up. Setting up a cycle of blame among the powerless disenfranchised groups is so old and still works so well.

Re: Must answer questions before posting comments to prove you understand news

#28

Post by zacmps »

kristopolous wrote: post #8

I was under the impression that comments on news sites were mostly to divert the readership from directly contacting the author or the company through channels that are listened to; merely a solution to keep the wacko segment of the readership occupied and satiated. At least in practice, this is how it appears to function; they're almost exclusively 3rd party plugins and nobody that works for the news organizaion see…

Not the case for all publications. Ars Technica for example often has the author of the post interacting in the comments.

Re: Must answer questions before posting comments to prove you understand news

#30

Post by alexee »

hashmal wrote: post #24
Myrmornis wrote: post #20

Great, now how about extending this to voting rights?

someone will quickly sneak in stuff like "is global warming real?" in the questions.

at least "What is the European Union?" when voting for brexit would be enough.
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