Slashdot Mirror
Your Opinion Counts At CNN — But Should It?
theodp writes "Some people love how CNN employs Twitter to engage its audience. Not Steve Dahl. 'I am not interested in the take of @stinky on the Fort Hood shootings or any other current events,' complains Dahl of the access the media gives to Internet know-it-alls. 'I am watching CNN because I expect them to gather the news, not act as a clearinghouse for any bonehead with a computer, a cable modem and a half-baked opinion.'"
This question on a site like this seems incredibly ironic.
While I mostly love Slashdot for its comments and the talks between members, it just doesn't work everywhere. If I'm watching CNN from TV, I'm looking for intelligent, fact-checked news and opinions from professionals, not from some mommy who is twittering without understanding any of the issues behind specific things.
and why should I care...?
How funny is that: A guy airing his opinion on a public medium about how other people's opinions shouldn't be aired on public media...
We need a CNN story on this (complete with tweets) to bring things full circle.
-b
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
I am watching CNN because I expect them to gather the news [...]
Yeah, that's definitely where you went wrong.
If I had a nickel for every time I had a nickel, I'd be richcursive!
That's what I was thinking as I read the blurb.
If I want solid information I head over to a site like PhysOrg. If I want to see what others are thinking I head to Slashdot.
News services have become such an opinion mill that it's starting to make it hard to take them seriously. There is a time and place for people to banter on but I don't want it from a news outlet.
I've seen far too many people around here armed with little more than a high school education think that they have a better understanding of the universe than engineers who are in the field. I know the public opinion on just about anything is 10 times worse. We already have a half a million forums for these people to spout their crap on. Do we really need another?
CNN, not CNN.com. They put these comments on the air all the time. When they should be, you know, reporting the news. Or better yet, investigating the news.
To be fair, the BBC are prime offenders at this vox populi crap too. Quite apart from the prime idiocy on display on their "Have Your Say" comments pages, they practically plead for viewers to text or email their views which they then proceed to display and read out live on air. Obivously this is driven by their need for content, any content to fill airtime on their 24-hour news channel, but it is ridiculous that they stoop to parroting some randomly selected half-wit's opinion on complex issues.
Getting rid of downmods on Slashdot sounds great in theory but it would just result in GNAA posts lingering at 1 (or 2 if the guy doing it has good karma). Which means I'd have to set my threshhold even higher to avoid seeing them, which would bury comments that are actually useful.
The Slashdot moderation system has its flaws, but it seems to work better than most of the alternatives out there.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
I remember my Dad Yelling at the TV for whenever those Darn Democrats did A n y t h i n g . And if the news covered too much positive that those darn Democrats did he would change the channel. Hence why like only watches Fox news now... However with CNN just posting the comments from other people it allows think their views have meaning and they may get 2 seconds of fame if they actually read them on the air. They will probably still stick to the station and watch it.
Just like in the old Roman Days right before the collapse lets hide all the problems of the world and give them a good show. As long as they are kept entertained they wont revolt.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
N P R
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I find CNN (and other "news" stations) too often use the internet as a way to inject opinions that they don't want to state themselves because it would make them look bias. For example, you read three message from intelligent people who are in favor of government health care, and one from some moron who is opposed. The message is that the majority of people are in favor and the few who aren't are morons. However, the anchors themselves didn't say anything. They were just giving viewer comments. It is a way to inject opinion in to the segments that are officially reserved for news.
I've seen far too many people around here armed with little more than a high school education think that they have a better understanding of the universe than engineers who are in the field.
Yeah! Leave those discussion to those of us who have PhDs in Universal Engineering!
Eliminate the weapon, and you make it a choice: either mod 500 posts in a 1000-message thread up, or all 500 posters' signals are lost in 500 posts of GNAA noise.
Because it takes less effort to downmod a post to -1 than it does to post at 0 or +1, Slashdot's actually readable, even at 0 or -1.
Taking away downmoderation would require work on the part of every legitimate reader. Most legitimate readers aren't willing to work if they have to click/mod to make everything readable (on a large thread, you'd wind up with carpal tunnel syndrome after the first hour), but the trolls are more than willing to put the time in to make everything unreadable.
If you want a system where only the "blessed" are heard and the moderation system goes out of its way to emphasize the article and de-emphasize the comments (even to the point of requiring Javascript and multiple mouseclicks to read anything, and putting the comments in the wrong chronological order so that only the most recent few are ever visible), there's Gawker. It makes Digg look useful. Me? I come to Slashdot (albeit in classic mode :) to get away from that sort of thing.
The problem with removing down modding is that there is then no way of filtering out the actual spam, aside from setting your reading level above the default which then means that you miss the ACs with good comments that don't get modded up.
I still think that the slashdot system is the best I have seen, I just wish there was some more stringent way of knocking people out of the moderating system, and that up mods counted for a lot more than down mods.
One of the interesting effects of down modding a good comment is that they CAN'T down mod all of the replies that it garners, and there are enough people that read at -1 that there will be comments.
Do Or Do Not, There Is No Spoon, There Is Only Zuul. Everything in the above post is probably opinion.