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Yahoo Faces Questions After Discovery Of Comment Replication

An anonymous reader writes "Someone noticed that certain Associated Press stories on Yahoo seem to be appending old comments to new stories in a way that was highly misleading (suggesting new stories had a lot more interest than they really did). The initial theory was that this was some sort of nefarious scam, potentially by Yahoo and the AP. However, Mike Masnick at Techdirt dug into the details and found evidence that it's more about incompetence in the way Yahoo built its comment system, combined with the way that the AP pushes and rotates its articles to partner sites."

7 of 97 comments (clear)

  1. Re:How does that saying go again? by SilverHatHacker · · Score: 3, Funny

    You pulled this exact post, word for word, out of my head, at the exact instant I thought of it. You've got to teach me how to do that!

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    Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
  2. Re:How does that saying go again? by Michael+Kristopeit · · Score: 3, Funny

    Never attribute to nefarious scams that which can be adequately explained by incompetence

    if this sentiment was universal, all truly nefarious people would simply hide behind the protection of incompetence.

    i'm attributing this to orchestrated incompetence.

  3. Yahoo Answers by Itninja · · Score: 5, Funny

    Kind of OT, but Yahoo Answers comment system is wonked out too. My favorite part is how I can edit my answer after it's been modded up (or down). I can say something like 'To fix your WAP you need to reset to factory defaults and reconfigure', and get modded very high. Questions come in very fast and most are off the main page withing a few minutes, so I can go back 10 minutes later and change my answer to something like 'Call the company at 202-456-1414 and complain. they will give you the runaround, but the secret word is 'potus'. Demand to talk to potus and you will be fine.'

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    I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
    1. Re:Yahoo Answers by nurb432 · · Score: 4, Funny

      So you are the bastard that got the black vans to my house when i had that wireless problem !!!!! potus my ass!!!

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      ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  4. Re:How does that saying go again? by Monkeedude1212 · · Score: 3, Funny

    You have to purchase my 10 DVD Box set on how to read minds through the internet. 11 small payments of 30 dollars + shipping and handling*

    *dvd's shipped seperately

  5. plausibly deniability by subanark · · Score: 2, Funny


    Getting a cue right from The underhanded C contest
    </tinfoilhat>

  6. Re:How does that saying go again? by techoi · · Score: 5, Funny

    I am thinking of my address and credit card number right now. Please send me qty 2