This Is a News Website Article About a Scientific Paper

jamie passes along a humorous article at The Guardian which pokes fun at the shallow and formulaic science journalism typical of many mainstream news outlets. Quoting: In this paragraph I will state the main claim that the research makes, making appropriate use of 'scare quotes' to ensure that it's clear that I have no opinion about this research whatsoever. ... If the research is about a potential cure, or a solution to a problem, this paragraph will describe how it will raise hopes for a group of sufferers or victims. This paragraph elaborates on the claim, adding weasel-words like 'the scientists say' to shift responsibility for establishing the likely truth or accuracy of the research findings on to absolutely anybody else but me, the journalist. ... 'Basically, this is a brief soundbite,' the scientist will say, from a department and university that I will give brief credit to. 'The existing science is a bit dodgy, whereas my conclusion seems bang on,' she or he will continue."

Comments

This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skepticism

[eldavojohn]

The first of many identical to this one that will follow in these Slashdot comments.

First of all, who edited this article? This is where I viciously attack the Slashdot editor for punctuation, spelling, grammar, etc. Once we clear your elementary faux pas, we can move on.

I recall some of the very basics of this in college but I just skimmed the Wikipedia article on this research and now I'm an expert ready to rip this paper to shreds.

I'm also handy with Google and just found out that their quoted researcher is viewed as a charlatan by another camp of peers in his field. Character assassination and ad hominem attacks follow.

If there was a survey, I question the sample size, method of the survey and diversity. If this is correlation and not causation, I state the obvious and take potshots at my country's shitty educational system. If this is a classification I question the recall rate. If there's any political or monetary incentive for this research to be published then I state it and have immediately won the argument. At that point I can decide who lives and who dies. My comments have leveled whole cities!

The small part of this research that I cannot disprove was already known to me. My Google Fu provides you another link to an article here where this was preliminarily discussed in 2004. And I assure you I was already on top of that this whole time. At this point, I resubtitle Slashdot in a derogatory manner for having stale news. I might even threaten to move on to a superior news aggregator but in reality will spend the rest of my life on Slashdot.

I interpreted my standoffish attitude and tone as asserting my superiority when in actuality I'm a psychologist's wet dream. Done with my post I consider the final word spoken save for one thing. I spin a wheel on my desk and it lands on an internet meme somewhere between "In Soviet Russia" and "All Your Base." I modify a noun or verb to make it potentially funny and insert it at the end.

Since I'm the expert, I might come back and read your responses -- if you're lucky. But the odds are high that I said something incredibly stupid or shortsighted (what with me being outside of my fucking element and all) so I'll probably just ignore you.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[grub]

I think your research is bogus. You didn't back it up with a single goatse or tubgirl link.

This is a reply to fix your comment

[jpapon]

I modify a noun or verb to make it almost certainly not funny and insert it at the end.

Re:This is a reply to fix your comment

[Anonymous Coward]

I pooped. I poo-poo. I poop.

Re:This is a reply to fix your comment

[Anonymous Coward]

FTFY

Re:Idle - NOT news

[Anonymous Coward]

BAWWW

Let me guess, Journalism major from a "prestigious" school?

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[Qzukk]

Not only that, but as a seasoned slashdotter he should know better than to bother with all this google and wikipedia junk and just go based off of the story summary, if not the title alone.

"a humorous article"

[A beautiful mind]

No, it's not a humorous article, given that it's exactly how mainstream science reporting looks like.

Re:"a humorous article"

[ColdWetDog]

No, it's not a humorous article, given that it's exactly how mainstream science reporting looks like.

No, it's sad and ironic (which will give rise to several more replies concerning the etymology of 'ironic', one of which will include the concept of an ironing board, which, ironically, no one on Slashdot has ever seen.

Then somebody is going to get upset about my use of commas. And short sentences.

This could get ugly.

Re:"a humorous article"

[icebrain]

Indignant response blasting your use of comma's and making short sentence's, and asserting myself as the expert on grammer.

Re:"a humorous article"

[lgw]

Reply noting the irony of making a grammar correction while making a grammar mistake.

Re:"a humorous article"

[ColdWetDog]

You both forgot about the ironing boards.

And I think it's either time to mention a singularity or at least Time Cube.

Re:"a humorous article"

[Anonymous Coward]

Ironing boards fall out of wall mounted cupboards and hit cartoon characters on the head, that is what they are for after all.

Re:"a humorous article"

[Americano]

Is it too late for "I for one welcome our new Ironing Board-wielding overlords"?

Yes?

How about, "In Soviet Russia, ironing boards iron YOU!"

No?

"All your ironing boards are belong to us?"

Damn.

"I AM an ironing board, you insensitive clod!"

That's better.

Re:"a humorous article"

[corbettw]

No, it's not a humorous article, given that it's exactly how mainstream science reporting looks like.

No, it's sad and ironic (which will give rise to several more replies concerning the etymology of 'ironic', one of which will include the concept of an ironing board, which, ironically, no one on Slashdot has ever seen.

You're both wrong: it's a template for all of the science articles he ever needs to write.

Re:"a humorous article"

[blair1q]

ironing board, which, ironically, no one on Slashdot has ever seen.

That's not ironic; I have seen an ironing board. That's not ironic, either. What'd be ironic is if there was an ironing board in my office right now.

But if I was like many slashdotters in that I, the laundry room, and the ironing board were sharing my parents' basement, that wouldn't be ironic. It would just be sad.

Re:"a humorous article"

[blair1q]

Reply noting the irony of making a grammar correction while making a grammar mistake.

That happens often enough that I'm surprised it's not in either the DSM or a Google search algorithm.

Re:"a humorous article"

[LambdaWolf]

No, it's not a humorous article, given that it's exactly how mainstream science reporting looks like.

It is still humorous. As the saying goes, it's funny because it's true. (And if you think the situation is too dismal to be funny, that just makes it black humor.)

Re:"a humorous article"

[H0D_G]

And an ironing board is like a car. or a Nazi with Hot Grits

Re:"a humorous article"

[Americano]

DOH! Godwin'ed. :(

This Should Be Navel-Gazing

[damn_registrars]

Yet for some reason it doesn't seem to be. Slashdot posts a lot of links to news articles about published scientific articles, when they rightfully should be linking to the original articles instead.

Re:This Should Be Navel-Gazing

[vlm]

The original articles usually are PDFs without advertisements.

Re:This Should Be Navel-Gazing

[Soulskill]

Sometimes we do, sometimes we don't. I agree that we should do it more, but I don't think we should do it "instead," as you say. I prefer linking to both. The vast majority of people do not want to download a PDF and spend an hour reading through an academic paper when there's a (reasonably well-informed) news article available. But, for those who do, it should be an option.

The other big problem is that many of these scientific papers are paywalled -- and we're not talking about a mickey-mouse Rupert Murdoch paywall. A 1-year subscription to Nature, for example, is $200. Reading only an abstract doesn't tell you much about the quality of the research or potential applications.

As always, if you read something linked from here and think coverage is better elsewhere, you're more than welcome to hit us with an email saying so.

Re:This Should Be Navel-Gazing

[RobertB-DC]

As always, if you read something linked from here and think coverage is better elsewhere, you're more than welcome to hit us with an email saying so.

And, as always, if you hit them with an email saying so, they're more than likely to route it to /dev/null.

(We'll leave aside for the moment the fact that 99% of such emails are pointless whines in the first place...)

Re:This Should Be Navel-Gazing

[damn_registrars]

Thank you for replying. I can tell you that more than once I have written comments specifically trying to get the attention of the slashdot editor who posted a story, and received no response.

The vast majority of people do not want to download a PDF and spend an hour reading through an academic paper when there's a (reasonably well-informed) news article available

However I hope we agree that there are also a lot of very poorly informed news articles on scientific work that get through as well. Sadly enough some of those have made the slashdot front page.

The other big problem is that many of these scientific papers are paywalled

Although that is becoming less of an issue as time moves forward for many reasons:

• A lot of very good research is published in publicly-accessible (non-paywalled) journals
• A recent law went into effect stating that research funded by the US NIH must have its published results publicly accessible (even if it's in Nature)
• Much of the most attention-grabbing research in paywalled journals gets written up by editors on those journals, who do write-ups that are freely accessible
• Many people live or work very close to an institution that has access to the paywalled journals

There have been times when I have provided links to the original work that was indeed freely available - I'd say more work could be done by editors before posting Wall Street Journal (or other newspaper) summaries of academic publications.

Re:This Should Be Navel-Gazing

[blair1q]

it might help if there were an explicit tag in the Firehose for "not the best link", instead of the ambiguous "not the best" to catch all of the possibilities

it also might help if the /. editors actually acted as editors, selecting what's "news" based on content instead of what's "popular" based on voting in the Firehose...

Re:This Should Be Navel-Gazing

[iris-n]

The other big problem is that many of these scientific papers are paywalled

Not if it is a physics paper; I don't remember the last time I saw a physics paper that wasn't posted at arXiv.

Not all criticism being equal

[mea37]

There are plenty of reasons to mock news coverage of scientific papers; but how exactly do you have a complaint when a journalist clearly states that someone else (not the journalist) is making an assertion when that is, in fact, true?

Yeah, let's mock them for that until they start omitting the "according to so-and-so" qualifications, and then we can mock them for pretending to be in a position to make definitive claims about topics they don't understand.

Give me a break.

Re:Not all criticism being equal

[twidarkling]

It's not that the journalist is making it clear that so-and-so is making the assertion, it's the complete lack of personal engagement in a piece, to the point where the article is taking a neutral stance to the detriment of the experts and researchers making the assertions. I don't know about you, but I, and most non-reporting uses I've seen, use "according to" as a means of saying "well, this really might not be true, but this one guy is saying it, totally." A reporter who is more engaged in the story, if he personally interviewed the subject, could say "So-and-so told me", and if it was second-hand, "So-and-so has found," which is much more engaging, active, and doesn't carry the self-distancing aspect of "according to."

Re:Not all criticism being equal

[mea37]

Let's test that... If I say "According to the dictionary, an ostrich is a flightless bird", do you suspect I'm disparaging the dictionary's authority on the subject?

Perhaps the problem is that you're blaming journalists for what you've brought to the conversation. Beyond that, it's a question of style. You may favor "so-and-so told me..."; but while bloggers and columnists may be comfortable using the first person, I think it's appropriate that reporters generally remove themselves from the story.

Re:Not all criticism being equal

[vlm]

it's the complete lack of personal engagement in a piece,

Its also a complete lack of judgment, to the point of appearing moronic, especially when giving equal coverage to all parties.

"According the geology professor Ms Blah, the earth might be round, although more study grants are necessary. However, Mr. SoAndSo, the president of the flat earth society, disagrees."

Second only to my favorite, trying to "middle school drama up" something professional or irrelevant.

Re:Not all criticism being equal

[vlm]

Let's test that...

Yes, lets test that. I haven't watched the infotainment agitprop "news" in quite awhile. But lets test that.

"allegedly, according to the scoreboard, the red sox might have lost 0 to 6, although some fans disagree".

"According to the US Govt national weather service report, the local airport air traffic controller claims it is raining outside, although further research funding is necessary, and other scientists have a completely different conclusion about this 'water from the sky' phenomenon."

I'm not seeing/hearing it... except in science reporting.

Re:Not all criticism being equal

[Canazza]

who says it's water

my research says it's Raspberry Schnapps

Re:Not all criticism being equal

[DragonWriter]

There are plenty of reasons to mock news coverage of scientific papers; but how exactly do you have a complaint when a journalist clearly states that someone else (not the journalist) is making an assertion when that is, in fact, true?

True does not mean useful. If you aren't competent to assess the research beyond simply reporting what other people claim its import is, you aren't competent to report on it at all.

Re:Not all criticism being equal

[Idarubicin]

Yeah, let's mock them for that until they start omitting the "according to so-and-so" qualifications, and then we can mock them for pretending to be in a position to make definitive claims about topics they don't understand.

My major concern would be with the reporters who are so clearly scientifically illiterate or utterly innumerate that they rely solely on quote-mining to support even the most inane statements of fact. There are writers who are so fearful of basic science and mathematics that they publish statements like this:

"Thirty-five per cent means for every 20 people, seven are successful," said Paul McNicholas, an associate professor at the University of Guelph’s department of mathematics and statistics. "That's an awful lot . . . better than one-in-three."

This is from one of Canada's major daily newspapers. The reporter is so afraid of mathematics - or so afraid to go out on a limb and do his own minor arithmetic - that he needs to get a professor of mathematics to back him up. (What's worse, the article is about the legal system, and the prof's statement that "That's an awful lot" inadvertently makes an implicit judgement that should have been left to a legal scholar, not a mathematician.)

Reporters have abdicated any responsibility for ensuring that what they print is true and accurate in any higher sense than "I printed exactly what some people said."

Re:Not all criticism being equal

[blair1q]

I don't even think that's the point. The point is the use of the ad verecundiam quote to pretend that something innocuous or unlikely is valuable or likely. It can all be true, but the implicit or explicit invitation to extrapolate a scientifically verified mote into some sort of technological revolution is sleazy journalism.

Re:Not all criticism being equal

[M. Baranczak]

This is a problem with all journalism. Most reporters simply can't be bothered to check if someone is telling the truth or not, so they try to give the appearance of objectivity by digging up some opposing viewpoint. It gets particularly bad when they're writing on subjects that they have no clue about (i.e. most science-related articles).

Re:Not all criticism being equal

[TapeCutter]

Reporters and presenters giving their own opinions and judgements is what is wrong with Fox, CNN, et al. Opinions belong in editorials not news reports.

Simpsons did it.

[MaggieL]

No, wait, it was actually http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1174

Re:Simpsons did it.

[Abcd1234]

Nooooo... that's not the same thing at all. That comic covers the entire life cycle of science reporting, from initial discovery, through to broadcast on the nightly news. This article, OTOH, is parody of a single stage in that cycle (the breathless science article).

Re:Simpsons did it.

[dcollins]

p = 0.56? Good grief, that means that there's some (very small) evidence that the exact opposite is true.

Re:Simpsons did it.

[acheron12]

So did Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.

Re:Simpsons did it.

[blair1q]

But that's all of the stages, filtered through varying levels of scientific ability, which dilutes as it goes down the pyramid of scientific ability from those at the pointy top end with plenty (the scientist who wrote the paper) to those at the broad base with none (i.e., the nightly news).

Modern journalism is all about taking a simple fact and putting it in breathless form, because modern journalism is all about attracting eyeballs, because attracting eyeballs is marketable to advertisers.

It didn't used to be this way. TV news and "reputable" print journalism were somewhat devoid of this behavior until the 80s. Then USA Today happened, starting the slow tabloidification of all print outlets, which accelerated in the late 90s as they got desperate to compete for readership with online media. Also in the 80s, the advent of "Happy Talk" news started to convince local TV station managers away from integrity and towards showmanship in their news departments. Finally came Fox News to scourge the network news business.

This is the sort of stuff that journalism types learn by watching. You could give them four years of indoctrination in Cronkite and Murrow, and 90% of them would come out as Nancy Grace, and the other 10% would work on Nightline for a year then quit to run a Starbucks and write a blog. Science journalists are journalism types like the rest.

Film at 11.

(Okay, it's not film, and you can DL it from YouTube any time.)

Re:Idle - NOT news

[twidarkling]

I firmly believe that such a scathing indictment of the current state of scientific journalism deserves, no, nay, DEMANDS front-page presence!

You know, I'm not even sure if I'm joking. It's always nice to point out mainstream journalism's failings, but it's really only useful if it has a message attached. Some suggestion on how to fix the system, other wise it's simply mockery. The closest this comes to being satire is pointing out that journalists fail to take any sort of real stand in or credit for their pieces any more, and framing it as a bad thing. It'd be nice if it had some sort of analysis of where the problem lies. Is it that journalists just can't be bothered to put in some actual research on stories any more, so they just take what they're told and throw it in a standard framing device? Is it an editorial failing due to demanding stories that assist in SEO and are constrained by word count? Is it an audience failing in that people simply aren't interested in a deeper analysis, or lack the baseline knowledge required to fully grasp a story that was more indepth? Blame multiple sources? How can this be fixed? Piece doesn't say, so it's pretty much just mocking the status quo.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[M8e]

In Soviet Russia, all our base are belong to YOU!

Oh Noes! The Interwebs are Getting Full

[MrTripps]

"This paragraph contained useful information or context, but was removed by the sub-editor to keep the article within an arbitrary word limit in case the internet runs out of space." The snark is strong with this one.

Re:Oh Noes! The Interwebs are Getting Full

[AshtangiMan]

Truly. He even put up a Rick Roll.

Re:Oh Noes! The Interwebs are Getting Full

[Mashiki]

Happens a lot, ever see news article editing? That's exactly what happens to keep things inside an arbitrary limit. If a sub editor doesn't understand the topic, or point. Poof, useful information that puts something in context is gone.

Seriously, go and write an opinion piece, and have it published. I have, mine has appeared in the national post(canada), The Globe and Mail, and posted by the CBC on their site. I was limited to 700 words.

Re:Oh Noes! The Interwebs are Getting Full

[blair1q]

This paragraph is a repetition of two concepts from separate paragraphs above, almost verbatim.

This paragraph is a repetition of the other two concepts from the same paragraphs, literally verbatim.

This paragraph is three of the four concepts repeated in a quote from the subject of the article, or someone just like him, or someone just like me, with a weasely emphasis like "it's very likely that..." added somewhere.

These paragraphs exist because nobody edits anything on the Internet, but the website requires a minimum word count to qualify an article for posting, to avoid devolving into a series of pages with a single sentence of content and 20 ads, with the belief that people will notice a low word-count but it will take them months to realize the number of facts is exactly the same.

Re:Oh Noes! The Interwebs are Getting Full

[blair1q]

If you were writing it unsolicited, then there's no reason to expect them to give you free run of their column inches.

If they solicited it, then they should have told you the amount of space you were likely to have, so you could write to that limit. And if you went over it, then that's your fault.

If neither of these were true, then, seriously, wtf?

(P.S. I've written a couple of published LOE's, one of which went nearly a thousand words and they cut very little of, but I didn't really expect them to publish it, anyway, so I let it slide. They even gave it a box outline, which was nice.)

Re:Oh Noes! The Interwebs are Getting Full

[Mashiki]

It's a seriously wtf type of thing. You can expect editors and sub editors to regularly snip stuff from your columns anymore. Which is why I don't write anything to be published in the paper.

This is a slashdot post

[Drakkenmensch]

Begins with unwarranted boast as to the timeliness of submitting comment before prior posters, claiming victory for failing to achieve first place. Follows a more or less to-the-point observation aided by unrelated metaphore substanciated with a red herring logical fallacy. Additional straw man fallacy regarding possible critical replies. Conclusion with attempted witty signature line cleverly "borrowed" from another more obscure forum user's better post.

Re:This is a slashdot post

[tool462]

Car analogy.

Re:This is a slashdot post

[riskeetee]

This is a question about the article that, if I had actually gone to the link and read the page, I could have answered myself.

Re:This is a slashdot post

[blair1q]

This is an unnecessary post pointing out that if I had mod points I'd mod you redundant.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[icebrain]

If there's any political or monetary incentive for this research to be published then I state it and have immediately won the argument.

Immediate attack on the parent poster's political affiliation... obviously the party that he belongs to (judging by this one issue, even though I don't know where he stands on others) is absolutely full of complete psychos and want to do all kinds of other bad things that will destroy civilization as we know it. And they completely fulfill the most extreme version of every stereotype about them.

So of course, my party is full of level-headed reasonable people--every single one of them. Everything that we say is perfect and correct, we're as innocent as a newborn baby's ass, and if only our candidate had been elected last time we lost, the world would be full of unicorns that fart rainbows and save children from horrible deaths.

This is a comment

[mathmatt]

This is a contentless comment on the re-posting of someone else's website's story about the contentlessness of scientific reporting.

Re:This is a comment

[NoOneInParticular]

This is a gratuitous riposte on the contentless comment, comparing the poster to a gnat.

Reminds me of the BBC exclusive:

[amliebsch]

How to Report The News

Re:Reminds me of the BBC exclusive:

[Anonymous Coward]

For further insight, check out Brass Eye.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[interkin3tic]

I, thinking myself an actual expert in the field being discussed, read the subject line and decide to rebut, and maybe start to do so, but then I tell myself I have better things to do, so instead I make an immature joke (possibly about poop) or reference the simpsons.

The "better things to do" if you're wondering consists mostly of making other immature jokes on slashdot.

Ever degrading accuracy

[zrbyte]

If the lack of scientific rigor of certain science journalists isn't bad enough, the consistence and accuracy the material gets constantly degraded as the story gets picked up by the next blog/news outlet. I call it the deathspiral of knowledge.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[somaTh]

Best First Post ever.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[osu-neko]

This is where I complain about how the previous comment was moderated, and hijack the thread for an off-topic discussion of /.'s moderation system while making broad assertions about the obvious biases of all readers of this site.

all mass media reporting

[stimpleton]

I think the reporting industry has changed. I am not experienced in that area, but I am seeing a glut of ex-reporters coming into my work. Junior manager positions are common, and the reason seems to be that employers like the fact these people have the ability to be their own integrated comms dept.

From discussions with these people, it seems reporting used to be almost a craft or trade. Today, a young person with a degree is likely a new reporter. These people seem to be at odds with each other, The older ones are bailing out as younger ones seem to get more (promotions, benefits) faster.

The "craft" seems to be suffering for it.

As an aside, I disagree with hiring ex reporters. They all seem to turn out to be hollowed husks of people. Their old industry strip mining them of any motivation, as they are forced to write articles like this story outlines.

Re:all mass media reporting

[vlm]

You make it sound like working in I.T.. Its not that bad.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[Anonymous Coward]

Bubba booey, bubba booey, Howard Stern, Howard Stern!

Same old story.

[MaWeiTao]

This reminds me of how news networks, after bombarding the public with stories about unimportant or sensationalized garbage, will air a navel-gazing piece where they raise the question whether or not they went to far. Not that it keeps them from doing the same thing over and over again.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[Surt]

I jump to the conclusion that based on your revealed party affiliation you must love nazis, leaving open to the child poster to invoke Godwin Moore's Law.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[j00r0m4nc3r]

This is where I attempt to be humorous by making a reference to double rainbows

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[kidgenius]

You forgot to throw in the part where I argue that correlation != causation

Awesome!

[AnonymousClown]

I've never seen someone burnout on Slashdot before!

Fuck'n A!

Now I would love to see someone burn through years of karma Trolling and Flambating.

Got that Apple Fags! You too you FOSS Homos!

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[DamienRBlack]

How did you first post such a long comment? Did you see this in the hose, pre-write your comment and wait? Anyhow, best comment ever, thanks for the laugh.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[Anonymous Coward]

Ramon Tomzer
Internet Sales Consultant
Gallo Mazda Volvo
70 Goldstar Blvd.
Worcester, Ma 01606

Ramon 'Señor Goatse' Tomzer
Internet Porn Sales Consultant
Gallo "Step into my Mazda" Volvo
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Garry Shandling anyone?

[erroneus]

This is the theme to Garry's Show,
The theme to Garry's show.
Garry called me up and asked if I would right his theme song.
I'm almost halfway finished,
How do you like it so far,
How do you like the theme to Garry's Show.

This is the theme to Garry's Show,
The opening theme to Garry's show.
This is the music that you hear as you watch the credits.
We're almost to the part of where I start to whistle.
Then we'll watch "It's Garry Shandling's Show".

This was the theme to Garry Shandling's show.
---

It was sorta funny at first, but my god... I got the point in the first paragraph. To be clear, this form of humor is actually older than the lyrics of the song I pasted above. But that show is pretty freakin' old.

It's funny, but not when it's that freakin' long. I liked the picture though.

Re:Garry Shandling anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't see you coming up with it.

Missed a paragraph

[sdo1]

If ("journalist employer" == "Fox News")
  {
    Add Paragraph
    Hire wack job pseudo scientist to provide doomsday prediction
    Blame Obama
  }

Re:Missed a paragraph

[JSBiff]

You, too missed some stuff in your code there. I'd say you must be using a revision from the early days of Fox News, except for the reference to Obama.

If ("journalist employer" == "Fox News")
  {
    Add Paragraph
    Hire wack job pseudo scientist to provide doomsday prediction
    Blame Obama
 
    Plug Tea Party candidate
    Remind Viewers to Tune in to [Beck/Hannity] in 10 minutes.
    In light of the doomsday prediction, remind viewers to BUY GOLD, GUNS, AND EMERGENCY FOOD. Provide phone number and website for Gold Retailer who is show sponsor.
    Remind viewers that if Obama and Pelosi weren't socialists, jamming policy down your throat, this wouldn't be happening.
    Make sure viewers know that voting for Republican or Tea Party candidate will bring timely tax cut, which can stave off doomsday for at least one election cycle.
      (It doesn't matter what the supposed problem is -- a tax cut will definitely help prevent the extinction of honeybees due to Colony Collapse Syndrome).
    Finish with another quote, mentioning that deregulating {related industry}, while passing laws limiting their legal liabilities, will help greatly too.
  }

Anyone have ...

[PPH]

... the source code for spew handy?

HEY EURAKARTE

[Dancindan84]

INSULT

Re:HEY EURAKARTE

[men0s]

RETORT

Re:HEY EURAKARTE

[Dancindan84]

COUNTER-RETORT

Re:HEY EURAKARTE

[aerthling]

CONTINUATION OF ESTABLISHED MEME

(This sentence is the one with which I defeat the lameness filter.)

Re:HEY EURAKARTE

[Anonymous Coward]

COUNTER-RETORT

Re:Idle - NOT news

[icebrain]

Snarky reply with "whoosh" in large caps, and then advising Francis to lighten up.

Let's do it!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm down with that, stupid mods (AC for a reason). I mean, insightful? How many contributors to /. are insightful?

Go back downstairs and get off my lawn!

Re:Let's do it!

[Garridan]

Go back downstairs and get off my lawn!

In that order?

Re:Let's do it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Go back upstairs and get off my doormat!

FTFY

The Science News Cycle

[ChrisCampbell47]

Related, here is PHD's take on "The Science News Cycle":

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1174

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[tverbeek]

The external links at the end of the article do provide some interesting backup information, however.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[CannonballHead]

You mean this part?

If this is correlation and not causation, I state the obvious [...]

:D

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[Canazza]

This is where I type "DOUBLE RAINBOWS!" in a vain attempt to jump on a bandwagon I barely understand and am slightly fearful of

this just in!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just today I saw mention of a "powerful computer code" called a "worm" that has infected a country called "Iran". It's origin is "unknown", but "could" be from "a" rich and powerful "nation" or "something" like that!

It's those computer codes again!

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the comment that is quite insightful, but because it comes from an Anonymous Coward, it gets filtered at 0, and nobody reads it or mods it.

GROLIES

[FuckingNickName]

Nice to see the Party mouthpiece of the champagne hypocracy poking fun at itself... oh, no, it's another Grauniad, "This is what we're better than."

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[JayJay.br]

This is where I back your assumptions with the oblig. xkcd.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[Anonymous Coward]

How did you first post such a long comment? Did you see this in the hose, pre-write your comment and wait? Anyhow, best comment ever, thanks for the laugh.

Yeah, i wonder that too : /

and agreed. That had a lot of thought and was really fuckin' good.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[cthulu_mt]

That is Eldavojohn's schtick, he's a karma whore.

Sure, you're laughing now...

[JackSpratts]

and so am I, it's a funny article and an easy target. But when the science being reported on turns out to be dodgy (sugar causes diabetes, salt causes high blood pressure, high fructose corn syrup causes etc), the write-by-numbers approach with its rote opposing opinions and seemingly spineless journalistic waffling can remind readers not to get too caught up in the latest theory du jour.

Sure, I love the exuberant decisiveness and manic clarity of the Weekly World News (who doesn't?) but all in all I think major us newspapers do a pretty good job in presenting this admittedly complicated and theoretical stuff, particularly when read with a bit of skepticism.

- js.

Re:Sure, you're laughing now...

[plover]

, high fructose corn syrup causes etc),

Hey, I'm suffering from stage 4 etc, you insensitive clod!

Re:Sure, you're laughing now...

[DragonWriter]

and so am I, it's a funny article and an easy target. But when the science being reported on turns out to be dodgy (sugar causes diabetes, salt causes high blood pressure, high fructose corn syrup causes etc), the write-by-numbers approach with its rote opposing opinions and seemingly spineless journalistic waffling can remind readers not to get too caught up in the latest theory du jour.

Actual competent reporting could do that far better.

For that matter, just not reporting on the stuff that the outlet doesn't have the ability (or isn't willing to devote the space) to competently report on would do that better, as well.

Re:Sure, you're laughing now...

[DragonWriter]

but all in all I think major us newspapers do a pretty good job in presenting this admittedly complicated and theoretical stuff, particularly when read with a bit of skepticism.

All in all I think that they mostly waste space. The only useful information in most major media on any scientific issue is that something was published, the general subject matter, and the identification of the research team that allows someone who cares to use the internet or other research sources to find actual useful information. The information characterizing the methodology, specific results, and characterization(s) of the meaning of the research are usually so bad as to be of negative value.

Re:Sure, you're laughing now...

[Kirijini]

the write-by-numbers approach with its rote opposing opinions and seemingly spineless journalistic waffling can remind readers not to get too caught up in the latest theory du jour.

Yes, god forbid that the public suddenly become interested in science. It might one day break their hearts.

Re:Sure, you're laughing now...

[canajin56]

Ummm, what's your citation for your big reveal that sodium can't cause hypertension? Because there is plenty of evidence that reducing sodium intake is as effective as the best known blood pressure medication. Salty blood keeps more water in your veins due to osmosis, putting more pressure on them. Further, what's your citation that there's no link to obesity and type 2 diabetes? Because the evidence is pretty strong behind that, too, for you to just chuckle to yourself about the rubes duped by dodgy science, without making any kind of attempt to back that up. Certainly that's not the only way, but when a bad diet and/or poor exercise is correlated that strongly, you can't just roll your eyes and shout "correlation is not causation" until people leave you alone. (How much correlation? People with a healthy lifestyle and weight are 89% less likely to develop type 2 diabetes).

As for high fructose corn syrup, well, you're right there by shotgun effect. There was basically one study in 2004 that showed that people who drink a lot of pop, rich in HFCS, are far more likely to be obese. What's important to note is that there's no comparison to any other form of sugar. Fanatics who claim that due to having slightly more fructose, HFCS is pure poison, latched on with a deathgrip. But, at least one of the co-authors was quoted in several of the newspaper articles about it, that it's only about pop vs obesity, only correlation, and that they're not trying to suggest that if pop was sweetened with cane sugar it would be any different. OK, actually, in this case you're still wrong. This is a case not of dodgy science, but once AGAIN, of bad reporting of good science! Journalists saw something about corn syrup, and went on the war path, basically ignoring the AUTHORS OF THE PAPER telling them that they're interpreting it wrong. If the people reporting on this had, as you suggested, not separated themselves, it still would have been fine if they had understood the paper, or at least not refused to quote the author dispelling their narrative.

Academy Award Winning Movie Trailer

[D Ninja]

This story reminds me of the Academy Award Winning Movie Trailer that Cracked put out recently. Pretty well done and captures the same type of spirit as the Guardian article.

Re:Academy Award Winning Movie Trailer

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the best YouTube videos ever. Shit, they should win an award for that alone.

Re:Academy Award Winning Movie Trailer

[KingAlanI]

PhD COmics link earlier in thread and now Cracked - goodbye evening. :)

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[Cap'nPedro]

You see that asterisk next to eldavojohn's name?

The asterisk means that this user is a subscriber to Slashdot. They have shelled out some coin to help keep Slashdot running. They get assorted extra features for helping support the site, including the asterisk and the glorious bragging rights that go along with it. [Including seeing front-page posts sooner than us plebs.]

Re:Idle - NOT news

[Anonymous Coward]

The answer you are looking for is very simple: legal protection. By never asserting anything controversial without a qualified source, journalists are able to avoid liability if the information turns out to be false. In journalism classes I was taught to make it very explicit who the speaker is, and to never say anything that could construed as libelous or dangerous without sourcing it to somebody else, e.g. "New York State Police say John hit Bob over the head," or "Nutrition Scientist Mary Smith from Bowdoin says eating live shrimp is healthy." The sensationalism is mostly salesmanship, but the responsibility game is about (avoiding) the law.

Only one important thing missing

[osgeek]

They forgot to add that treatments/products/services using this fantastic discovery should be commercially available within 5 years.

He forgot the part at the end

[structural_biologist]

where they leave a carefully hidden note that says they basically just copied the article verbatim from a university press release (e.g. see Science Daily and other related sites).

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[ThreeGigs]

Here I insert a reference to the parent's 7-digit ID number, with obligatory "get off my lawn" parallelisms.

Bad science journalism: what it lacks

[forgoodmeasure]

Here is what's missing from a bad piece of science journalism. There will be no discussion of whether the study had a control. There will be no indication that some methodologies are more powerful than others -- the reader is assumed not to know or care about gold standards such as "Double blind" and the like. There's no attempt to recapitulate the scientific argument; the reporter need only lamely report the conclusion. Obvious questions arise from the reporting, but are left unaddressed.

The New York Times and The Economist magazine tend to do better than that. AP tends to be awful.

Re:Idle - NOT news

[funkatron]

The article isn't even pointing out journalism's failings. It is mocking the very purpose of journalism; to simplify and misrepresent events so that they form an attention grabbing narrative.

This task is especially difficult for science journalism as the events they have to report on are usually small developments in quite narrow fields. These can be used to present a vague idea of progress but getting much else out the events requires some "creativity". In this situation most journalists fall back on familiar for and against template.

I'm not sure if much can be done to change the situation as journalism doesn't require accuracy. Instead, it thrives on emotion (sensation?) and narrative. Always has, always will.

Gratuitous insults...

[Freddybear]

...against "skeptics" and "deniers" who are obviously motivated by payments from "big industry" which will justly be impacted by the righteous and necessary political policy which the new scientific consensus demands.

I Don't Believe It

[DynaSoar]

That's not a humorous article at all. Someone has leaked the instruction manual that those cheesy word weasels use when they have to do something more than simply rewrite a press release.

I suspect there's an addendum that says "Get someone to chop out a chunk of your main point, add a title that makes it sound like the hypothetical being tested by the research has already been proven and then some. For instance, if a physicist posits a theory that the space-time continuum is comprised of many dimensions with at least one other time-like dimension besides ours, then give it a title like "Time Runs Both Directions At The Same Time". Then submit it to Slashdot."

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[Sulphur]

Its a raid.

The cops are picking up k whores.

This Is A Comment Invoking Moore's Law

[guyminuslife]

This is the paragraph where I invoke Godwin's Law, even if the subject in question actually is Nazis. While contributing nothing to the discussion, I have proved my superiority to all other posters, and have therefore won an argument I did not actually participate in.

In this paragraph, I allude to a popular saying about arguing on the Internet, and the Special Olympics. I have once again justified my superior intellect by using a tired old Internet meme.

After that, I decide that merely poking fun at the previous poster is not fully satisfactory, and decide to argue with him anyway about Nazis.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[vlm]

Here I insert a reference to the parent's 6-digit ID number, with obligatory "get off my lawn" parallelisms.

It's a trap!

[Wacky_Wookie]

Not only is the article dead on, but the author managed to get a Rick-Roll link included in the official post-article link block.

Could these be a good argument for dedicated science journalists for big websites? And by dedicated, I mean *interested* in science.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[twoallbeefpatties]

This meme is starting to sound like an Old Spice parody.

Look at this article. This is the article you could have written if you had known anything about science. Look at the article that you wrote, now back at this article. I'm holding a peer review, signed by several interesting scientists in the field that you know nothing about. Look at the article you wrote, now back at this article, the peer review is full of discussion and criticism, the likes which you could not understand unless you had the briefest notion of how the review process works. The kind of discussion your article could have had if your article was written with any actual knowledge of science. Now look again. I'm on the internet.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[Anonymous Coward]

Here I insert a reference to the parent's 5-digit ID number and insinuate that I'm actually an old-time user named Anonymous Coward, with the ID number "666", rather than some jackass who can't be arsed to log in.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[EdZ]

I prefer to read all sarcastic meta-articles as if they were narrated by Charlie Brooker. See this Newswipe sketch for why.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[twoallbeefpatties]

Here I insert a reference to the parent's 5-digit ID number, with obligatory "get off my lawn" parallelisms.

...Then I recall my own ID number and imply that I read Slashdot for years before I ever started posting and would have had a lower digit had I simply bothered to register earlier.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[Anonymous Coward]

This is where I post as an AC.
 
I take the obvious route of calling attention to your low user number and bash you for karma whoring.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[quintessencesluglord]

Here is the thing though- Given were are at an age where war is waged under false pretenses, where we now find out ERT is crock but no one decided to verify until recently, where damn near every event and study has a multitude of spins and talking points: shouldn't we scrutinize everything we read?

And I don't mean in that contrary to be contrary sort of way (but even that sometimes yields useful results), but seriously consider what is being stated, why is it being stated, and who is stating it?

Many years ago, in my physics textbook, it stated that a tire's friction was the same regardless of contact patch. Now being somewhat of a gearhead, this struck me as contrary to everything I've seen. So I questioned my instructor about it with my rationales as to why this is probably incorrect. He hand waves it, and I'm left stumped as to why dragsters have such large rear tires, and a low resistance tire on a bicycle have such a small contact patch.

And you know where this is going, but that is exactly point: mistakes happen, something gets lost in translation, and some people don't give a damn enough to question an idea.

Personally, I blame poor science reporting to the poor knowledge of science by the general public, and the inevitable simplifying that is going to happen to explain what is a foreign country to most people.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[RepelHistory]

Immediate attack on the parent poster's political affiliation... obviously the party that he belongs to (judging by this one issue, even though I don't know where he stands on others) is absolutely full of complete psychos and want to do all kinds of other bad things that will destroy civilization as we know it. And they completely fulfill the most extreme version of every stereotype about them.

Immediate attack on the two-party system. Accuse Democrats and Republicans of being exactly the same in every way. Baseless claim that Libertarians offer the only meaningful solutions stemming from my mistrust of the horrific lurching monstrosity called "government," whose true functions, in actuality, I only vaguely understand.

Breaking News: Some Bullshit Happening Somewhere

[LarryRiedel]

Breaking News: Some Bullshit Happening Somewhere

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[MyFirstNameIsPaul]

This is the point where the comments fork into a pure ideological discussion of the founding the Constitution and the real meaning of the magna carta and bare no resemblance to the article, OP, or even the subject.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[Kamineko]

I did not read your post because your Slashdot ID is higher than mine. This post adds nothing of use to the thread.

Snarky reply, suspicion about motives and ideology

[otis wildflower]

Comment on the author's political ideology and the study's sponsorship, as well as the politicians who seek to use it to scare themselves more money and power. Comment on the politicization of science, and that group consensus does not trump experimental results.

Aside: Historical note on how the 'scientific community' was often wrong and would chide or even censure the 'outsiders', until they had experimental proofs that validated their conjectures, lament about the poisoning of that tradition by big money grant machines both governmental and corporate.

Not only that but also ..

[Anonymous Coward]

Micro$oft and Windoze sucks

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[toadlife]

What the GP meant to say is that "This is the part where I reply to a post without thoroughly reading it first; making myself look like an ass in the process."

This Is a Comment Attached to the First Post

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Early in the beginning of the comment, I will make an extremely shallow connection to the parent, not because there's actually any contextual relation, but in order to prevent accusations of offtopic posting merely for the purpose of karma whoring.

Following said offtopic guard, I will make very little attempt to segue into my actual post, because by this point the mods who mod offtopic have either stopped skimming or are doing so so rapidly at this point that they won't even notice the actual comment has nothing to do with the parent. Anyone actually reading will most likely have forgotten the lack of connecting ideas, or at least it wasn't jarring enough to make them think about it. Make sure that this paragraph is relatively long and content-free, to encourage a zombie-like state in the moderator.

Toward the end is where you put your actual payload. Most will have stopped reading by this point, so you can safely add an insight that is completely off-topic. You only need 3-4 people to mod you up, so don't try to get too insightful, that's dangerous. Once you're modded up, that's a free pass to make half as many dissenting posts, and you can call them an idiot or any number of insensitive, misanthropic, or even downright racist epithets. The great thing is, if you don't use your karma bonus the most you can lose is 2 points. You should use your karma bonus in this post though, because being nested relatively deep and safely worded, it's going to need a little help getting noticed.

Some people mod up based purely off a snappy ending, so make it short and punchy and enjoy your +5.

Oh my

[MaxOfS2D]

This is a frighteningly accurate representation of internet scientific articles Not that I complain though, these archetypes are always interesting to read

This is a ripoff

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a ripoff of the following: faultline.org/index.php/site/item/incendiary

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[Anonymous Coward]

This is my snide A.C. comment pointing out that you are completely not understanding the OP or surrounding conversation.

How to make it better...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it can certainly stand improvement. You can get many papers from arXiv, though it's a pain to hunt them down. You can also link to the professor or research group's home page (which is also a good way of giving them credit for whatever). But there are still other problems. The bare fact is that most of us aren't qualified to judge research. At best, we can say that it will be published in Science or Nature or some other prestigious journal, but frankly, you don't see many comments that deal with the substance of the research. You usually get some snarky reply where someone doesn't believe it because it conflicts with their politics or whatever and they come up with a 'rebuttal' that took half a second of thought (and which was answered in the paper... that nobody read).

There's also a more human problem. I've done my best to submit more than a few stories on hard science, quoting straight from the papers and leaving out any fluff or opinion, but ... nobody read any of them. Without something to excite people, they site in the firehose, unread and ignored. In short, people are complaining about this bad journalism because it's the only thing most people read. For the record, Ars Technica and Science News have the best science coverage I can find.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[easyTree]

In this paragraph I will state the main claim that the research makes, making appropriate use of "scare quotes" to ensure that it's clear that I have no opinion about this research whatsoever.

In this paragraph I will briefly (because no paragraph should be more than one line) state which existing scientific ideas this new research "challenges".

etc..

Insightful news-analysis or accidentally-published article-template? :D

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot to mock the religious beliefs of a small but vocal minority, especially if the topic involves anything older than 6000 years, or evolutionary biology.

Re:Idle - NOT news

[Kirijini]

It's always nice to point out mainstream journalism's failings,

Yes.

but it's really only useful if it has a message attached.

No.

Some suggestion on how to fix the system, other wise it's simply mockery.

Mockery is useful. Bare naked ridicule of the status quo can be useful. Bonus if it's funny, as TFA is.

The problem with adding how to fix the system is that you could be dead wrong. Or shortsided. Or partisan, or dumb. Just clearly pointing out what the problem is is extremely important.

This guy isn't saying he has the answer. I respect that. He's helping shape the debate. I respect that too.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[Jeremy Erwin]

Answers in Genesis gets old, quickly.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[terminallyCapricious]

tHiS iS tHe PaRt WhErE i Am SuPpOsEd To Be AlL aBoUt BeInG tO sTaRt MoThErFuCkInG pOsTiNg WiTh A mOtHeRfUcKiNg TrOlL gImMiCk. I'm So FuCkInG cHiLl WiTh It, YoU kNoW wHaT i'M sAyInG dOg, BuT tHaT rAiNbOw'S sO iNtEnSe AnD i FuCkIn SpAcEd OuT aNd FoRgOt.

newswipe

[causeitis]

Charlie brooker on his show newswipe says something similar about newsreports on television: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHun58mz3vI

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[blair1q]

Here's where I blame it on political events from the past, as far back as Roman times or as recently as what's on my blog.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[blair1q]

This is where I mock you for posting as an AC and contradict everything in your post, knowing you'll have to manually scroll to find it again and probably won't bother.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[Artifakt]

This is the comment where I inform you that if I hadn't used all my mod points just a few minutes ago, your post would have gotten one, but don't specify whether that's good or bad for you.

(Not posting AC, just because I don't wanna).

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[Artifakt]

This is the comment where I question why you didn't follow the "Fixed that for you" meme.

Read a science mag for crying out loud

[syousef]

No, it's not a humorous article, given that it's exactly how mainstream science reporting looks like.

What do you expect? They publish horoscopes, celebrity gossip and sports results in mainstream media. How do you expect to take the science seriously when it's presented along superstition and mindless drivel. If you want to keep up with science buy a science mag - New Scientist, Scientific American, even National Geographic would serve better. If you REALLY want to know the science get your hands on the original papers and take a look at references. (Of course few people are dedicated enough to go learn the jargon and math of the field)

good God, another news bite?!

[Goldsmith]

Outrage at Slashdot continuing to pander to the least amongst us by referencing news articles rather than journal publications. Link to the free arXive version proving they're just lazy. Random complaint about the state of the academic publishing industry. Frustrated resignation.

Biased attack against actual published paper. Poorly thought out attempt to show my research is much better/cooler/more practical. Backtracking so that I don't seem like an unreasonable person. Personal view on where the research should go next that is purposefully contrary to prevailing opinion. Specifically mention that I'm a physicist in case anyone who actually read my weasel worded, jargon laced diatribe has any doubts.

Gee, that was fun.

this is predicted

[eyenot]

Anyone who's taken college level writing has been instructed not to write like that.
To "oh," go ahead and do so, is nothing more than the most limpwristed lampoon.
I think it belongs on /. because lampoon is mostly enjoyed by working geeks and nerds.

Wot no Fawning over the Great Man of Genius?

[wagadog]

C'mon you need Lois Lane, Girl Science Reporter fawning breathlessly over what a Brilliant, Brilliant Man the Lone Genius of Science is.

Otherwise it's not Real Science Journalism (tm).

Slashdot Posting Form: Checkbox humour

[w0mprat]

Slashdot Posting Form v0.4 BETA. Automatically creates typical slashdot post.

[ ] IANAL but ____
[ ] Obligatory XKCD ___
[ ] In soviet russia the _____'s YOU
[ ] There, fixed that for you
[ ] link to /. dupe from last year
[ ] sudo _____ > /dev/null
[ ] Queue _____ in 3.. 2..
[ ] Bitch about /.'s modding system
[ ] Get off my lawn
[ ] You insensitive clod!
[ ] RTFM
[ ] RTTFA

[x] Reuse my posting form joke
[x] Don't hide "Reuse my posting form joke" checkbox

Invoke:
[ ] Cory Doctrow
[ ] Richard Stallman
[ ] kdawson
[ ] Steve Jobs
[ ] Natalie Portman

Re:Slashdot Posting Form: Checkbox humour

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi.

I am posting as AC because I gave you a mod point.
I like your Beta form, and intend to help test various variants of it.
My chief remark -
The nature of the "typical" post is changing. So, I feel the best humor results when the form is actually accurate. For example, I have barely seen a legitimate (non-provoked, for example by posts such as this) Natalie Portman joke in years. Insensitive Clod seems also to be declining.

The license is not clear. I am presuming variants of CC. "NC"; but do you need a "BY"?

Re:Slashdot Posting Form: Checkbox humour

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting anonymously because I've modded in this section...

Good post but you're missing

[ ] ??? Profit!

Re:Slashdot Posting Form: Checkbox humour

[twoallbeefpatties]

[ ] In soviet russia the _____'s YOU
[ ] FTFY
[ ] link to /. dupe from last year

FTFY.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[justin12345]

That comment was way too long just like TFA. I only read a quarter of the way through before I got distracted.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[SEE]

Here's the guy with the 4-digit number saying that the person with the 5-digit number has no business talking about ID numbers.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[musicalmicah]

This is where I tye

This Is a Reply Moderated at (+5, Troll)

[Jesus_666]

This is the first sentence where I decry how I'm going to lose karma through this post, which will not actually happen.

Once we clear your elementary faux pas, we can move on.

This is the paragraph following the out-of-context quote. Usually, this will be a semantic discussion of what you said which does not actually adress any of your points but tries to make it look that way.

In the next paragraph I will segue into my own opinion on a topic which may or may not have any connection to the matter at hand. Usually this will lead into a diatribe exceeding the article in length, all crammed into one to five paragraphs. Actual facts to back up my claims are entirely optional.

This is the obligatory Sentence, which is written in awkward, slightly incorrect english to remind everyone that english is not my first Language.

An equally obligatory paragraph is used to remind everyone that I'm from Europe/the USA/somewhere else, which means that my opinion is automatically more important than that of most users here. This paragraph may contain lame comparisons between the subject at hand and differences in handling guns/alcohol/freedom of speech in Europe/the USA/somewhere else.

This optional paragraph is used to complain about Slashdot's lack of support for Unicode/LaTeX/a markup language of my choice in contents.


All of the aforementioned content may be skipped if I fill the comment field with a link to a potentially related xkcd comic, optionally preceeded by a single sentence about how Randall Munroe said it best: http://dynamic.xkcd.com/random/comic/

Re:Idle - NOT news

[Evil Pete]

What is more, by describing the pattern of a formulaic article he is encouraging writers to experiment and not give us hack work. It also encourages readers to criticize such poor quality when they come across it.

Re:Idle - NOT news

[Kirijini]

Mod up. Great point.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[Darinbob]

This is a comment expressing regret that I have no mod points, which absolves me of guilt from not having given mod points in the past.

This is a link to an obligatory XKCD

[Here be giant clams]

http://xkcd.com/688/

Citation needed

[KingAlanI]

The paper citation would be useful, enabling those who are interested to chase it down. Likely these people who would be able to access the databases through their university or something.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[Bitsy Boffin]

This is where I interject with a tale about Natalie Portman naked petrified and covered in hot grits. Because I have a lower user id than you and intend to use the classical Slashdot meme to allude to this lower user id as a badge of superiority.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[H0D_G]

This is where I make a car analogy, but then stretch it so far I may as well be talking about bicycles.

moncleroutlet

[mbt00001]

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Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[skids]

This is where I abuse the parent post for making the issue too complicated, while agreeing in principle, but saying it boils down to the laws of thermodynamics. occam's razor, or boolean logic, the proper application of which I quite obviously have never comprehended.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[koreaman]

This is where the conversation devolves into spelling/grammar Nazism when I note that it's actually "bear".

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the comment where I mention some vaguely anti-socialist rhetoric in an attempt to draw the discussion away from the research and into the political realm, where it will hopefully fill the next 3 pages of comments with McCarthiest accusations and political stereotyping. Many of the trailing comments will be modded down as offtopic, however this one will be modded +5, insightful.

Since I am posting as AC, I will not respond to a single comment in the massive flame war I started.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[daveime]

You read the title ? I just look at the number of comments.

Anything over 800 automatically means a really derogatory Apple or Microsoft story.

Anything under 50 is most probably actual news for nerds and stuff that really matters.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[MidnightBrewer]

I finish off by invoking Godwin's Law and probably get buried as flamebait.

This is where.......

[Dthief]

This is where I make a comment that has nothing to do with the article but is explaining how the current administration "sucks and is gay" and how stupid everyone of the opposing political party is for having been fooled into voting for them. Here I add a crackpot theory about how 9-11 was caused by global warming (or vice versa)

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[DriedClexler]

Yes -- also, eldavojohn in particular is a subscriber who has no life and tends to do that a lot (write up long replies to a story beginning from the very moment it became available to subscribers).

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[halcyon1234]

Here I question why the parent post got modded insightful, when it was funny, prompting a lecture about Slashdot's karma system. My post will, ironically, be modded funny, and in doing so, will start a flame-war about the proper use of "ironic".

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[beckerist]

This reminds me of: Charlie Brooker Reports the News

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[IorDMUX]

NONSENSICAL STATEMENT INVOLVING PLANKTON

(Also, the lameness filter can bite me. C'mon. How many lowercase letters do you need?)

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[VShael]

Immediate attack on the parent poster's political affiliation

Politics has been tangentially mentioned, so I'll toss in a pithy pun relating to the bias of a mainstream television news network.

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[tverbeek]

(I was trying to get people to fall for the rickroll.)

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[awtbfb]

Here is a comment from someone with a higher digit number telling a lower digit person "you must be new here"

Comment

[tehcyder]

In this comment I have nothing constructive to add, but feel I should comment anyway.

"Borrowed" from Guardian website comments...

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[Ed_Pinkley]

Reminds me of: Title of the song by DaVinci's Notebook

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[Anonymous Coward]

innocent as a newborn baby's ass

I've seen what a newborn baby's ass can do, and it's worlds away from innocent.

Confusingly titled meta story

[Anonymous Coward]

Has it really been nine years??

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[Jonathan]

Here's the snarky comment by another four-digit user, but lower than the previous four-digit user.

One... Two...

[DaVince21]

Y A K A W O W ! ! !

Not very original of the Guardian

[Anonymous Coward]

Completely rehashed idea originally by Charlie Brooker: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHun58mz3vI

Re:This Is a Comment Expressing New Found Skeptici

[Caesar Tjalbo]

My work here is dung.

But does it run (on) Linux?