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Have Online Comment Sections Become Specious?

Posted by samzenpus on from the if-you-don't-have-anything-nice-to-say dept.

christoofar writes "Gawker founder Nick Denton says online comments have proven themselves to be not worth the trouble, a waste of resources, and contribute nothing to online conversation or even capture the intelligence of readers. From the article: 'In the early days of the Internet, there was hope that the unprecedented tool for global communication would lead to thoughtful sharing and discussion on its most popular sites. A decade and a half later, the very idea is laughable, says [Denton]. "It didn't happen," said Denton, whose properties include the blogs Gawker, Jezebel, Gizmodo, io9 and Lifehacker. "It's a promise that has so not happened that people don't even have that ambition anymore. The idea of capturing the intelligence of the readership — that's a joke."'"

7 of 429 comments (clear)

  1. obviously by kaizendojo · · Score: 5, Funny

    Just look below this post..

    1. Re:obviously by Spad · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well, nobody reads Slashdot for the poorly edited summaries or week-old stories, do they?

    2. Re:obviously by Sarten-X · · Score: 5, Funny

      Slashdot's moderation system is the worst out there - except for all the rest.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
  2. Capturing the intelligence of the readership, doh! by jbrandv · · Score: 5, Funny

    The idea of capturing the intelligence of the readership was correct! The only problem was the intelligence of the readership...

  3. Re:And yet... by jcreus · · Score: 5, Funny

    Comments mentioning moderation usually get modded down (oh no I'm speaking about moderation!)

  4. Cole's Axiom by hierofalcon · · Score: 5, Funny

    Cole's Axiom sums it up. The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the population is growing.

  5. Re:Use forums instead by nitehawk214 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Many don’t have threaded replies, a simple feature that makes any comment section _way_ more useful in my opinion. You can’t really have much of a discussion if replies can’t easily be tied to each.

    Do you have any idea how bitterly the threaded comment war was fought? There are people who insist, violently, on the chronological ordering of posts.

    They are probably the same people who hold repetitive flamewars amongst themselves over top-posting versus bottom-posting or inline responses.

    threads which have had a comment recently get bumped up

    This encourages people to post pointless posts like "bump" to try and keep their thread on top.

    bump

    --
    I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust