Slashdot Mirror
Popular Science Is Getting Rid of Comments
Daniel_Stuckey writes "From an article announcing the sites' decision to do away with comments: 'It wasn't a decision we made lightly. As the news arm of a 141-year-old science and technology magazine, we are as committed to fostering lively, intellectual debate as we are to spreading the word of science far and wide. The problem is when trolls and spambots overwhelm the former, diminishing our ability to do the latter. ... even a fractious minority wields enough power to skew a reader's perception of a story, recent research suggests. ... A politically motivated, decades-long war on expertise has eroded the popular consensus on a wide variety of scientifically validated topics. Everything, from evolution to the origins of climate change, is mistakenly up for grabs again. Scientific certainty is just another thing for two people to "debate" on television. And because comments sections tend to be a grotesque reflection of the media culture surrounding them, the cynical work of undermining bedrock scientific doctrine is now being done beneath our own stories, within a website devoted to championing science.'"
This comes alongside news that Google is trying to clean up YouTube comments by adding integration with Google+. "You’ll see posts at the top of the list from the video’s creator, popular personalities, engaged discussions about the video, and people in your Google+ Circles."
In other news, Slashdot has decided to get rid of the commenting system, noting that most comments are not informative, and only serve to derail the important points with discussions of overlords, hot grits, and first posts. Instead, only the Slashdot team will be able to comment, limited to which "dept" the story came from.
The change on slashdot was well received according to the poll asking about it. The one choice, Cowboy Neal, which was explained to mean "yes", was the overwhelming choice by voters. The change is expected to make it easier on new users.
Erstwhile administrator and founder Cmdr Taco, said simply, "In Soviet Russia, this is how we did it."
Have you read my journal today?
"Everything, from evolution to the origins of climate change, is mistakenly up for grabs again"
And here I was under the impression that everything in science was always up for grabs. This is just the mag trying to silence dissent. I happen to agree with evolution but I have no problem debating it with people who do not. Nor do I believe evolution is settled science, we continue to learn a great deal and there is always a possibility of some groundbreaking new development to come along and rock the whole foundation.
good idea! now lets get rid of slashdot comments!
If they really want out of the mess they say they're in, they need to get off the internet entirely. As it is said, the 'net views and blockage as an outage and works to go around it. Blocking comments on their site does nothing when they can still pop up at will on others.
It's time for scientists to come down from there ivory towers and let the masses participate, rather than treat them as audience.
Between these sites slamming the door shut on public comments, walled login gardens, and NSA slimy fingers on everything, it's just super depressing. Feels like a mortal wound.
Seriously, critique the Slashdot comment system if you like, but it's a thousand times better than 99% of the sites out there. And it's pretty simple. Sites not ripping off this system seem like they conscientiously want a reason to slam the door on public conversation.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
And this why we can't have nice things. Thanks a lot!
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
Seriously. I can't think of a better system for comment handling. Just move the sliders aaaaaaall the way to the right and never see another troll!
For some reason The Register also seems to have good quality comments. As does The Guardian, so it can be possible to build a commenting community that works. Maybe it's a British thing?
On the other hand it's been years since I bothered looking at comments on any Canadian media site..... CBC pays a lot of money to contract out comment moderation and still manages to have a worthless stream of dreck.
Three Squirrels
All the better to just push an opinion.
A meaningless comment. In fact, pretty much a troll.
PopSci brings up a lot of good points, and they have made a decision that I think more and more on-line pubs will make. You are free to send them a Letter to the Editor, but these ugly snipe-fests that go on in many forums have little if any value.
The comments at the Seattle Times are a great example, having been taken over by extremists who apparently have no voice anywhere else.
The fact is that in most forums that don't have a "moderation system" become flooded with trolls that render the whole forum concept useless for any real conversation.
PopSci isn't the first to ditch forums, and will not be the last.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Mod parent up... +1 irony.
Personally I like the metafilter commenting system. You have to pay a $5 one time fee to comment. It keeps out the spambots.
Perhaps slashdot could do something similar with their subscriptions:
Anonymous: You comment defaults to 0
Logged in: Your comment defaults to 1
Subscription: Your comment defaults to 3
Of course you could still be up/downvoted based on the quality of your idea.
Don't post anything until they've been accepted, and hire some fresh college grad with a BS in English (great job prospects!) for $20/hr to moderate the posts.
What's really happening here? We have an old and floundering magazine that tried to turn itself into a blogzine. Being an old rag, they don;t know how the bloggy business works and aren't able to manage the userbase to their expectations. The fix? Cut the userbase off and go back to being a magazine, but it's an e-magazine. How trendy!
Meanwhile subscriptions and advertizing revenue continue to plummet.
Ta ta.
> A politically motivated, decades-long war on expertise has eroded the popular consensus on a wide variety of scientifically validated topics.
True worldwide, alarmingly so in the US, where "it inconveniences my politics" carries the same weight in discussions as "there is no evidence for this hypothesis".
I think this comment can serve as an example of why they are halting comments.
"That's right...I said it."
But the only people who really control discussion these days are the pig-headed dolts who won't give up a lost argument for anything, and the trolls, who aren't there for legitimate argument anyway.
Anything else sane is lost in the noise.
I'm not mourning the loss of comments on a lot of sites. As a matter of fact, to protect my sanity I have been avoiding comments for the most part.
There are precious few places that have a comments section that have a decent moderation system.
And lastly, your post is content-free BS.
--
BMO
Well I guess we'll all have to go back to usenet if we want to talk about things outside the narrow spectrum of approved speech.
When you deny your most hard core readership ( they are the people who
take the time to comment ) the chance to interact with your writers and
editors, you have just committed suicide as a magazine.
Comments were always a feature back in the print days when those
with sufficient motivation would actually send a snail mail letter to the
editor. And now that the comment process is easier, all Popular Science
is really saying is that they are too damned cheap to pay a human to filter
the comments. And that is truly pathetic. So they deserve to go out of business.
=
YouTube and Google Plus... Hmm I like the idea. This could bring air to Google Plus which frankly is a great interface.
YouTube and Google Plus... Hmm I like the idea. This could bring air to Google Plus which frankly is a great interface not used much at the moment .
there are no "bedrock scientific doctrines", the teachings and models of science get replaced or refined. Scientists want that and are glad when it happens.
Journalists around the web are cheering the decision and not asking serious questions. Interesting.
there's a safari plug in that hides comment sections on sites. it's nice.
And to keep in the spirit of comments in general, they're Worse Than Hitler, Satan And JarJar Binks All Rolled Into One!!!!!!!!!
I couldn't agree more. My time is valuable and its too precious to waste on wading through troll droppings.
There really are many with an ideological bent, who are actively seeking to disrupt sites discussing science for purposes that have nothing to do with science, but rather to influence discussion that may come from the consequences of scientific findings.
The reality is that modern science has become so specialized that few commenters are really capable of adding anything to a meaningful discussion anyway. For example, what kind of meaningful input might one expect of the average commenter provide say on the discussion of the importance of Uryshon's Lemma or Gershgorin's Circle Theorem to modern bioinformatics or aerodynamics? It is a shame that the electronic equivalent of graffiti artists have vandalized so many useful commenting sites to suit their own personal and ideological fantasies, Particularly, since it denies so many a peek into the intrinsic beauty inherent in such discussions.
You're right, however, and without some form of moderation or peer review the entire effort takes on the character defined by the lowest IQ posting. Many may complain that scientist are retreating to their ivory towers, but the sad fact is that the vandal's sacking every website they can overrun make such towers the only safe haven to continue to do science. If they want into the ivory towers, they will first have to develop the credibility to enter.
Its far better to submit "letters" to the editor, with comments and let them make the best judgement as to which most advance the topic under discussion. This can be done by a few moderators on most sites. I would be quite happy not to see my own posts or questions, if I knew I was instead reading better or more informative ones.
In the earlier days of the internet, forums and news groups and such led to incredibly brilliant discussions. And I think some people at the time felt this would eventually lead to a paradise of "mass human thought engine" resulting into some sort of "hive brain" of human collective thought.
But in the real world, most people are just bored or bigoted or want attention --- and humans as a whole are more Homer Simpson or Miley Cyrus than Albert Einstein or Carl Sagan.
And this reality won. For now. Scientific and intellectual thought will find a new way to win again. Given enough time.
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
Isn't it better to have a virtual outlet, instead of say shooting up a Navy yard?
What's your address, bro?
Popular Science's headlines are way too sensationalistic, many commenters only comment on the headline and never read the article or its references anyway. Like the one about not teaching higher algebra in school as a default, headline was something like: "Let's stop teaching math in school". What a disaster in the comments. Some people just want to be able to say [in their own minds]: "I'm smarter than these obviously stupid experts". That's the kind of thing that needs to stop or be downvoted into oblivion.
..."bedrock scientific doctrine"
Do they even realize the inherent contradiction between "scientific" and "doctrine"?
Science is the ruthless pursuit of truth through falsifiable hypotheses, and *requires* challenges to any "doctrine", and *requires* the admission of error.
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
Nice try Mr. Gundotra.
Popular science the magazine reached 90% pure ads years ago.
I imagine their website is the same way and have no desire to visit at all.
Nearly every article that I read in PopSci had comments about: "I have been earning $74 per hour since I learned the secrets of web sales." but this is not limited to PopSci. New Scientist (which I respect much more except for their stance on climate change) almost always has comments along the lines of "Feynman and Einstein are both about to be proven wrong by scientists in Utah who have been testing viable zero point energy units."
I am not exaggerating the above comments. I felt dirtied by their comments in that they had no system to eliminate them. Just as long as they don't cram in some external system like Discus (which I hosts file blocked a long time ago).
Simple "report this" or voting would easily eliminate the worst. Just take a look at the -1 comments in this very post. There is one titled "Walling Up The Wall" which I don't even understand. Why did someone waste their time typing that?
"IT pro"
lol
Paid Microsoft shill detected.
"IT specialist" means nothing.
What are you, a secretary that once fixed a computer?
Let people say their comments about the stories on communities like Slashdot or Reddit or whatever not on the actual article. I used to think Pitchfork was lame for now allowing comments but these days I think they are right. Comments just degrade the content.
Gag me.
Did someone really just use that term?
cf. http://www.edge.org/conversation/a-philosophy-of-physics
The term scientific certainty almost always comes up in terms of the Global Warming debate these days, although evolution has been in there as well. I'm sick of either side using it as a debate point, its unscientific.
You can almost never be certain of anything. That's not how science works.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Since when does consensus determine the truth of anything? I would side on open discussion because even the pros are human, and can make mistakes, and/or deliberately misstate things for emotional reasons. Open discussion prevents any one party from controlling the dialog for political reasons. Close it down, and one party gets entire control of the floor. The internet was about P2P interaction, and yes that includes dealing with people who don't agree with the stated position.
The term 'troll' has been abused so much now by free speech critics that I'm not sure it has any meaning than as a pejorative for someone who uses whit and sarcasm to score a good point. If science is about extracting truth from the ether, then this person is no different. He's correct, or not. His style is irrelevant. 'trolling' is not an excuse to shut down communication. If that's what popular science wants, maybe they shouldn't publish on the internet and give monologues on public television.. I'm sure all 3 people watching will agree, wringing out their emotional tampons in sympathy.
I'm with you but I used to work in print and a decent editor would have have been able to mitigate the trolling.
It's 2013 not 1813 and *any* editor-level staff member at Popular Science should have known that trolling on the comments can be mitigated with a points system or if need be require a login. Sometimes its not that easy but the solutions aren't expensive or prohibitively time consuming.
Here's the thing: COMMUNICATING WITH READERS IS A NECESSITY
Newspapers can't afford *not* to have a comments section. It's 2013...my grandma is on facebook.com...the expectation for interactivity and social networking integration is higher and growing...
Part of the problem is that media *owners* have no idea what they are doing and just do the standard cost-cutting algorythm whenever they buy a newspaper. They cut out every function that isn't associated with ad revenue until the publication is so shitty and uninformative no one uses it.
Popular Science is no different. Really it's just a brand name anymore...one of dozens of 'titles' owned by a conglomerate. In this case the The Bonnier Corporation out of Sweeden
Usually a company like Bonnier will contract with someone like Disquss or even Facebook.com to integrate all the comments on all pages to one system (that will then sell the commentors data on the advertising grey market).
Just for comparison's sake, imagine if Apple were run by a person whose only business experience is running a casino....
That is the kind of step down in management quality that crippled and ruined print media.
The whole notion that 'print is dead' is bullshit excuses to cut staff and make generic news not local news. People are reading more text than ever before. People are writing more text than ever before. People have an expectation for distraction like never before. People want quality media in all forms across platforms.
Thank you Dave Raggett
You can usually accomplish this with Adblock, too. I block out anything using disqus or similar commenting systems (which seemed to hit mass popularity about the time that discussion on the internet hit the absolute lowest, ever).
I imagine that the reason Dice Holdings purchased Slashdot is to find ways to maximize profit from the company. Then why is it that they haven't attempted to license out the comment moderation system currently available on Slashdot? Yes, it might cannibalize some of their current readership, but they could limit that by licensing to web sites that do not specialize in technology.
It's not like they would run into a lot of competition either. Right now, the most popular comment hosting site seems to be Disqus. Every site that uses Disqus lists the comments in reverse chronological order. That means that every poster is reading the last few comments and then chiming in with arguments that have already been made and maybe even debunked much earlier in the conversation. And the moderation system has no concept of karma or the capability to moderate posts via categories. Dice, use what you've got and start making money off of it from other web sites already!
...and that's why perfectly good comments are modded down, the equivalent of "I disagree" but also, because of Slashdot's thresholds, the equivalent of one user hiding another's comments.
That's also why high quality comments from anonymous posters are often buried from the moment they are posted -- because moderation isn't designed to foster high quality, it's designed to foster group-think. Fortunately, a bunch of very smart posters means that "group think" here isn't nearly as uniform as it is elsewhere.
Slashdot's moderation/metamod system is BADLY broken. The site survives because it has unusually intelligent commenters overall; not because moderation is working.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
The problem is that politics has become very extreme on both ends and it created a war between two radical ideologies and anyone set in the middle or somewhere else becomes the immediate outcast. Combine all of this with everyday trolls, government paid trolls (real thing), and spam and you have yourself a recipe for disaster. Science is no foreigner to politics and every goddamn article about anything involves one moral value over another. Seriously, just shut the fuck up and enjoy science for christ sake. If you don't enjoy science then GTFO science-centric websites.
How can we tell that their comments are better than yours without reading them side by side. Handing over that power to some 'impartial' editor is really the best way of going about it?
If truth is such an important thing, shouldn't we make an effort to go look for it?
News sites want each three-page article to be followed by three pages of lucid comments from the public. Why do news sites imagine that they're entitled to get all that traffic-drawing content for free? No, don't pay commenters; but pay moderators. The answer to the information explosion is the one we already know from Google: good search is good value. Filtering is content. It would make sense to pay almost as much per page of moderated comments as per page of article.
The New York Times has fantastic comments. No idiotic ones, and lots of articulate insights. Okay, they're the New York Times; maybe more smart people make the effort to post comments there. But see, they're the New York Times: they're a big prize for trolls. They'd have tons of stupid comments, if they let stupid comments through. The New York Times has a bunch of paid moderators, and somehow they do an excellent job.
If the level of comments weren't so high at the Times, smart people wouldn't bother. As it is, comments are an important further reason to read the New York Times. Maybe obscure little sites are never going to reach that level, but I don't see why Nature or Popular Science can't get there if they bother to try.
JarJar Hitler is the worst. "mesa going to send you to hella"
Have gnu, will travel.
In the early days of the internet, only those involved with academia were online. Even the least-educated were at the very least students in higher education.
And this reality won. For now. Scientific and intellectual thought will find a new way to win again. Given enough time.
Optimist.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I couldn't agree more. My time is valuable and its too precious to waste on wading through troll droppings.
Easy solution for you: stop reading at the end of the article.
i LIKE strange comments. i love youtube AS IT IS. i DO NOT want to see featured comments from "personalities." I like the offensive and non-PC stuff from unknown. That's why I watch YouTube and not other forms of media. I want the raw, uncensored, the good and the bad. I wouldn't be surprised if Google ruins it, as they're on a streak of ruining all of their products lately.
>You are free to send them a Letter to the Editor
Oh yeah, let's go back to the corrupted ways of yesteryear. Fuck the Editor.
Maybe it's not a bad decision. Not because of the reasons listed, but because sites like this doesn't provide a decent comment structure to allow any kind of useful discussions. Maybe it's better to use slashdot, reddit, etc. for discussions. I'm not against separating content production from discussions. Social media features (commenting, sharing, connecting, etc) are a hype now, every site is trying to add something. Most of the are not really useful. Maybe instead of trying to providing social media they should focus on the content.
Not every one is a server specialist most firms have windows on their desktops and if they want bespoke software then it's normally written either for a windows desktop or for the web and tested in *shudders* IE
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
Pay some people or give the better commenters the ability to temporarliy ban trolls. That's how you solve the problem, not by removing commenting.
I don't think climate change is mistakenly up for grabs, if the difference between the predictions and the actual reality are anything to go by. Evolution certainly is, as it's an organising principle that would be extremely easy to falsify (just show the fossil of a rabbit found in Devonian strata).
Proof by demonstration?
Watch this Heartland Institute video
No. Falsification; a staple of scientific inquiry (except climate science).
My comment was a troll? Don't be so ridiculous. It was simply pointing out that the argument that some people are questioning what should not be questioned is an extremely weak one.
I think your comment demonstrates just why public trust in science and scientific inquiry is waning.
No: JarJar Hitler actually says:
"mesa got a Final Solution for de Jedi Problem". . .
I almost never mod stories when I have mod points. Why? Because the stories that I have enough interest in to read through I want to post in and you can't mod in stories you post in. Stories I don't post in I usually don't have any interest in.
This leads to a paradox where things you have knowledge of you can't mod, and things you don't know about you can mod.
I think you should be able to apply mod points into stories you post in, but make the limitations more specific -- ie, you can't mod the parent you replied to and you can't mod the replies to your post. This would prevent the self-promotion and group think because you wouldn't be able to promote favorable responses, either.
Spineless writers and editors of the poorly written articles at Popsci can't handle criticism. Lawyers peddled justification.
Such was tried at Yahoo. And didn't *that* work out well?
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Let’s say you’re watching a video from Justin Timberlake. What type of video comment would be awesome to see: one from JT himself, one from people you care about who love the video ...or one from just the last random person to stop by?
Note the emphasis; "people you care about" (e.g. fellow groupthinking fans defending Lady Gaga to the death against those who say her latest weird-ass dressing up video for an otherwise relatively normal pop song isn't the best thing since sliced bread) and "who love the video" (i.e. pro positive comments). Very adolescent.
Frankly, if I stop by to see the video and I decide to say something negative about it for an entirely legitimate reason, I consider it mod abuse if it's clearly downvoted purely because it's not the majority and/or fan opinion. (And one must remember that rabid fans in small groups can push above their weight if they're aggressive in pushing their views against a less obsessed majority who disagree- or at least don't agree- with them; this doesn't make it legitimate however.)
But it appears that YouTube are now encouraging this behaviour.
We know this already happens (and that YouTube comments frequently descend into moronic flamewarring) but it's disappointing to see that YouTube (i.e. Google) are officially condoning it. This is likely to encourage the spread of this attitude even to videos on less fan-oriented but still divisive topics (e.g. controversial science and politics). It's also likely to legitimise such mod abuse elsewhere as people now think that's what they're for... if they didn't already.
I can't wait.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Evolution and climate change are NOT in the same category in terms of scientific doubt. In the case of evolution, the fact that anyone can go to the Southwest or Pennsylvania and find sea shells buried deep on mountain simply proves life predates 10,000 years ago. Climate change, on the other hand, presents itself as a chicken-little scam. From scientific misconduct to continual promotion of vague, yet terrifying sounding, consequences in the media, climate change is the biggest swindle of faith since Pope Leo X.
.
This realization has prompted me to recently start posting more AC comments than I used to. My points still get across but the karma attackers are powerless. Except in this post, of course.
I come here for the love
Maybe they should change their name? After all Popular Science implies "pop" culture and the pop culture seems to not care about real science any more as evidenced by the comments they are talking about. Maybe they should rename themselves to Real Science and leave the pop stuff out.
This would matter a lot more if the quality of comments weren't better than the quality of half the trash that Popular Science prints now. Used to love it, but I don't think I'll be renewing again due to the constantly falling "standard" for articles and the blatant paid articles. The "Best of What's New" section in the last issue I read had 2, maybe 3 actual innovative new products. The rest (about 10 or so) were all uninteresting, non-innovative, paid trash. I don't even read half to 3/4 of the articles in an issue anymore because they are so pointless. I used to read every article from front to back. Sad to see my once favorite periodical going the way of the dino.
AJ Henderson
So, a science based publication can't come up with the technology needed to effectively deal with spam bots? Trolls will troll, but, really?
". . . with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. . . . "
So Began the introduction every time the Science Fiction television series called, "The Outer Limits" came on. But isn't that how television always was? There was no way to jump in the screen and add your input or comments. It was just there. But this isn't television - It's the internet. Input back and forth is available, unless the content side refuses to allow it.
I can understand having some filtering of comments which are insulting or inflammatory in a personal manner. Sure. But I don't want to be forced to always listen to this or that person's opinion or theory. There's a box with news I can turn on for that. Thomas Jefferson once said he would rather deal with the inconveniences of too much liberty than the bigger problems of too little. How about you? When you read someone's opinion that you disagree with, do you stay calm and thoughtful . . . or get steaming mad and upset because other people read it and they might get 'converted' from what you believe? Remember, some of these people you consider trolls, may also be on other sites where 'people like you' are considered trolls when you post your opinion. Do they allow you to post when you post thoughtful opinions? Then maybe you should do the same. Let's use the internet as the internet and not as a TV - - as much as possible.
"We now return control of your television set to you. Until next week at the same time, when the control voice will take you to – The Outer Limits.
Comments on the internet are a false reality.
That's why people are drawn to them.
No power? You can be a hero in this new world.
Even if it's all bits on a screen.
Because people act based on those bits, just like they act based on stories in newspapers or word of mouth.
It gives power to the powerless.
In theory, a good thing; except that history teaches us how the powerless are unable to assume the responsibilities of power, and so the most promising revolutions turn into the Guillotine Terror, shooting the Romanov children, Pol Pot, etc.
Futurist Traditionalism
Really? Had to delete an entire section of my response because, I used a word or phrase that triggered the "lameness filter - even it was releveant and germain to the conversation. Wow.
Thank you for stating this - in the early days, getting on the internet was an act of intellectual pursuit. This resulted, very often, in high quality intellectual discussions - many of which have resulted in the evolution of the internet and greater flowing of thought. Sadly, much of that thought isn't coherent or based on sound reasoning.
In the days of printed magazines, troll letters to the editor would not be published unless they made a valid point. In the printed days of of "Popular Science", comments were accepted and posted the following month. The comments were often interesting and relevant, having been reviewed by someone in the field. The editors would often comment back with a clarification if necessary. The comments might have been counter to the article, but they were, usually, well thought out and expressed. Today, many people post before actually giving something any thought simply because they "can".
Someone else here on /. noted that to avoid the "moderators"...wait a day or two and then post. At least you won't get slammed as a troll (and, likely not promoted either). Another suggested delaying the publishing of submitted posts until a certain threshold have been moderated to set the tone.
I, personally, like those ideas. But, unless someone is vulgar, bigoted or filled with hatred, or just writing for "first post" or wasting virtual space, marking them as "troll" often hides opinions that don't go along with the "group" herd mentality even if they might actually have merit.
But the only people who really control discussion these days are the pig-headed dolts who won't give up a lost argument for anything, and the trolls, who aren't there for legitimate argument anyway.
That's exactly what keeps sites like slashdot exciting to visit very day, right?
No, you pointed out that removing a comments section because of abuse is somehow censorship. It's not. Therefore, what you said is a troll.
The fact that you somehow need multiple accounts on here to reply to threads probably also means that you are a troll.
--
BMO
Doubt and dissent aren't caused by doubt and dissent.
People respond to personalities every bit as much as they respond to the information presented.
Instead of "All of the evidence we've ever found supports the belief that natural selection leads to the evolution of new species."
A lot of trolls say things like "Evolution is real. God is fake. Darwin fucks the baby Jesus IN THE ASS! LOLOLOLOLOLOL"
In other words, being abrasive will cause people to oppose the ideas that you support, even if you're otherwise right.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I said no such thing. Please quote me or shut up. Also, I have one account on here.
Given the development of social networking, people have alternative platforms to comment - they're no longer dependent on the traditional comments page or forum as their platform. So people get to air their views, while the sites get (a) freedom from spam and trolling, (b) incoming links and (c) page hits from the commentator's connections.
Oh, I see what happened here. You replied to kid zero. When I clicked the link it looked like you were replying to me. I have no idea how that happened.
My apologies.
Please vote this off-topic flamebait post up, think of it as a test of our thread democracy.
>My apologies
Shit happens.
No biggie.
I take back the "multiple accounts" and "troll" accusation.
--
BMO
Politics haven't gotten extreme on both ends in the United States, they're moved far to the right under a know-nothing Republican party, and a pro-big-business, center-right Democratic president who would be leading the conservative party in a sane country.
It's very difficult to find a left-wing extremist with any power in the United States, but the far-right extremists own the Republican party, and it's these Creationist, global warming denying, birther, Republican nutjobs that disrupt comment sections on sites they're intellectually unprepared to actually participate in with their superstitions, ignorance, and hate.
There's been no increase in distrust of science among the sane, just distrust of individual researchers, which is why we have peer review.
The general distrust of science is just from the religious nutters, who are trying to cling to beliefs that are completely absurd to those who have learned to reason and evaluate evidence.
I disagree. We now have science by press release and those press releases often hype, make unsupportable claims or flat out contradict last week's press release (themselves contradicted by next week's). The public don't read journals, on the whole. To me a lot of science publication is simply fishing for the next grant from the government.
Funny.
The
When Newsvine began, it was a mediocre news site with one difference: users were allowed to comment on nearly everything and post stories if they wished. This was important later on when Newsvine got the AP feed. Most newspaper websites, if they allow comments, don't allow them on AP articles. Newsvine did, and for me this was wonderful. Finally a place and a way to say something when the anonymous AP writer got something wrong.
The users had a lot of great interactions, discussions, thoughtful comments, and generally made the site great.
Newsvine got acquired by MSNBC. Things did not immediately change but they did, and it wasn't the site. It was the users. Instead of useful, thought-provoking comments, and threads that inspired discussion, every single comment vine suddenly became an Obama this, or global warming that, dispute. Forget disagreement, they'd go straight for ripping out throats on the first posts. It became -and still is- a complete pile of shit, a worthless pinboard for idiots who have no ability to discuss anything unless it is somehow wrapped in a political or religious cloak.
The thing that made Newsvine unique is now also what makes it a total loss.
So for PopSci to drop comments, fine by me. Everybody has free speech. But society and businesses are under no obligation to give them a place to spew it.
Like street preachers or the insane, those with a lot to say can go stand on a corner with a cardboard sign if they want. They deserve nothing more without earning more.
Sig for hire.
oh, but I can't do it on their site... :(
I mean yes, sites like Slashdot allow us trollers a place to vent our frustration, flaunt our myopic views, point out grammar errors, and exercise our sarcasm detectors, it's the whole point of Slashdot after all.
But I mean not EVERY website has to be social.
It has gotten very ridiculous that at the end of every online news story there is more than a dozen stupid little icons asking people to like this or plus that or follow up or whatever. And then posted after those icons is some of the most inane commentary found on the planet.
I mean, don't get me wrong, Slashdot has some real doozies when it comes to trollers and posters, but have you actually read commentary from people that are not typically involved in posting online? I mean go to your local newspaper (I mean local, not the NY Times or some big national rag, but like the Podunk Kronical or something). Read some of the commentary there.
I mean the troll wars people go into over a story about Firefighters rescuing some old woman's cat or other such nonsense, endless rants about wasting tax money on a bastard moggie and not a proper breed.
Ultimately I think Slashdot got it right, let people PULL a story onto it and open it up for discussion and moderate and rank them according to interest rather than the Podunk Kronical just slapping social network badging and a discussion board at the end of all website content.
So I'm glad to see Pop Sci woke up and got rid of a useless remnants of social networking 1.0. Considering that many people are getting their news through aggregation services like Flipboard or Google+ or even Slashdot, it doesn't make sense for the original sites to maintain their own comment board.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
If you agree with someone, there's little point in adding a comment mirroring their views. Such a comment would be redundant. Also, disagreeing comments sometimes get moderated redundant because they simply restate an argument the parent was already responding to.
I suppose the key here is to realize that not everything you have to say is important enough to be included in the discussion. Maybe you'd really like people to know you agree or disagree with something, but you don't really have anything meaningful to add. It might feel good to post a comment saying simply that you agree or disagree, but it doesn't add anything for the reader. It's a nuisance. That's why such comments are routinely moderated "redundant". And yes, if there were an agree or a disagree button that would be redundant too. Such a thing is only useful for ego-stroking or encouraging group think. Slashdot is supposed to be here to inform people, not corral them into groups that think alike.
Ok, but Slashdot and most of it's readers don't give a rats ass about your bullshit popularity contest. And you shouldn't either. Reading and discussing things like this is beneficial because it can inform us. If you just want to play a game, get Everquest or whatever everyone is playing these days.
good. i believe you...that doesn't mean the data isn't sold
that's why it's called the 'grey market'
Disquss sells the data. It's part of the terms when you sign up through their system.
i'm happy that Bonnier doesn't sell user data
they still have no reason to discontinue their comments section IMHO
Thank you Dave Raggett
Sad, really. Most are just incapable of seeing the fnordest for the trees.
Basic human nature, really...
And that's the problem in a nutshell.
01/01/01
I'm surprised that mathematical symbols such as greater and less than (which when used sequentially mean "does not equal") get stripped out. Especially seeing as I chose to post as plain text and not HTML (which loves those symbols). Still more suprising is that I had to reply to my own post as I could not find a edit link.
01/01/01
With a 2 million Slashdot ID, I think it is probable that you were not even born "in the earlier days of the internet". Just sayin...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.