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."
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
Here's a perfect example. Yesterday I was reading an article in the News section of Nature online. There were three comments: one was about how the item confirmed Billy Meier's contactee reports with his meeting with the Pleidians; another was (if I remember correctly) arguing against AGW; the last one was a guy touting his own theory of everything on his website. This is one of the most prestigious scientific journals in the world. The comments were just embarrassing. They should just ban comments in the news section.
After that, this action from Popular Science looks positively enlightened.
Bitter and proud of it.
Personally I think the quality of science has dropped greatly in the last few decades.
I don't think it's dropped at all. I just think we're now aware of how bad it's always been.
A better moderation system is only useful if the people on your site have a long-term vested interest in the site. This is why comments at the bottom of a CBS article, linked to by Matt Drudge, requiring no sign-up for posting are so hideous and always will be.
The only thing requiring identities for posting accomplishes is pushing the agenda of forcing people to use their identity online while silencing those who, you know, don't want the fact that they commented on a youtube video with a reporter who fell out of a barrel of grapes and onto the ground below to be part of search results and something that everyone in the world (including employers, future mates, friends, in-laws, family, etc) might come across.
Google, Facebook, and others want you to use your real identity online because they want to be the hub facilitating all your identity needs.
When you hear pushes to "end internet bullying" and other bullshit, it would do well to remember that these are all ultimately efforts to eradicate anonymity from the internet and little more.
Like democracy, Slashdot's moderation system is the worst one out there, except for all the other alternatives.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
it's designed to foster group-think.
Bullshit, the group-think already exists, moderation mearely highlights it, that's it's fucking job! The higher the number you browse at the lower the resolution you have on slashdot's opinions. If you want to see what 'slashdot thinks' then browse at a high number, if you want to know what every troll and drunkard thinks, browse at -1. Unpopular posts are modded to hell because they are unpopular, not because they are wrong. Unpopular posts are often rated interesting if they're well written and there's is a grain of truth in them.
The comment system here is far from perfect, but it's a hell of a lot better than any other site I've visited in the past decade, part of that is the moderation performed by those " unusually intelligent commenters", plus the fact that it's difficult for "unintelligent commeters" to spam the moderation system with phoney up/down votes. If you still think your being treated unfairly then reword your argument or better still perform a bit of self-skepticisim on your own ideas to work out why everone else thinks your post sucks.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Forgot to add this: Downvote and down page syndrome in commenting systems is absolutely why I view even the -1's, all the time. Whenever I get Mod points, which seems to be often lately, I always travel down to the bottom comments where the crickets chirp, with a few stops back up the page to try and get some of the older ID's stuck at 1 along with some of the more brilliant AC comments.
It's the very least I could do to try and repay the unique culture we collectively have here....
*** What is a decent alternative that would remove the "I disagree" button mentality and promote good well-thought-out content? ***
Well, it's so obvious that it is staring us right in the face. To get rid of the abuse of moderation options to serve as a "I disagree" button, just add that ff-ing "I disagree" button and make this a second counter next to the standard moderation. It would instantly point out the (interesting?) comments that are counter to the group-think.
# touch universe # chmod +rwx universe #