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The Guardian Publishes Comment Abuse Stats, Invites Debate On Moderation (theguardian.com)
AmiMoJo writes: British newspaper The Guardian has published some stats on its popular comment sections attached to each story. So far the Guardian's site has received 70 million comments, of which around 2% were removed for violation of community standards. Articles written by women tended to get the most blocked comments, especially if they were in male-writer dominated sections like sports and technology, while fashion was one of the few areas where men got more abuse. Further down the article the reader is invited to moderate some sample comments and see how their actions compared to those of the paper's staff. You can leave suggestions for improvement here.
People who hold views that are contrary to the majority are targets for abuse. Moderation promotes groupthink. Take Slashdot for example.
You don't understand Slashdot's moderation method? And no one is blocked - ever. browse at a lower mod level, and accept that not everyone will agree with you.
You might even be exhibiting a little bit of Guardianesque ideas, in that you don't seem to want anyone to disagree with you.
We've had a number of posters here lately that are pissed that someone replies, and disagrees with them. Life just doesn't work that way, and Slashdot has come up with the best way to exist with the tragedy of the commons ever.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
...and it's annoying that, if you be banned your comments' history will be gone also, they are vapored without any warning. I were one of the 'victims'.
And, after that I found out many readers have the same problems with this 'moderation system', no matter they are left or right, and they joke that 'CiF (Comment is Free, is what The Guardian call their comment section), but some comments are freer.
And, their 'community standard' is very obscure, while some personal attacks are still there, some normal debates were deleted. When I demanded they show how I violated the rules (yes, with "please"), they deleted my comment also.
It's not that I'm whining, I'll be fine that I must respect the 'rules', I will be OK if, 'you violated 'Section 1, clause 3', so your comment was deleted', but in The Guardian there is no rule. It's likely the moderators delete comments they don't like.