Have Online Comment Sections Become Specious? 429
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."'"
obviously (Score:5, Funny)
Re:obviously (Score:4, Funny)
Being on
Heck, even with usenet early 90s it was flamewars and trolls
Capturing the intelligence of the readership, doh! (Score:5, Funny)
The idea of capturing the intelligence of the readership was correct! The only problem was the intelligence of the readership...
Re:And yet... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ask a Microsoft or Apple question here... (Score:5, Funny)
You forgot Google. Burn in hell you heretic!
Gawker Media think their readers are stupid (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And yet... (Score:5, Funny)
You're good. Comments mentioning comments that mention moderation are generally safe.
Cole's Axiom (Score:5, Funny)
Re:obviously (Score:5, Funny)
Well, nobody reads Slashdot for the poorly edited summaries or week-old stories, do they?
Re:obviously (Score:5, Funny)
Slashdot's moderation system is the worst out there - except for all the rest.
Re:obviously (Score:2, Funny)
Slashdot, it must be said, continues to be a great source of insightful comments (a thing which is becoming extinct on the Internet lately).
Unfortunately, contrary to your statement, your post ended up Interesting instead.
Ooh! (Score:5, Funny)
You speak French!
Re:Use forums instead (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
Re:obviously (Score:4, Funny)
Being on /. for 13 years, I agree :)
noob :)
(It's not often I see another 3k series userID)
blast from the past (Score:4, Funny)
Slashdot, it must be said, continues to be a great source of insightful comments
Me too!
In Soviet Russia ... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Community on the Information Superhighway (Score:5, Funny)
Re:obviously (Score:5, Funny)
Slashdot has always been ugly and pedestrian, if extremely functional.
Slashdot is Unix?
Re:obviously (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe the fact stories do not have like or dislike buttons so that people can say "314 people like Microsoft" or "21 people work for Apple"?
For pointless numerology we have our UID wars. Obviously as a 5 digit UID, my posts are going to be more insightful than your 7 digit UID post (hint hint mods you know what to click here).
Re:Use forums instead (Score:5, Funny)
I agree. A couple of times, I've accidentally scrolled down on YouTube far enough to see the comments Before my brain could shut down in self-defense, I was overwhelmed with horror at the illiteracy and idiocy I saw...