Why Stephen Fry has turned off comments
Jun. 3rd, 2010 08:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Stephen Fry, in a coda to a blog post about his relationship with Apple, nails it on the head regarding comment sections to web sites:
I don’t know about you, but my eyes are already trained only to read the top half of a web page these days. Rather as a Victorian would not look below the waist, I do not let my eyes have even a second’s contact with the revolting Have Your Say or Comments section of a BBC site, a YouTube page or any blog or tech forum. The lower half of web pages is very like the lower half of the body — full of all kinds of noxious evil smelling poison. I suppose it has to be expelled somewhere, but you will forgive me for not wanting to be close by when it happens. It is a pity, a real pity, that the furious few pollute the atmosphere and obstruct the pipelines that might otherwise allow the reciprocal possibilities of the world of User Generated Content that Web 2.0 promised all those years ago.
I don’t know about you, but my eyes are already trained only to read the top half of a web page these days. Rather as a Victorian would not look below the waist, I do not let my eyes have even a second’s contact with the revolting Have Your Say or Comments section of a BBC site, a YouTube page or any blog or tech forum. The lower half of web pages is very like the lower half of the body — full of all kinds of noxious evil smelling poison. I suppose it has to be expelled somewhere, but you will forgive me for not wanting to be close by when it happens. It is a pity, a real pity, that the furious few pollute the atmosphere and obstruct the pipelines that might otherwise allow the reciprocal possibilities of the world of User Generated Content that Web 2.0 promised all those years ago.
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Date: 2010-06-03 07:30 am (UTC)Contrariwise, it's not (for the most part) a problem on LJ. It appears to be a scale thing - on LJ, I would expect to be know to a good proportion of the people reading a comment I make.
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Date: 2010-06-03 07:37 am (UTC)However, it isn't always true, as a run in with a certain individual I had quite a few years ago proved.
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Date: 2010-06-03 07:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-03 09:50 am (UTC)Another site that does suprisingly well is MetaFilter, but then it is ruthlessly moderated (and to an extent, self-moderated: assholery is not tolerated.) Making Light is also good, thanks to the Iron Rod of Disemvowelling wielded by Patrick and Teresa. BoingBoing is tolerable, although the moderation there is a bit weaker and there are too many wannabee-Corys making prats of themselves.
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Date: 2010-06-03 09:52 am (UTC)If that is insufficient I'll remind you tonight.
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Date: 2010-06-03 09:54 am (UTC)Yes, I remember that. Oh well, it takes years to build a reputation but only days, hours or minutes to lose it - something that people who have a high opinion of themselves would do well to remember.
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Date: 2010-06-03 08:05 am (UTC)I've read a fair number of pieces on scaling internet communities, and every one of them seems to have started out with a small number of people with a friendly atmosphere, hit a certain point and run into exactly the same issues.
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Date: 2010-06-04 06:26 pm (UTC)Yes
Date: 2010-06-03 07:44 am (UTC)Nowadays I try to only comment on very technical things or where the community is based around my real live friends.
I really can't see the readers of a newspaper website as a community - there are just too many of them. There is nothing to limit their excesses. (Yes there are systems for user based moderation or rating of comments but I'm not happy that they are working successfully).
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In blog terms what *should* be happening is something like:
Person A posts something that is seen as inflamatory or needs commenting
Person B makes a comment along the lines of "I disagree strongly with this and here is what I think - an article on my own blog".
IM(not so)HO
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Date: 2010-06-03 07:46 am (UTC)And I find it actually discourages me from posting things that I really want to talk about. I hope my friends would not react in that kind of manner, but the fear still lurks.
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Date: 2010-06-03 09:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-03 10:14 am (UTC)There are two features I'd like to see on that site:
- ability to view comments that the mods have deleted
- a small killfile facility
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Date: 2010-06-03 10:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-03 10:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-03 01:16 pm (UTC)But with a limit for how many negative points you can get for a single ill judged response, so you can't get kicked off for saying the wrong thing *once*, but it has to be a pattern.