more locking? let's delete positive comments!
Monday, October 5th, 2009 09:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
charmian1) Is it just me, or does it seem like everyone these days on LJ is friends-locking their journal? Not that I'm not the same (the new journal is going to be most impersonal and topical, thus unlocked. However, I locked the more personal journal.)
Although it does make it harder to figure out whether an unknown person is worth friending or not, in some ways you could say it's a positive sign, that people are finally figuring out that if they don't want The World to go seeing their journal, for whatever reason, the very sensible, normal thing to do is to make it friends-locked. Posting for The World is a different mentality from posting for The Friendslist, and it's good to see that people are possibly increasingly realizing this, thus leading to some containment of drama.
2) http://blackbeardblog.tumblr.com/post/205141856/five-reasons-you-should-delete-positive-comments
Provocative post on why bloggers should delete positive comments (that do not contribute to discussion or do not add relevant content). Hmm... I'd say that deleting is likely to offend the commenters, and make them mad for no good reason. Also, having comments, even of the contentless kind, is often used by a metric for readers to determine whether a post is worth reading or not. What is needed, then, in my opinion, is either a comment sorting system, so that the cream rises to the top (comments are either ratable, or comments that are responded to rise up), or for alternate feedback mechanisms to be promoted. Sharing is one, and another a ratings/like system.
Tumblr and Posterous get the liking mechanism down right, IMHO. A small, but conspicuous place where you can register your approval of a post. They also use it as a bookmarking system, but that works less well because there is a lack of hierarchy (in other words, you can't tag your bookmarks).
Although it does make it harder to figure out whether an unknown person is worth friending or not, in some ways you could say it's a positive sign, that people are finally figuring out that if they don't want The World to go seeing their journal, for whatever reason, the very sensible, normal thing to do is to make it friends-locked. Posting for The World is a different mentality from posting for The Friendslist, and it's good to see that people are possibly increasingly realizing this, thus leading to some containment of drama.
2) http://blackbeardblog.tumblr.com/post/205141856/five-reasons-you-should-delete-positive-comments
Provocative post on why bloggers should delete positive comments (that do not contribute to discussion or do not add relevant content). Hmm... I'd say that deleting is likely to offend the commenters, and make them mad for no good reason. Also, having comments, even of the contentless kind, is often used by a metric for readers to determine whether a post is worth reading or not. What is needed, then, in my opinion, is either a comment sorting system, so that the cream rises to the top (comments are either ratable, or comments that are responded to rise up), or for alternate feedback mechanisms to be promoted. Sharing is one, and another a ratings/like system.
Tumblr and Posterous get the liking mechanism down right, IMHO. A small, but conspicuous place where you can register your approval of a post. They also use it as a bookmarking system, but that works less well because there is a lack of hierarchy (in other words, you can't tag your bookmarks).
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Date: 2009-10-05 08:46 pm (UTC)I would love a comment moderation system reminiscent of /. for LJ to keep the noise from overwhelming the signal.
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Date: 2009-10-05 10:02 pm (UTC)(I guess another problem with the suggestions comm is that people think it's direct democracy rather than good points brought up)
I wonder, though. Slashdot is not really a perfect system either, and there are all kinds of issues with that sort of comment moderation. I mean, what if Princess Snowflake's supporters downmodded all the intelligent comments which disagreed with them? Using the wisdom of the crowd means that it's only as smart as the crowd, and if the problem is that there is a crowd of troublesome people, that doesn't lead to the problem being solved.
I guess that's why I believe that the liking system is a better way of dealing with the problem, as well as socially less radioactive than /.-esque comment moderation. (especially if one can only like positively, rather than disliking)
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Date: 2009-10-06 10:10 pm (UTC)I would like something that has greater and lesser amounts of liking, as well as not disliking, but owner/admin attention flagging (possibly invisible), so spam/abuse could get flagged to be dealt with. (You could not flag your own comments this way.)
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Date: 2009-10-06 11:23 pm (UTC)Yeah... but that's a difficult thing to work with, especially with a comm like suggestions, where there can't be a custom friends group, because it's not an open comm where people can join (in other words, most of the people watch, so the regulars can't be made pseudo-mods, as there is no formal way of distinguishing them from rabid supporters)
Flagging WOULD help mods a lot, I think (especially invisible flagging). I'm not sure what form it would take, though. How would the mods be alerted to flags? Through their inbox? (I'm thinking something like Metafilter's flagging here)
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Date: 2009-10-06 11:58 pm (UTC)As a moderator, I like negative karma. It adds an extra dimension to my external memories of someone -- this person is not just being a dick now, they have a history of being a dick. That is very different from someone who is merely unuseful now and has no history of ever being useful; removing the negative dimension from scoring leaves no distinction between trolls and people who interact but bring little to nothing to the discussion (yes-men, generally).
Flagging would be visible to the maintainers (and possibly the entry owner, but no-one else, not even the comment owner) on the comments, and should have alert settings per community: email, inbox, etc.
It would need some anti-abuse limitations to keep people from using it to spam.
Maintainers (and journal owners, but not entry owners) would be able to clear flags, which would set it as unflaggable.
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Date: 2009-10-07 12:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-07 12:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-07 01:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-07 02:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-07 02:15 am (UTC)Agreed. I suppose this is what the paid LJ notes feature is supposed to be for, I guess (well, one of the things). Perhaps though, if it were visible only to the mod/maintainer, it would work well.
Yeah, that is definitely a potential problem, troublemakers flagging over and over again in order to spam. Perhaps one thing could be after a comment/entry (it might be a good idea in comms to allow entries to be flaggable to comm mods?) receives say, five flags, it is no longer further flaggable, as by that point the mods are certainly aware it has been flagged.
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Date: 2009-10-07 02:23 am (UTC)I would rate limit not the people flagging, but the notifications: after say two to five initial flags, notifications would halt for the day, but would still be viewable on whatever admin page for the thing. And subsequently you'd get a daily update: Users flagged comment xxxx in comm yyy on entry zzz for notice: summary below:
User a at time
User b at time
[etc]
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Date: 2009-10-07 02:34 am (UTC)(and I had this one brewing in another tab, but fell asleep in the middle)
Date: 2009-10-06 11:45 pm (UTC)I'm not sure this is relevant but.
Date: 2009-10-07 12:07 am (UTC)And there are usually creepy commenters; the one who had broken her shift key and signed all her comments with "love, $username" in the last post creeped the shit out of me. (I kept wanting to say to hir, "we're not friends, you don't love me, and furthermore you are voting down my suggestion for reasons that have zero to do with it, and your continual 'love' at me while being thwarty is dragging me back 30 years to my fights with my mother, STOP IT KTHX.")
Re: I'm not sure this is relevant but.
Date: 2009-10-07 12:53 am (UTC)Re: I'm not sure this is relevant but.
Date: 2009-10-07 01:11 am (UTC)I'd like to be able to do it when I make the suggestion, though. When I post to moderated comms other than suggestions (here or on LJ) I can set up the post how I like, and then the moderator just approves it.
On LJ I have had double bullet points show up on suggestions posts because they were added in even though I had put them in already, and both places, I get comments emailed by default.
But we should talk about this elsewhere and not spam Charmian.
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Date: 2009-10-07 01:14 am (UTC)I don't have time to deal with other people's fights in my journal, and if I say something that is offensive without meaning to, as we all do from time to time, I would like to be civilly asked by a friend to check my privilege (which usually gets me thinking and in the right direction) rather than having the whole internet come and tell me exactly what a failure I am as a human being and by the way, this is what I should think not only on issue X but on 5 other related issues (which just makes me crazier and less likely to say or do anything sensible at all).
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Date: 2009-10-07 02:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-07 07:40 am (UTC)Thanks to dogpiling and the attitude that if it's not locked down like Fort Knox, it's okay to link it all over creation without warning, the internet is fast becoming a two-tiered society with "bloggers" who treat themselves as broadcast media and don't mind being held to the same standards of Getting It Right as television commenters, and people who only talk to their friends and others who think similarly to themselves.
I make the occasional public post, but I don't do it as often as I'd like, because of the vast number of people who do not understand that journal != blog and that the average person with a job, a life, hobbies and friends does not have the time, even if they have the inclination, to deal with the general level of incivility and downright nastiness on the internet.
I wonder sometimes what people who blog do for a living. Or is this their entire life? Because when you are getting thousands of comments or a dogpile, and are expected to react to this (by the whole internet) with the degree of public poise celebrities with handlers and trainers seldom show, or it is proof you are an asshole and meant every bit of whatever careless thing came out of your mouth, and apologise and mean it before you even know why you are wrong, this takes energy, and while I realise I have some chronic pain and cognitive issues due to various and sundry ills to which my flesh is heir, I also have way more leeway at my Day Job for internet use and abuse than most folks do.
I think the internet could do with a lot less of the "anything that's not gated and fenced is a BLOG in which I am entitled to criticise the writer as though they were getting paid to produce this and had an editor looking out for them" attitude, and am appalled by the suggestion that people should delete friendly comments just because they're not provoking debate.
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Date: 2009-10-07 09:12 am (UTC)I don't know, I think this is the inevitable result of the popularization of the internet. I consider myself a blogger, really, and I don't think it is the same level as a television commenter. Unfortunately or fortunately, the more readership someone has, the more of a diverse response they will attract. But otherwise, especially as people's media lives move increasingly on the internet, people treat it as the "new newspaper" (since the old newspaper is dying and its content is moving to the internet).
Actually, I recall a post one of my friends made about being a public celebrity, and how this was like being a (socially successful) BNF, and how the lines between these are sort of blurring. I think this is another aspect of how the internet is really creating the ability for everyone to become famous... and notorious.
I don't think he is suggesting that comments that are "not provoking debate" be deleted. He isn't saying that only negative comments should be left to stand. He's saying that if a comment has no content other than "awesome!" or "that was great," perhaps it should be deleted. A comment can be positive or agreeing with the poster's argument and have content.
To be honest, though, I think the people who feel "entitled to criticize the writer as though they were getting paid to produce this" would feel also entitled to criticize the journaler if they had said this IRL to them, although they might not do it IRL for practical reasons.
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Date: 2009-10-07 05:10 pm (UTC)I'm also sure that if this happened, the person who criticised me would not necessarily know where I live, nor would they invite 10,000 of their closest friends to join them in going there to yell at me, then smear my name and the name of anyone else who stepped in at that point to say something about this not being on to everyone they knew. (It's human nature, not a sign of deep-rooted evil, to want to defend a friend when they're outnumbered.)
I think there are good reasons society got rid of the pillory. I'm not pleased to see it come back on the Internet in the form of the link-and-dogpile, and I don't think "this issue is serious and hurtful" is a good excuse for this kind of behaviour.
I also think that in many cases, the lack of immediate and genuinely repentant apology is not the result of the person being a jerk and not caring or wanting to do the right thing, but rather of them not actually knowing for a few hours that there is a problem (maybe they don't check their comments every five minutes, maybe they're asleep or at work) and then, when they do find an angry person or a mob of them, wanting to take some time to figure out where they went wrong and how to respond properly, which the internet somehow expects people to be able to do immediately, without asking "stupid" questions (because everyone should know what you learned in your university X studies classes, even if they were last in school 30 years ago and aren't deeply politically involved) and without making another misstep, even if they're not actually sure what they've done wrong.
I also think the internet IS creating a situation in which people can become famous or notorious within hours.
I also think that if this doesn't change, it's going to become a set of walled gardens where only the most extraverted people who are also privileged enough to have plenty of free time to deal with this behaviour and think about every word they say as carefully as any other public figure does (but without the PR team or editors or agents) are going to be saying anything that everyone can read, and that this, in the long run, is NOT going to empower the oppressed; quite the opposite.
Also, there's an element of social one-upmanship in dogpiles; that is, the person in a dogpile who says the wittiest, meanest things to the enemy du jour is often applauded by all their friends, and the enemy du jour, who may very well have been perfectly willing to think it over and apologise before the internet arrived en masse on their doorstep, may now be being egged on by their friends, who may also be egging each other on, and they may all feel justified in doing so now that their reputations have all been damaged and they can't get them back and they're under all this stress. I don't think our nervous systems are ready for instant fame or notoriety, and I think "bloggers" who decry other people for reacting the way most people would if they or one of their friends were surrounded by screaming strangers have really not thought this through.
Basically, what I'm seeing is that useful debate and conversation aren't happening because of the dogpile. People who agree with each other are cheering each other on, and debates are being reduced to gladitorial combat with words, complete with bloodthirsty audiences.
I used to host interesting fandom meta conversations in my journal. When they all stayed civil, I could indulge people's desire to debate and air conflicting opinions. Once the dogpiling and subsequent ad hominem verbal duelling started, thanks to F_W and metafandom, that was the end of that era. I'm seeing more and more of the most interesting people in fandom lock their doors and only speak to like-minded souls, and it's not because they don't want to hear opposing views, it's because they don't want people with opposing views to yell at them, bring all their friends, and for the posts on communities like F_W and metafandom to draw the attendant gawkers and trolls.
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Date: 2009-10-07 09:14 pm (UTC)Anyway, the important thing is that the internet has created a situation where people are becoming famous/notorious overnight. People on internet time expect insta-answers. It's sort of like the expectations people had of LJ to respond immediately, always. In normal business communications, this would have never been expected.
I don't think it's going to change, therefore the amount of walled gardening is going to increase. At one time the internet was a small town where everyone could leave their doors unlocked. Now it has become a megaopolis. However, I also think there are technical solutions. For example, people could set their journals to "screen all non-friend comments," or not allow non-friends to comment at all, if they are unprepared to deal with extensive opposition.
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Date: 2009-10-07 11:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-07 04:36 pm (UTC)One of the main reasons I'm on DW is that I used to friend anyone on LJ whom I found interesting, and a lot of these were fandom people. After I'd been in a few fandom kerfuffles, not always by choice, I discovered that there were a lot of people passing around my locked journal entries for giggles, and I couldn't even figure out who they were. This is why I think a mixture of public and private entries is a good idea, so that "subscribe" rather than "grant access" isn't a useless feature.
But "subscribe" not being useless kind of depends on people understanding that not every person who has a journal considers themselves a blogger. I am very much not a blogger (I actively dislike the internet "it's okay to link to small journals if they aren't nailed shut and it's okay to be as much of an asshole as you want and invite the mob to follow you in it if there's a serious issue at stake" attitude and this is no secret) and when I do make a public post I make it no secret that metafandom and FW are not particularly welcome and that if there is any nastiness of any kind, even if the commenter thinks it's an important issue, I will shut the entire discussion down. A lot of people think this is awful of me, I know, but it's the only self defence in a world where there are too many people who think having an occasional open house mixer/socialising party means it's okay to come in with your muddy boots on and start yelling at the host or the guests as if they were news commenters.
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Date: 2009-10-07 04:40 pm (UTC)If you want to make friends and you have a locked journal, you have to take the first step and friend people first. It's not unfair. It's common sense. No one should be expected to automatically know you're a great wonderful super interesting person if all your content is behind closed doors. That's ridiculous.
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Date: 2009-10-07 05:16 pm (UTC)Because if making any public posts at all is treated by the internet as a whole as the equivalent of leaving your doors unlocked and open in a large city, and therefore it's your fault if 3000 people show up, drink all your beer and steal your stereo...do you see where this is going?
Social media != broadcast media, which is why I personally wish people who think of themselves as BLOGGERS would either go to sites designed for that or stop pressuring others on journal sites to think of themselves as bloggers and accept blog behaviour.
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Date: 2009-10-08 03:08 am (UTC)And there are blog systems like tumblr that are indeed like the old blogs; you have to use comment plugins.
The doors at my other blogs are unlocked, but as 99.5% of the discussions I've had on blogs have been informative and without dogpiles, I don't really feel like I need to lock down. The LJ/DW/clone culture, because it IS social media, is more conducive to rounding up packs of friends to go and pile on another journal. It wasn't just for srs bzns issues, either (yet another reason I want 0 to do with LJ/DW "fandom".)
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Date: 2009-10-08 03:16 am (UTC)I think a lot of people who were using LJ to talk to a circle of friends have moved to Facebook, anyway.
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Date: 2009-10-07 03:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-10-07 07:41 am (UTC)