QOTD: Blog Comments
By Barry Ritholtz - July 25th, 2010, 2:00PM
I suspect this writer is not referring to ALL comments, just some of the less thoughtful ones:
“I basically like “comments,” though they can seem a little jarring: spit-flecked rants that are appended to a product that at least tries for a measure of objectivity and dignity. It’s as though when you order a sirloin steak, it comes with a side of maggots.”
- Gene Weingarten, columnist for the Washington Post, on how the Internet is changing print journalism.
The problem is the people that vitriol is directed at won’t recognize themselves as the maggots . . .
Tweet
Facebook
Reddit
Digg this!
July 25th, 2010 at 2:24 pm
The comment section on most blogs is a sewer where the lowest common denominator with the intellectual agility of a small soap dish flows.
July 25th, 2010 at 2:56 pm
One thing to watch out for, though, is the belief that it’s objectively clear which comments are “maggotty” and which aren’t. Everyone agrees that a lot of comments are obnoxious, clueless rubbish. Only in a modest percentage of cases does everyone (even everyone you might like) agree that a particular comment is of that sort.
The danger of false polarization is that it can be leveraged into bogusly formulated norms and rules, in effect censoring views worth hearing for no good reason.
July 25th, 2010 at 3:27 pm
Gene Weingarten is a respected Pulitzer Prize winner. He was recognized for an article on children killed by thoughtless parents, a tough subject.
The blogosphere allows individuals to participate, rather than just having spokespersons voice our collective conscience. The net brings us news, shed of its bulky newspaper husk, of worthless advertising and unnecessary pabulum. The World Wide Web lets us scan, and screen our news. It brings ideas from all over the world instead of the myopic, Americentric news of yesteryear.
Yes, and the price we pay for this democracy is scrolling through rants to get important counterpoints of the occasional savant. I join Mr. Weingarten in decrying the bad aspects of editorial democracy, unedited and unfettered.
Words do have meaning: as the great hippy poet said when he heard those famous words ‘Nice ass’. He intoned; ‘so much is lost and so much is gained in these words”.
July 25th, 2010 at 3:45 pm
That is certainly true of many comments, but the even more consequential problem is that what many columnists think is sirloin steak is really Hamburger Helper.
July 25th, 2010 at 3:46 pm
The respected Mr. Weingarten has said nothing about journolist. Silence gives consent.
You write with the driest sense of irony, Jack.
July 25th, 2010 at 3:53 pm
My guess is that Mr. Weingarten doesn’t like criticism. Sure there are a few jerks but they can be consigned to junk after a couple of tries. But those of us that comment have two choices: 1) to write a reasoned, long disseration on the subject at hand thus becoming columnists/bloggers ourselves, or 2) to write short, pithy comments that point out the wisdom or flaws of the subject at hand. In the latter case it is very pointed and thus not complete. Weingarten and the rest of you, use it and live with it. You aren’t omnipotent. Also, I await the columnist/blogger who says he’s at a loss to explain an issue.
This particular comment is too short for a dissertation and too long to be pithy. Sorry.
July 25th, 2010 at 4:09 pm
Was Weingarten expecting comment sections to not follow a bell curve distribution?
July 25th, 2010 at 4:13 pm
Weingarten’s comment makes more sense when you consider the general comment quality at most MSM websites (e.g., Yahoo TechTicker).
July 25th, 2010 at 4:54 pm
I’ve always enjoyed his humor columns. I had one email exchange with him , which may or may not shed light on his feelings about his readers ( and commenters).
One of the prizes for the winner of a weekly WaPo humor contest that he refereed was a package of something called “Smorked Beef Rectum”. I was in need of a gag birthday gift for someone who fancied himself a chef , so I sent Gene an email asking him if he knew where I could find some.
He replied very promptly , though briefly : ” I have no fucking idea “
July 25th, 2010 at 4:58 pm
Sometimes a terse carefully reasoned and unemotional post can have the desired effect. Others times not.
Other times, a little more emotional content is called for to stimulate dialog, or responses, which occasionally result in some new, good thinking and information sharing. Bloggers are only human. They have their hot buttons and senior moments.
Sometimes bland gets boring.
BR, of all people, has been known to post issues he knows will create controversy. They tend to trigger more emotional responses. These posts are frequently the ones that result in the largest number of responses.
One’s self-perceived brilliance of thought can easily be viewed by another as arrogant petulance.
That’s just how it is. NormanB got that part right.
Rather than steak and maggots as the analogy I would propose sweet and sour.
July 25th, 2010 at 5:38 pm
Take a look back at the last 3 years.
If this had occurred before the Radio, the TV and the Internet, people would have rioted in the streets and torched DC and Wall Street altogether.
In the Radio Age we sat and listened to the Fireside Chat before going about our business.
In the TV Age we watched a talking head until we flipped to Jersey Shore (or Lost depending on age/education).
In the Internet Age we hit the blogosphere and rant a bit before getting sidetracked by porn.
This comment has no point. I justed wanted provide a side of maggots.
July 25th, 2010 at 5:42 pm
Likening the mainstream media (these days) to sirloin steak is, frankly, a bit off the mark. While that may have been the case at one time, I’d now say they’re on the spectrum somewhere between McDonald’s and White Castle.
July 25th, 2010 at 7:16 pm
Invictus, please don’t impugn the fine name of McDonald’s and White Castle in that manner:)
Comments? The more the merrier. The blogosphere is a marketplace of ideas. Some of them are stupid. I’ll admit, I sometimes write things even I later think are stupid. But that’s okay. The human mind is also a marketplace of ideas. Better to sort them out and afix a price to them than keep them buried behind personal delusions and illusions, particularly of those who enjoyed something of a monopoly on the legitimacy of their stupid ideas by dint of the limited means of idea dissemination prior to the internet.
July 25th, 2010 at 7:22 pm
I wouldn’t be that surprised if I ordered something form McDonald’s or White Castle and it came with maggots.
July 25th, 2010 at 7:53 pm
Maggots, when grown sterile, do a great job of cleaning necrotic tissue thus allowing healthy cells to grow. As for the comment sections on many blogs, let’s just say they could use some maggots!
July 25th, 2010 at 7:56 pm
Well, the nice thing about “commenting” is that it lets you exhibit mob mentality without the inconvenience and potential danger of joining a mob.
Having said that, “posting” isn’t a panacea either. My wife noted that a relatively famous historical romance author raved on her blog that she thought that anyone who wrote “fan fiction” using her characters was lower than child molesters.
Turned out 99% of said fan fiction was written because readers loved the characters, not for any financial gain. Much of it was arguably better than the original (which by the author’s own admission, was lifted from someone else’s characters). Isn’t irony wonderful?
Anyway, guess who lost all of her biggest fans, with a single post?
I thought maggots were good for you now. Or is that leaches?
July 25th, 2010 at 8:12 pm
A good comment section must be tended and weeded. Some are better at it than others. This site does an excellent job.
But most don’t and I’m not even sure why they bother with comments. Yahoo news comes to mind.
Jack
July 25th, 2010 at 8:38 pm
Goldilocksisableachblond, If I’m not mistaken, I think that’s what French call Andouille.
July 25th, 2010 at 8:41 pm
I ran my own blog for about 10 minutes last year. My most popular post was a legal analysis of the Henry Louis Gates arrest in Cambridge (remember the “Beer Summit”?) under Mass. criminal law. It attracted extremely minor attention on a couple of progressive blogs (e.g., TalkLeft) and there was some cross-posted commentary to my blog. But for all the time and effort I had put into my post (I even got permission from an artist to use a great illustration of his), the commentary was disappointing and devolved into a food fight between liberal progressives trying to outdo each other. It sucked.
I’ve learned so much about blogosphere media reading and commenting on TBP it’s incredible. Jesus, like somebody commented above: have you ever read through the absolute drek comments on CNN.com, Yahoo!, or even your local city paper? Crikey!
But Barry, there’s something going on here that I would encourage you to look very closely at. It’s what Invictus is alluding to. The MSM online media wants to be you, Barry. I’m not even kidding. Don’t take the bait. Anybody else been noticing a meme in the last couple of months about news sites reining in obnoxious commenters? The Boston Globe did a piece on it a few weeks back, and CNN.com and others have also picked it up. Yves Smith wrote a discouraged post a week or so ago on Naked Capitalism where she actually quoted Barry’s posting rules because she doesn’t like the direction comments have taken. It’s worth a read to get some interesting secondhand insights into Barry’s philosophy on comments (e.g., “Embrace the churn.”):
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2010/07/reader-notice-2-comments-policy.html
But the worst comment threads I’ve ever seen on TBP in the 2+ years I’ve been a faithful reader — usually politically laden subjects (like a certain climate phenomenon) — are infinitely better than the best comment threads I’ve ever seen on MSM sites the Boston Globe, Herald, WSJ, or cnn.com. I’ll say it again: the MSM sites want to be Barry. And I’m very concerned that their real agenda in all of this supposed discussion about civility is really censorship.
July 25th, 2010 at 8:44 pm
“The problem is the people that vitriol is directed at won’t recognize themselves as the maggots . . .”
er, in the example stated the writer’s opinion piece is the steak and the comments are the maggots. Or possibly the writer is the steak and the commenters, etc. etc. Maggots, trolls, whatever.
July 25th, 2010 at 9:09 pm
“How’s this for optimism?
Half of journalists think the print publications (or TV/radio stations) they work for will eventually fold.
That’s according to a new report by the Oriella PR Network.
The report, Oriella’s Digital Journalism Study 2010, polled more than 770 journalists from Europe, the United States, and Latin America, and came to the conclusion that “journalists are gradually acclimatising to the pressures of juggling the demands of web and print media and, for the first time, view new media as an asset, not a hindrance, to news-gathering and presentation.”
A few more highlights from the poll:…”
http://www.businessinsider.com/study-journalists-starting-to-accept-the-fact-that-their-print-publications-will-eventually-fold-2010-7
“The corporate media would still be in business, and the blog-o-sphere not even exist, if the media had remembered that their self-appointed task was to be a watchdog on the abuses of government.
Nobody likes a liar.”– Micheal Rivero
http://whatreallyhappened.com/
~~
But, G-d knows, We’re unable to ‘consider the Source’..
July 25th, 2010 at 9:21 pm
here’s the un-redacted version..
“How’s this for optimism?
Half of journalists think the print publications (or TV/radio stations) they work for will eventually fold.
That’s according to a new report by the Oriella PR Network.
The report, Oriella’s Digital Journalism Study 2010, polled more than 770 journalists from Europe, the United States, and Latin America, and came to the conclusion that “journalists are gradually acclimatising to the pressures of juggling the demands of web and print media and, for the first time, view new media as an asset, not a hindrance, to news-gathering and presentation.”
A few more highlights from the poll:…”
http://www.businessinsider.com/study-journalists-starting-to-accept-the-fact-that-their-print-publications-will-eventually-fold-2010-7
~~
Transor,
here: “…their real agenda in all of this supposed discussion about civility is really censorship.”
“Bank It.”
and, the flip-side of ‘censorship’, ‘invasion of privacy’ ..
http://epic.org/cgibin/mt/mt-search.cgi?IncludeBlogs=10&search=censorship
July 25th, 2010 at 10:10 pm
“Gene Weingarten is outrageously funny. I mean that literally: He is guaranteed to outrage some readers. ”
“Below the Beltway examines life in all its absurdity. It good-naturedly traffics in ridicule, character assassination, and intelligent smart-aleckry.”
I can’t imagine why this sniveling brat would whine about comments on his articles, can anyone else??
July 25th, 2010 at 11:07 pm
“Goldilocksisableachblond, If I’m not mistaken, I think that’s what French call Andouille.”
Thanks , Darkness. Too bad I didn’t know that at the time , maybe I could have located some.
I even tried to find DIY directions for smorking your own rectum , but no luck there either.
I did come across a bunch of other , related DIY directions , but they had nothing to do with fine dining.
July 26th, 2010 at 8:01 am
Anonymity and virtual communication eliminate the barriers that keep our base instincts in check in personal social interactions. What I mostly see is people acting out their unresolved sense of powerlessness as they attack others in what can only be described as an orgy of intellectual and emotional violence. There is a sense that somehow if they can just destroy those who disagree with them, somehow the sun will shine and the world will be right. The sense of proportion or perspective is entirely lost in this 2-dimensional medium, and people become cartoons and caricatures of thoughtful human beings trying to resolve differences.
Of course, I could get the same experience observing in the gallery at the U.S. Capitol.
July 26th, 2010 at 8:56 am
- Gene Weingarten said
“I basically like “comments,” though they can seem a little jarring: spit-flecked rants that are appended to a product that at least tries for a measure of objectivity and dignity. It’s as though when you order a sirloin steak, it comes with a side of maggots.”
reply;
———–
Get a life. I never read them. I barely read my own comments before pressing Submit.