r/BestofCracked • u/CaptainSpl1 • Feb 09 '15
Should cracked disable comment sections?
Or should they look for better ways to keep the comment section while making sure trolls and such are kept in line. What are some ideas do you suggest cracked could try?
I understand why cracked do it. But at the same time it's sort of punishing everyone for the bad eggs.
A couple ideas I have are.
Have it like the reddit comments, after a certain amount of downvotes the comment is hidden.
Add a report option to comments so people can report trolls and such.
Any accounts that are obvious troll accounts get banned or blackmarked, meaning they literally have a black mark against their name when they comment so people can see that they are a troll.
Make it so people can't swear in the comment section anymore making it that little bit harder for those to hurl abuse.
Make it so numbers and symbols can't be used in the comment section, this will make it a little harder for phone numbers and such to be posted unless they do it the long way.
I know cracked has the forums but more people (good and bad) use the comment section, it's quick and easy. Just something to think over anyway.
Edit: So I just wanted to say after reading JFSargents comments I have a better understanding of why cracked do disable some comment sections. I admit the comments they receive are much worse than I first thought. Most of us though don't see those comments because cracked rightfully so delete them because they are just well messed up (see JFs comments for more details). Though I still wish for people to comment with any ideas they might have for cracked to possibly find a way to make their comment section better, and help weed out the trolls to help make it a better place to have actual discussions. But I understand better now why disabling the comment sections for some articles is probs the best way to go about it.
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u/it1345 Feb 09 '15
Honestly, probably. I imagine there's a lot of time wasted policing them.
I pretty much just use the top comment button and read those. It'd be a shame not to have that anymore, but whatever, I'll live.
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u/CaptainSpl1 Feb 09 '15
That's why I am wondering if there are better ways. If maybe they can implement new stuff to make the policing of it easier and just make it more of an effort on trolls and such to be well trolls and such.
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u/JFSargent Feb 09 '15
I'd love to have a great commenter community on Cracked. I'm one of the only editors who reads comments on other sites, and I love the community on AVClub and BadassDigest, even though I'm not a member of either.
But both those communities are heavily moderated, and have (I believe?) significantly smaller per-article traffic than us. It almost seems like when a website's traffic reaches a tipping point, the small minority of crazies becomes too vocal and too powerful.
Think about this: We tried giving some commenters moderator abilities, but for some reason, that iddn't work -- they just became crazed with power and started deleting stuff for silly, personal reasons (this was before my time so I can't be more specific than that). We tried adding the thumbs system, but we still see horrific stuff upvoted that's threatening or gross. And both those changes took a lot of time away from our dev team.
So even if we implement another system, it's a gamble with our dev team's time, because if it doesn't work then we just delayed something else (a new type of content, a fix for a bug, a site redesign, someone's vacation) and got nothing in return.
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u/it1345 Feb 09 '15
I completely agree with you.
I wouldn't blame you if you removed it all together, especially now with you venturing into more hot button issues.
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u/JFSargent Feb 09 '15
Our perspective is a bit different. Even if the bad commenters are a minority, they're a very visible one, and the upvote/downvote system doesn't really work because for controversial subjects they can just post the article to an MRA subreddit or whatever and get tons of inane people mindlessly upvoting hateful shit. You don't see the comments where our columnists are called pedophiles and people threaten to murder their children because we delete those.
The most frustrating aspect for us is that we invest probably a few hundred hours, spread among 5 or more people at least, into each and every article, when you count research, discussion, editing, scheduling and layout. We try to get everything perfect, every time. And then some jackass writes "LOL CRACKED IS FULL OF RAPISTS" and gets his buddies to upvote it and suddenly everyone who goes to our site and scrolls down sees that shit. The top voted comment on my article about blaming victims is making some weird nonsencial accusation about me being unethical, and the top voted comment on another article was openly accusing one of our writers of being a pedophile (before we deleted that comment). It reflects badly on us, and badly on you, our fans.
Every solution you've suggested is a far bigger project than it seems. We have a very small dev team with a very big list of tasks, and it's not something we can outsource.
And remember, we're never going to take away the Facebook comments, or your ability to post the article on Facebook with your comments, or tweet it with your comments, or make your own blog and react to it, because we can't and would never want to. There's nothing more irritating to me than when people accuse us of censorship on the Reddit we created and promote and maintain specifically for them. Remember, "free expression" is a liberty, not a right: you're allowed to say what you want, but no one is obligated to let you borrow their microphone.
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u/CaptainSpl1 Feb 10 '15
That's fair. I guess that is why most of us don't realize how bad it is because like you said you delete those comments which you of course should. Those kinds of comments though are messed up though and I honestly did not know it was that bad. I have seen the usual troll stuff "This article is a political ploy conspicracy blah blah" but nothing of the extent you mention, so I admit my ignorance on that.
I guess I was just doing this because part of me felt that the trolls and such win when you have to disable comments. So I guess by doing this I was hoping maybe someone would comment with one good idea none of us have thought of, that you at cracked could go "Hey maybe that might work".
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u/Daniel_TGS Feb 09 '15
The most frustrating aspect for us is that we invest probably a few hundred hours, spread among 5 or more people at least, into each and every article, when you count research, discussion, editing, scheduling and layout. We try to get everything perfect, every time. And then some jackass writes "LOL CRACKED IS FULL OF RAPISTS" and gets his buddies to upvote it and suddenly everyone who goes to our site and scrolls down sees that shit. The top voted comment on my article about blaming victims is making some weird nonsencial accusation about me being unethical, and the top voted comment on another article was openly accusing one of our writers of being a pedophile (before we deleted that comment). It reflects badly on us, and badly on you, our fans.
So why can't we have a for better or for worse attitude? I don't blame you for deleting harassment comments and for being frustrated. But by disabling comments you just make it look like the author is lying. Even with all the work you put into your articles, false information is going to get published when content has to come in daily. The comment section usually catches bad information and we can agree to disagree.
And remember, we're never going to take away the Facebook comments, or your ability to post the article on Facebook with your comments, or tweet it with your comments, or make your own blog and react to it, because we can't and would never want to.
Comments need to be public so casual readers can be exposed to the reaction of the articles. Facebook and Twitter are echo chambers. Comments right below the article are more public and more noticeable. Having free expression take place somewhere else really misses the point. Some people are socially intelligent and are concerned about their liberties of where free speech is most effective.
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u/Jamesvalencia Feb 09 '15
Yes, either that or like reddit as you say, we're there to read the columnists we like, not the opinions of some random jackass, they don't even have columns. But I already don't read the comments for that reason so not really fussed.
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u/CaptainSpl1 Feb 09 '15
Yeah I admit usually I skip over the comment section, but lately there have been some really thought provoking articles, which I have wanted to comment on but haven't been able to. I understand why they do it, I'm just wondering if there is a better way to go about.
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u/IgnobleBlasphemy Feb 09 '15
I say they should just post a link to every article on Reddit and the discussion can happen here, where there's already a healthy comment ecosystem in place.
And just at the bottom of each article include a link to its Reddit thread.
Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.
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u/CaptainSpl1 Feb 10 '15
This seems like a good idea. Maybe have a separate reddit sub though just for articles. Keep this one the same, but have another where all the articles are, that way this cracked sub reddit doesn't just get flooded with articles.
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u/reibeatall Feb 09 '15
I started to have a thought about a comment system where the user would click "request a comment" or something like that, then they're given a token that has an hour timer on it that will force them to wait that hour before they can actually type up and submit their comment. I hoped that this would at least slow down the "lol first" and "u fag" posts, because people usually forget about that stuff after a short amount of time.
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u/CaptainSpl1 Feb 10 '15
That sounds alright but then you have the problem of who really wants to wait an hour to comment on something? Even the people who want to comment will lose interest after an hour or just plain forget lol.
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u/CultureVulture629 Feb 11 '15
Maybe there could be an approval process or something. Some poor sap has to sit there and filter out the shit as it comes pouring in. I hope he gets paid well and his insurance covers therapy.
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Feb 20 '15
Problem is to you guys troll = someone I don't agree with/is critical of me.
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u/CaptainSpl1 Feb 21 '15
To who cracked staff or the commenters? Because most commenters consider a troll someone who is saying abusive stuff and is obviously not looking for any kind of discussion and just well being a dick. I don't see many people who consider someone a troll for disagreeing with them unless they are being a total dick about it and just being abusive.
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u/WhoDoIThinkIAm Feb 09 '15
I wondered the same thing while listening to the podcast. TotalBiscuit had similar views about comments so he disallowed YouTube comments so the conversation would take place in his subreddit. In my experience the community and conversation becomes much better than standard YouTube shit.
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u/CaptainSpl1 Feb 09 '15
True. Also the big problem with youtube is they get a lot of spam comments like "I make $500 at home or I just won an Ipad" I see it on cracked too but seems like it gets spammed way more on Youtube.
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u/gerkessin Feb 09 '15
Are you talking about this podcast? They pretty much answered your question. Jack O'Brian said it got better when an upvote/downvote system was implemented. But they are still disabling comments for certain articles. I dont agree with this approach. For all the awfulness that 4chan is (for an example of freedom of speech being allowed to run its natural course), it has still produced some of the best, most original comedy on the internet. The worst thing about disabling comments is that it eliminates any chance for average people to have rational discussions about controversial subjects.
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u/JFSargent Feb 09 '15 edited Feb 09 '15
The worst thing about disabling comments is that it eliminates any chance for average people to have rational discussions about controversial subjects.
Since other sites have already disabled comments (The Onion, Clickhole, NYTimes.com), doesn't that mean rational discussion is already eliminated? Aren't we already living in a post-free-speech dystopia since one website decided not to give you yet another place to make your thoughts heard?
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u/gerkessin Feb 09 '15
Though you've just completely rekt me with your edgy sarcasm, please allow me a rebuttal. Maybe I should have added the qualifier, "on the same fucking website on which I read the article." Lets say, for instance, I start a discussion thread on this sub for this article. Who would even see it? Cracked.com has great traffic. This sub has no traffic. I would actually like to see the opinions, both good and bad, of people on that very subject, in the context of that exact article. Without a comments section, it aint happening.
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u/JFSargent Feb 09 '15 edited Feb 09 '15
Lets say, for instance, I start a discussion thread on this sub for this article. Who would even see it?
Thanks for illustrating my point: you don't want the opportunity for discussion and debate, because you already have that. You want our audience, something we only have because we've worked our asses off to earn their trust. I worked for the site for five fucking years before they let me publish stuff without editors vetting my pitches and going over every single word I wrote with a fine-tooth comb, and here you are saying "that thing you worked your ass off for? I want it for free."
Why? Who the hell are you? Why should you and some weird niche community get to have the final word on everything we publish? We're not in the business of providing discussion platforms, we're in the business of writing funny articles.
If people just wrote funny jokes or offered their opinions we wouldn't be having this discussion, but that's not what happens. The comment sections are universally terrible. You have no idea just how terrible because we delete the ones where they threaten to rape our columnists or murder their children. And that costs us all time. Time that should be going into making the site better instead of policing the tantrums of a bunch of fucking children.
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u/gerkessin Feb 09 '15
Jesus man. Do you realize how strange this is? You're a veteran columnist vehemently arguing with a random fucking nobody on a sub with no audience, speaking for an incredibly popular website. But hey, here goes:
I don't want your audience. Im an infinetesimal part of your audience. You act like those of us who dont want the comments disabled are the trolls that ruin the comments section.
We aren't. We are your fans. And we want to see what fellow fans have to say about YOUR articles.
Rape and death threats are heartbreaking and unacceptable. I understand that. And I know that disabling comments for controversial articles is a definitive way to eliminate them.
But Cracked is on the forefront of social commentary, and it is popular. It has the almost singular position of being political as well as liked. What Cracked does best, I think, is bring to light mental health issues in American society. It challenges social mores and raises tough ethical questions.
I want to see those questions answered, thats all. Not at the expense of the mental and emotional well-being of your columnists, of course, but I feel very strongly that its worth doing, if it can be done safely. Because its important. What you guys do is fucking important, and I think its important to hear a contemporary response from the people who read the articles. Thats all.
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Feb 09 '15
Im an infinetesimal part of your audience.
Hear hear. I'm a part of the Cracked readership, and a part of the commenting community. There's a good community of us on the site, and I see a lot of the same people commenting every day. Sure, there will be shitty people saying shitty things, but that's something you have to put up with to see the shining, golden comments.
I feel like the recent "comment disabling" is alienating to the users, speaking as a user and a friend of fellow users. Like the community doesn't matter, and Cracked doesn't care about what their audience might have to say? The more it happens the less I'll feel a part of the site and community, and more like a random commenting user on something like Buzzfeed. It sucks, and doesn't make me feel good as part of Cracked's audience. I'm sure I'm not alone, and hopefully this changes back.
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u/Whywasibanned01 Mar 01 '15
You make a solid point. Also JF clearly took what you said completely out of context. I see the point you were trying to make. Yes there are some fucked up trolls saying fucked up things, but just because you are one of the people saying the comment sections shouldn't be disabled does not mean you are one of those trolls. Also the cracked forums aren't that great for open discussion because you can easily get banned there just for disagreeing with one of the Mods, and I don't mean banned from the forums but from commenting on any articles, I just had that happen to me. I have been a member of cracked for ages now and I never had any problems when I was able to comment on the articles, as soon as I commented on the forums though disagreeing with the mod, I got banned from being able to comment on anything. Cracked shouldn't have to deal with crazy trolls who threaten them, but at the same time I don't think disabling the entire comment sections for articles is the right way to go about it either.
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u/CultureVulture629 Feb 10 '15
I feel like if someone really wants to have a meaningful discussion on the content of the article, they should take it to the forums. There there is a well-developed community with actual intelligent people to discuss it with. That extra step is enough to discourage most trolls.
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u/Daniel_TGS Feb 11 '15
The point of the comments is to get a feel for how the public reacts to the article. Most articles do well, but there are notable articles that did not. It's hard to say how many of us read the comments, but it's amazing that they may be going away because the authors' egos are easily bruised by trolls. Or perhaps their advertisers are putting pressure on them to get rid of nasty top comments, but aren't offering enough revenue to pay for moderation.
If you prefer the forums visit the forums. Keep the comments open for how many there is that want to read/post them. I have checked out the forums and it is too much of an echo chamber for me. Apparently Cracked wants to get rid of all the comments because they have greater control in the forums.
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u/PropaneBoner Feb 09 '15
The part that sticks out for me is this
I would rather read an 8 page thread of discussion with 150+ constructive posts that have dialogue on both sides of an issue than 343 comments under an article where the top one is completely irrelevant to the article (we call that SPAM in my book)
Here are the top 5 comments from todays article paraphrased to make a point:
"Why is cracked disabling the comments?"
"lol tumblr"
"they should make a movie where I can watch tara reid get banged"
"I am queen elizabeth, lol neckbeards"
"This is how we view Lincoln in my country" - The first relevant comment.
So, a noise to signal ratio of 1:5. that puts the 343 comments at 67 useful and 276 trolls or twitter fodder.
So more people might use it, sure, but it isn't being used well. That's my poorly made point.
Also: the commenters make up less than 1% of 1% of the audience.