"For every smart argument, there's a round of ad hominem attacks—not just fierce partisan feuding, but the worst kind of abusive, racist, and sexist name-calling imaginable."
The debate isn't joined. It's cheapened, it's debased... research suggests that the experience leaves readers feeling more polarized and less willing to listen to opposing views.
The problem isn't unique to National Journal; it crops up on almost every news site.
Some sites have responded by devoting substantial time and effort to monitoring and editing comments, but we'd rather put our resources into the journalism that brings readers to National Journal in the first place. So, today we'll join the growing number of sites that are choosing to forgo public comments on most stories.
They've left the comments open on that article. Sample responses:
Stifiling public discussion is not a public service. I personally never read any news web page that does not allow comments, so it looks like I won't be reading your page any more. I've just deleted you from my tool bar.
In Summary: Too many people no longer like or trust Obama. Too many comments about Obama have been negative. The press does NOT like it when you criticize their Messiah. They sure didn't seem to mind when many of the comments contained words like: bagger, Gomer, Repuli-thug and Faux News robot. Good bye comments. Good bye National Journal.
I fully support this decision and hope other news outlets will follow along. There is no reason to continue to provide the forums for hate that these comments sections have become.
I've had my struggles with the commenting over the years. Click on the "blog commenting" tag if you want to review my old discussions on that.
Posts
57 comments:
It would be interesting to see a some data collection and analysis. Has the mix of abusive comments really switched from largely anti-Republican to largely anti-Democrat? Was there some "critical mass" of anti-Obama comments? And so on.
Of course, it would take a lot of time to develop such data--and someone would have to subject themselves to all the comments.
Commenting is as much an art as blogging.
To those commenters a blog that doesn't allow comments doesn't get read. It offers no opportunity.
"Of course, it would take a lot of time to develop such data--and someone would have to subject themselves to all the comments."
And they'd be subject to bias in what they'd characterize as abusive.
"To those commenters a blog that doesn't allow comments doesn't get read. It offers no opportunity."
That's how I feel about things that can't be blogged.
I have a subscription to the NYT because I can link to it and get my readers in, but if I couldn't, I'd read something else.
We should expect chaos of emotions and irrationality when people are commenting on issues care about. There are some things which can be done to mitigate abusive commenting, but it cannot be eliminated. We shouldn't let fact that many of us are jerks shut down debate.
To me, comments are where all the action is. Usually there is one person who knows WAY more than everybody else on the given subject in the original post, and those gems are what I tend to look for rather than the petty sniping, foolish banter, and junior high debate team quality gotcha games.
Without this outlet, there will be more road rage incidents.
I read that somewhere.
Isn't NJ one of the liberal mags whose staff is almost all white?
No one read Instapundit until he opened comments?
Instapundit functions more like a Drudge - interesting links with a smidge of commentary thrown in. So he thrived without comments. (In fact, does anyone even bother with the comments over there *now?*)
People read Instapundit because he points the way to interesting posts and articles.
Meanwhile, for bloggers like McArdle, the comment community is a big chunk of the fun.
They're different niches. It's possible to thrive w/o comments, but you need to be sure of which niche you occupy before you turn them off.
"No one read Instapundit until he opened comments?"
I rarely look at the comments on Instie's; I just don't expect much, but often the first thing I do on an Althouse post that interests me is look at the comments; that may even determine whether I persist and read the original post.
Despite the occasional flame war, the commenters here a pretty intelligent bunch, both left and right, and are more entertaining and thought provoking than the actual news.
Althouse@8:00,
Comments are separate from the articles themselves. They are a free speech adjunct. No one is obligated to read them.
The gatekeeper instinct is strong in journalism. Not satisfied with the power to control the published message, "National Journal" controls the definition of an "abusive" response to what they publish.
Or ... in our budding new era of thoughtcrime, it could be as simple as lawyers having the "liability" vapors in some fashion.
Meade said...
No one read Instapundit until he opened comments?
Instapundit is more drudgeon, w/o all the dudgeon.
Besides, someone once remarked that Althouse was like Instapundit's comment section. But that was a while ago.
Instapundit is a good aggregator and keeps the flow up. So he's more of a search function for a certain kind of stuff.
What Fritz said.
"No one read Instapundit until he opened comments?"
Glenn Reynolds never had comments until recently, but when I have written to him respectfully about something that I thought he might be interested in (and didn't waste his time), he did write back. So did Norm Geras, who I actually went to lunch with when he visited NYC. By contrast, Andrew Sullivan never wrote me back on anything. So much for his "dialog".
The hit counters can tell you about the blog traffic. But how does a blogger get a feel for their readership without comments?
Ann Althouse could sponsor an "Althouse Weekend" in Madison at some local hotel. Have lectures and panel discussions with a buffet dinner and keynote speaker. Everybody could wear name tags with their Blogger handle. Cost would be $100 + discounted room rate for the weekend. If the speakers were interesting, I would show up, most definitely.
I often learn more from comments than from the original post or linked article.
The comments at Instapundit aren't very interesting for some reason.
Traditionally, he didn't have comments because the conversation was among all the bloggers. It was an interblog conversation, not intrablog, within his blog.
Unfortunately, if it's within your blog, when it's bad, it's too close to you. It's a problem. And the more good stuff there is, the more bad stuff is attracted. If it feels like a place that's getting readers, the people who want to mess it all up get excited. That's their game. It's sad that the good can't be cultivated without the bad getting stimulated. I've struggled with it for 10 years.
"And they'd be subject to bias in what they'd characterize as abusive."
If you want to do this kind of research right:
1) You have written standards for what is abusive, available to the public when the research is published.
2) Each comment is coded by two people, who hopefully are of opposite ideologies. There is then a mechanism for coming to a final decision when they disagree. Details of this mechanism are also public.
3) All final decisions (whether initially unanimous or split) are also available, from the author's website or from the website of the journal or organization that publishes the findings.
If it feels like a place that's getting readers, the people who want to mess it all up get excited. That's their game. It's sad that the good can't be cultivated without the bad getting stimulated. I've struggled with it for 10 years.
Then could you finally explain your indulgence and coddling of Crack? Because in the opinion of most of your commentors he rarely adds to the conversation and seems determined to mess things up.
How about making people pay to join the comment community? For an annual fee of just $5, you can comment on Althouse. Think about it. If you really cared about the comment community, $5 is a pittance. If you're a troll, you find a cheaper place to expose yourself.
If this regime were implemented, I wonder if garage mahal would stick around?
It's not what you say, but how you say it.
You schmuck.
And I mean that in the nicest possible way.
The other advantage to paying an annual subscription to comment is that it's cruelly neutral.
Interesting. To me, Althouse is inseparable from the comments unlike with any other blog I know. Because, I believe, the content over the years has grown a commenting community drawn to such a bizarre and rich array of topic(k)s.
Ann might disagree but I think she writes posts not only to please her BUT ALSO to provoke (maybe elicit is less provocative a word here) a comments stream that will please her as well. And that's 100% hunk dory because it works. IMHO. I'm a writer and I'm in awe of very few writers. But I love reading this blog. I love Instapundit too, but for different and complementary reasons. Sure, there are some crazies here occasionally, but overall, can anyone point to a better behaved and more intelligent, quirky, funny and engaging comments "team"? Not a rhetorical question, because if you know of another, I'd like the link.
"How about making people pay to join the comment community? For an annual fee of just $5, you can comment on Althouse. Think about it. If you really cared about the comment community, $5 is a pittance. If you're a troll, you find a cheaper place to expose yourself."
You don't know my trolls. After they paid their piddling fee, they'd claim entitlement. I'd have to build into the deal that I can cut them off at any time for any reason and the $5 is nonrefundable.
But to do any of that, I'd have to build a new website, somewhere other than here on Blogger, and I'm just not that kind of person. I'm not interested in technology and I don't want to have to figure out who I can trust. Etc etc.
The fact is, there are quite a few people who would love to screw up my blog, and I have got to defend myself. Too bad Utopia can't exist, but I would recommend appreciating what we do have.
"Ann Althouse could sponsor an 'Althouse Weekend' in Madison at some local hotel."
She would have to be (temporarily) insane to ever meet up in real life with any of her blog commenters.
"If it feels like a place that's getting readers, the people who want to mess it all up get excited. That's their game. It's sad that the good can't be cultivated without the bad getting stimulated. I've struggled with it for 10 years."
One response, as the National Journal demonstrates, is to just cut off comments. It's your blog and you have the power to do that.
And in that small example, we see the reason and necessity of the First Amendment highlighted. Your blog is yours and you can do what you want, but imagine translating that attitude to the government. The temptation has to be very high among some people who gain government control to use the same argument. Those "people who want to mess it all up" have to be controlled. They are the enemies and they need to lose their comment section. Hurray for the First Amendment and the prescience of our Founding Fathers.
Shades of this already exist, of course. Shouting down college speakers, disinviting commencement speakers, slow-walking 501(c)(4) applications, freezing out AGW skeptics. That line of argument can be used as a rationalization for just about anything.
Ann said, "I have a subscription to the NYT because I can link to it and get my readers in, but if I couldn't, I'd read something else."
I appreciate your "taking one for the team". I dropped my "state-wide" paper subscription years ago, and my local rag a year or two ago.
No one forces anyone to read any particular comments. SOB (scroll on by) people!
NJ could let the readers decide for themselves. The fact that they don't shows their controlling gatekeeper mentality.
There are a couple of lefty commenters here I never bother with. I do read garage because his comments are short and often funny for their over the top stupidity.
The Crackhole on the other hand gets the SOB treatment immediately everytime.
National Review seems to have lots of angry leftist comments. I'm glad they are there but I do skip them. Wall Street Journal has some, too, but they are mostly non subscribers. I used to read Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly and comment on some stories. Then they began to delete all my comments. The funny thing was they would leave the angry responses to my comments there. When Drum went to Mother Jones, I followed for a while because I respect him. I quickly found that my comments weren't posted so I quit reading.
I spent less time here because of the delay in posting comments but you are the boss.
"Meade said...
"Ann Althouse could sponsor an 'Althouse Weekend' in Madison at some local hotel."
She would have to be (temporarily) insane to ever meet up in real life with any of her blog commenters."
I've heard she already made that mistake once.
Over my tens years coming to Althouse, commenting and reading comments, has been something that has added greatly to my interest in coming here. Of course the variety of topics and Ann's posts are the basis. The news feeds that have traditionally lived in a liberal echo chamber have no understanding, not surprising they see debate as hate.
I'm not incredibly familiar with NJ, but did they have Disqus as their comment system? I've found that blogs that use disqus are a whole lot less trolly then livefyre. But maybe that's just me. I've mostly stopped reading sites that use livefyre because the comments are just terrible and there's always SPAM.
What makes a site start to collect trolls? Someone mentioned Megan McArdle. I love her blog and her comment section is completely intellectual. No trolls.
Sometimes moderation is frustrating, but I don't mind it as much as I thought I would.
I agree that half the fun of reading Althouse is perusing the commentariat's responses. When she turned off comments for a while the blog ceased to be anywhere near as fun.
Sorry, Professor. Just sayin'.
And although I perfectly understand Meade's observations that she would have to be (temporarily) insane to invite us all over, I myself would fly all the way from California to meet some of the most thoughtful and humorous writers I've encountered on the web.
Roger Sweeny said "Of course, it would take a lot of time to develop such data--and someone would have to subject themselves to all the comments."
Sounds like a job for the completely non-partisan folks at Vox!
When I retired from a fairly small business some years ago, I only really missed one thing - the conversation in the lunch room about whatever current event stirred our interest.
Althouse is the perfect replacement. It's sort of like the professor walking in, pointing to an article in the paper and saying, "Did you see what our esteemed senator did now?"
Kudos to A.A. for keeping it going in spite of the problem-people who sometimes show up at the table.
I like the spontaneity and vitriol of unmoderated comments. Some people, who aren't especially profound thinkers, have a genuine flair for crafting insults......If you ever wonder what people say behind your back, start a blog and post lots of pictures and personal info.
Years ago, someone surveyed Internet blogs and comments for use of Carlin's "big seven dirty words."
Lefty blogs and comments dominated by a very wide margin. Today? I suspect not so much. Most comments on news sites from both sides are uncivil recitations of talking points, frequently unrelated to the subject matter, and bereft of factual accuracy.
It's embarrassing, most particularly when you get sucked into it.
"What makes a site start to collect trolls"
This subject has always fascinated me. But in this case (the NJ) it's not really trolls, in the sense of malicious disruptive commenters – it sounds more like they just collected a bunch of stupid, nasty people who started flinging poo at each other. I've noticed that newspaper websites seem to be especially prone to this problem; for example, looking at the comments on Jennifer Rubin's blog at the WaPo I am always astounded at just how ....ANGRY!!! and unintelligent the comments are on anything she posts, as though she personally were responsible for all the ills in the commenters' lives.
Then could you finally explain your indulgence and coddling of Crack?
First law of "comments allowed" blog-hosting: Mostly ignore exhortations to "explain" stuff. Pose the question to the class and force the students to respond. The occupations people gravitate toward is no coincidence.
I read Crack. To me Crack represents unvarnished opinion. Kind of the Charles Barkley of this blog. I want pepper and a dash of Tabasco on my eggs.
It's sometimes not pretty but must everything always be pretty? Is truth pretty? Truth, to me has a certain beauty, but that's different than being pretty.
Crack is brave. I admire bravery. He's always outnumbered but he doesn't care. He's the Honey Badger, the Wolverine, the Meerkat. I like rooting for the underdog. I think he's sometimes right.
Because in the opinion of most of your commentors he rarely adds to the conversation and seems determined to mess things up.
Want a nice comfortable comment stream? There's millions of them out there. Mostly obscure blogs that quickly fade, unnoticed, dull.
She would have to be (temporarily) insane to ever meet up in real life with any of her blog commenters.
Haha. You lucky dog, you. Just figured out who your face reminds me of: John Stockton. You could be his bro.
She would have to be (temporarily) insane to ever meet up in real life with any of her blog commenters.
Tell Meade that......
I've occasionally looked in on the comments on some of the more ideological websites and the comment sections are a sewer. The comments at National Review are full of very, very angry lefties and righties seemingly trying to one-up each other with their vitriol. The comment sections at some of the news sites are even worse. Look at CNN some time - thousands of comments, of which maybe 10 aren't flaming troll bait. The one place that doesn't seem to be that way is Reason, but the libertarian echo chamber there is very, very loud.
The National Journal ends commenting...
...until the next Republican presidential administration.
I know I can be harshly sarcastic and partisan at times, even mean, and I make no apologies for it, but I try to at least keep it mostly grammatical and somewhat interesting.
NJ's comments section was just filled with swearing, cursing, racism and illiterate trash - much of which was posted by folks on "my" side of the political spectrum (and/or Mobys pretending to be). In a sense it was earned by NJ's relentless efforts to spin every Obamadisaster, and especially Ron Fournier's willfully blind screeds, but even so they were painful to read and added nothing to the conversation
"Then could you finally explain your indulgence and coddling of Crack? Because in the opinion of most of your commentors he rarely adds to the conversation and seems determined to mess things up."
My blog, my definition of what "mess" is.
My blog, my definition of what "mess" is.
This holds true across blogs.
Blogger Meade said...
"Ann Althouse could sponsor an 'Althouse Weekend' in Madison at some local hotel."
She would have to be (temporarily) insane to ever meet up in real life with any of her blog commenters.
I think we've been insulted, collectively.
However.
What in the world makes you think you haven't already.
To those commenters a blog that doesn't allow comments doesn't get read. It offers no opportunity.
Not exactly. Most the articles I see posted that are risable also happen to not allow comments. Its cowardly.
For example, a Climate Alarmist article misrepresents sea level rise to make their point. I would like to point out the error but cannot. The author has disabled comments b/c he doesn't want to get called out on his lies.
Its a way to dump propaganda into the public sphere without any pushback. Its part of the MSM gatekeeper mentality.
So I have less respect for such articles and stop bothering to read them.
Then could you finally explain your indulgence and coddling of Crack? Because in the opinion of most of your commentors he rarely adds to the conversation and seems determined to mess things up.
We went over this awhile back. Althouse once had a comment policy that only racial slurs against blacks were banned. She had to be dragged kicking and screaming to change it to protect all races.
I think its the typical white liberal guilt. She lets Crack get away with stuff she would ban the rest of us for simply because his skin color is black.
Fritz said...
"I've heard she already made that mistake once."
I rest your case.
My blog, my definition of what "mess" is.
So you really do troll your commentors.
Well at least you didn't try to come up with some lame justification.
"Then could you finally explain..."
ARS BLOGGETICA
A blog should be someone's view:
Not "true".
For all the torrents of chatter
Skip all but those who matter.
Ice cream
To all is offered, but holding no guarantee-
A blog should not mean
But be.
But you have to give both her and Meade for not censoring my rather toxic remark. She really does believe in free speech. Thats why I love her.
The internet already provides us with an artificial imitation of life. Why would we want our discourse there to offer anything less?
Wouldn't it be great, though, if in real life we could impose the same sort of immediate moderation on the other real people we're forced to encounter there that we can on the internet, sort of like the robot parole officer in Elysium.
Your water cooler mate offers an opinion you don't like and you immediately paralyze him into silence with a monotonal "Stop talking. Would you like a pill? Stop talking."
"She lets Crack get away with stuff she would ban the rest of us for simply because his skin color is black."
How do you know his skin color is black? "Crack" could just be the alter ego of a cross-dressing rancher in Utah.
You never know.
The sludge on other blog comment sections is commenters flinging filthy insults at each other. It's unbelievable to read and really boring and pointless. But why didn't they assign someone to cut off pointless-insult-threads leaving an opportunity for real argument?
Crack does have a point of view. He isn't just flinging childish insults, they are grownup insults said for a reason but they are repetitive.
Disagreement isn't a problem to me; it's interesting if the other person bothers to make an argument. Or just comments.
I'm amazed that this policy at the National Journal wasn't enacted in 2005.
The sludge on other blog comment sections is commenters flinging filthy insults at each other. It's unbelievable to read and really boring and pointless.
There is a trolling technique called "spiking the thread". Comes from the practice of spiking cannons to render them useless. In this case, the Soros Stooges are paid to spam a thread with so much filth that it becomes unreadable - the goal is to prevent commenters from reading the thread, and even the OP.
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