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posted by azrael on Tuesday July 01 2014, @06:42PM   Printer-friendly
from the change-your-discussion-options-as-appropriate dept.

The article How common are cruel comments posted to online news sites?, suggests that more than 20% of forum comments were uncivil. Some topics were worse than others:

As might be expected, stories that focused on well-known leaders with clear partisan positions garnered more impolite comments. In stories that quoted President Barack Obama, for example, nearly 1 in 3 comments were uncivil.

Sports discussions are worst of all. However:-

The researchers noted one cause for optimism in their findings. When one commenter was directly replying to another commenter, they were more likely to be courteous.

"We tend to be more respectful in our public discourse when we recognize other citizens' perspectives, even when we do not agree with them," noted Kate Kenski, associate professor of communication at the University of Arizona and co-author of the study. "When we quote others participating in an online discussion, we tend to focus on their arguments, not on personal attributions, which makes the conversation more civil."

Does this indicate that threaded forums - in which replies are nominally directed at one person - produce the most civil discourse?

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  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday July 01 2014, @06:55PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 01 2014, @06:55PM (#62609)

    "that more than 20% of forum comments were uncivil."

    Thats all? In some social groups, trash talking is a high art form. In the tech world we have "yo mamma" jokes, like the Zune, and 12 year old kids on xbox playing FPS as "real gamers" and stuff like that.

    Also, having glanced at my local newspaper, I would say at least 80% of the comments are paid political astroturfers shouting slogans, so I'm assuming that was categorized as BAU and the remaining 20% were trollin'

  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 01 2014, @06:58PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 01 2014, @06:58PM (#62611)

    > Does this indicate that threaded forums - in which replies are nominally directed at one person - produce the most civil discourse?

    You are quite possibly onto something, old chap!

    • (Score: 2, Funny) by VLM on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:14PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:14PM (#62631)

      "in which replies are nominally directed at one person - produce the most civil discourse"

      I donno, that Anonymous Coward guy catches absolute hell sometimes... BTW your momma uses a Zune...

    • (Score: 1) by cykros on Wednesday July 02 2014, @02:10PM

      by cykros (989) on Wednesday July 02 2014, @02:10PM (#63056)

      I'm a little dubious about this, given how flametastic Usenet can get, but then, Usenet has kind of fallen into a weird niche in many areas, and I can't really speak to how it was as much in the "good old days".

      There is something to be said for flat forums in tight night, smaller groups, with moderate enough traffic that at least sections of it can be followed relatively thoroughly. They help to keep discussion on track, and ensure you're not just going down the tangent rabbithole. As things get bigger, though, threading can help keep things remotely orderly, and separate out the comments into smaller groups of people, rather than just one big pipeline of comment vomit.

      Right tool, right job, etc etc.

      • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday July 02 2014, @07:03PM

        by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday July 02 2014, @07:03PM (#63200) Journal

        Complicating the situation is that different categories of people have different levels of "dischordant" conversation. And this also varies with how emotionally invested someone is in a situation. E.g., I would only get emotional about sports if I were compelled to pay attention to it.

        I don't really doubt that the effect that they detected is real, or that threaded lists tend to be more courteous. But the question is really the size of the effect compared to the size of other effects. E.g., I doubt that a threaded but unmoderated list would be very civil, though for properly selected groups of people it might well be. Especially if the people weren't anonymous, and knew each other outside the list. But note the impingement of other factors which also act to moderate the tone of conversation.

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  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday July 01 2014, @06:59PM

    by frojack (1554) on Tuesday July 01 2014, @06:59PM (#62612) Journal

    "We tend to be more respectful in our public discourse when we recognize other citizens' perspectives, even when we do not agree with them," noted Kate Kenski, associate professor of communication at the University of Arizona and co-author of the study. "When we quote others participating in an online discussion, we tend to focus on their arguments, not on personal attributions, which makes the conversation more civil."

    Right there is reason enough to ban AC postings.

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    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Tork on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:01PM

      by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:01PM (#62615)
      Am I the only one that doesn't find that AC's are a waste of time? I've found them quite civil here and, frankly, even on the Green Site I bumped into quite a few respectable AC posts. Was I just lucky over the last 15 years?
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      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:07PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:07PM (#62622)

        "Am I the only one that doesn't find that AC's are a waste of time?"

        If I post something at all in conflict with the Powers That Be, I sure
        as hell am not going to do it as anything other an a AC.

        • (Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:19PM

          by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:19PM (#62634)
          I do it the same way. I was actually mod-bombed to the point of being banned from Slashdot once after criticizing Apple back in 2005. (For those who are unaware: Before a bunch of people stood in line for an iPhone the Slashdot Groupthink loved everything Apple did. They were the 'underdog'. Yes, they were that zealous about it.) Lesson learned, huh.
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          • (Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday July 01 2014, @08:00PM

            by frojack (1554) on Tuesday July 01 2014, @08:00PM (#62665) Journal

            So far we haven't seen the mod armies that the green site managed to build. Some say they were corporate sponsors to those armies, others say they were all just fanboys trawling for anything contrary to their chosen god.

            Folks there often had hundreds of accounts, one or five of which were bound to have mod points on any given day.

            And the thing was, the Green site knew this was happening as our fearless leader discovered surfing the slash code and discovering all the user mapping that was happening. (Of course the staff there on greensite wasn't opposed to jumping into the fray and modding people into oblivion either).

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            • (Score: 2, Insightful) by hellcat on Tuesday July 01 2014, @08:58PM

              by hellcat (2832) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 01 2014, @08:58PM (#62694) Homepage

              ACs have their place. But they should probably state WHY they need the anonymity.

              The green site and soy are pioneering crowd-sourced editing. Organic. Dynamic.

              But if green has been coopted, the same thing can happen here.

              Not only do we have to guard against special interests undermining the system of total freedom (almost anarchy) but we must assume responsibilities for ourselves. We should be able to find a poster if it's an important position.

              That said - I use a 'handle' here, so it's almost like being an AC. It would take some work to find the real me.

              • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Tuesday July 01 2014, @10:32PM

                by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Tuesday July 01 2014, @10:32PM (#62750) Homepage

                You know you've hit it big when you have ACs shitting up the place with Trollkore and Goatse ASCII art, or elaborate but copy-paste tales of cophrophagy in the library bathroom downtown or being forced to perform oral sex on Blacks at the gym.

                I think SN admins should let ACs be for now, and then have a party when SN gets big enough to attract Common Shitposters ( Coprodactylus Vulgaris ) and then we can all circle-jerk around a meta article asking how oh how should we fix it.

                And no, an occasional AC troll with original content like we've been seeing so far is not a reason to ban ACs.

              • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday July 02 2014, @07:11PM

                by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday July 02 2014, @07:11PM (#63205) Journal

                Sorry, but that's not a reasonable approach. Explaining why you need to post anonymously can itself cause problems. Better to just start them off really low (0 is probably good enough) and then depend on moderation to increase their standing.

                OTOH, I think that scores should be allowed to go higher. 25 isn't unreasonable. People seem to get mod points often enough that that seems desirable, and really, that's sufficient to allow really good posts to really stand out.

                Still, to make this more useful it should be easier to dynamically change the level of score at which you want to stop seeing posts. And perhaps remove the bar on moderating posts in a discussion to which you also post. But make it, say, 3 times as expensive. And only allow the mods to be either overrated or underrated.

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            • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday July 02 2014, @12:31AM

              by Thexalon (636) on Wednesday July 02 2014, @12:31AM (#62792)

              The mod armies didn't just exist for commercial causes, but also political ones: I distinctly remember a day when I posted something that demonstrated conclusively that an anti-AGW's post was pure nonsense, and that the poster knew it was nonsense, and shortly thereafter every single post I had made in the last few days went to -1 (in some cases starting from +5).

              Not saying there weren't crews of mods controlled by Apple or MS or Google, but some of them I'm pretty sure were people who actually believed in the conclusion even if they were making bogus arguments to support said conclusion.

              --
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              • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday July 02 2014, @04:23AM

                by kaszz (4211) on Wednesday July 02 2014, @04:23AM (#62850) Journal

                Guess a new filter in the forum engine would be to reject drastic down modding of a specific user. Especially when the post has been around for a certain amount of time. So any user that gets a lot of posts down modded would then alert the forum engine to lower the capability of any moderators involved with said down modding.

        • (Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:49PM

          by frojack (1554) on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:49PM (#62656) Journal

          Why?

          Do you think that some random name is any less traceable than AC when three letter agencies grab SoylentNew's computers from the hosting company and leave a copy of the warrant taped to the rack? Your IP is logged in the web logs anyway.

          Pick a name, any name, set up a free off shore email, and post so that others can reply to you.

          One posting as AC does so out of disrespect for the SN community, and usually to troll without having any of their own thrown feces bouncing back and sticking to them.

          The stuff I've posted in conflict with the powers that be both here and on that green site have never caused me any trouble other than a karma hit now and then. Being in conflict with the powers that be is more and more a badge of honor. Screw them!

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          • (Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:52PM

            by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:52PM (#62658)
            I assumed he meant the local community, where posting the wrong opinion can get you banned.
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            • (Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday July 01 2014, @08:04PM

              by frojack (1554) on Tuesday July 01 2014, @08:04PM (#62666) Journal

              When you say "local community" do you mean SoylentNews, or East Rutherford New Jersey, poster's home town?

              Because posting AC still shows up in the logs complete with IP address and platform and choice of browser.
              See http://stats.soylentnews.org/piwik/index.php?module=CoreAdminHome&action=optOut&language=en [soylentnews.org]

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              • (Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday July 01 2014, @08:14PM

                by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 01 2014, @08:14PM (#62671)
                I mean Soylent news. You're welcome to browse my history and see my modded down comment titled "Kelvar Blankets" for an example. It's obvious the post was modded down for disagreement and if that happens enough times I'll get banned.
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                • (Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday July 02 2014, @12:45AM

                  by frojack (1554) on Wednesday July 02 2014, @12:45AM (#62796) Journal

                  Doubt you will get banned.

                  Everybody gets modded disagree occasionally. Sad but true, some people can't stand to have another opinion expressed.

                  When I mod, I always keep a few points as long as I can to undo those disagree mods.

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          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 01 2014, @08:09PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 01 2014, @08:09PM (#62668)

            I think "the powers that be" mentioned here isn't the usual boogeyman three-letter agencies that people get their paranoid/see-how-counter-culture-I-am panties in a wad, I think it has more to do with saying stuff that goes against the hive mentality. Let's say one thinks that out of the 10,000 people who work for the NSA, you think a good chunk of them are fighting the good fight regarding overseas intelligence. Or let's say that you think Snowden sold out his country by indiscriminately giving away all those foreign intel secrets. You're just not allowed to take certain positions, no matter how well thought out or argued, and sometimes it is easier to bring up these topics as AC without paying the price (how many times do you think Cold Fjord gets automatically down-modded? I see more people complaining about him than I see comments from him. Maybe he is a troll, maybe not, but his comments are typically done with supporting arguments and they are almost always "against the grain" of the hive, so to speak).

            If you think posting AC disrespects the site, then you obviously put too much weight into yours and other non-AC comments. The fact that one can anonymously create an account on a free site does not give any credibility over someone who simply doesn't care to create an account or log in. It is like those many phpBB forums where people get all worked up about listing post numbers next to their avatars, or the ones where you get certain GIF "awards" for status listed by their avatars. Someone is no less the fool after making 15,000 posts than they are after their first.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 01 2014, @08:21PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 01 2014, @08:21PM (#62677)

            Nice rant but I'm pretty sure by "powers that be" he was talking referring to the Slashdot groupthink

          • (Score: 1) by fliptop on Tuesday July 01 2014, @08:33PM

            by fliptop (1666) on Tuesday July 01 2014, @08:33PM (#62681) Journal

            Being in conflict with the powers that be is more and more a badge of honor. Screw them!

            This. I have never posted AC, here or on /.. I rarely read AC comments. And I can count on one finger the number of times I've modded an AC comment up, no matter how worthy it may be. If you are afraid of groupthink pulling your karma down, or too lazy to log in, or whatever your reason, to me it indicates you're unwilling to stand behind your opinion. If that's the case then why should I bother? If I were at a social gathering discussing a hot-button topic like politics or religion, I wouldn't waste any time arguing w/ someone who's wearing a mask.

            Well, maybe if it were a masquerade party...

            The rare occasion I find myself reading an AC comment would be a situation where, say there's a topic, "Comcast voted worst company in U.S." And someone who works at Comcast posts (as AC, obviously) the horrid things he's been told to do, what their corporate world is really like, etc. I would probably read that. But I wouldn't mod it up.

            --
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            • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 02 2014, @02:35AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 02 2014, @02:35AM (#62821)

              And I can count on one finger the number of times I've modded an AC comment up, no matter how worthy it may be.

              So you not only add no value to this site, you apparently remove value from this site. AND you're proud of it. Yeeesh! And I bet you figure you're doing it the "right" way.

            • (Score: 2) by elf on Wednesday July 02 2014, @11:30AM

              by elf (64) on Wednesday July 02 2014, @11:30AM (#62955)

              I believe in modding the comment rather than the person, whether you are AC or a named person doesn't really matter as its the conversation that matters.

              People have their reasons for going AC, I don't really care (in a positive way). Some people feel AC's are cowards (hence the name!) and they are entitled to mod / not mod because of that (its a free world!).

              This site is good because there is diversity in what people believe in and this creates an interesting set of comments, and hopefully in the future when mod point allocations are resolved we will see more modding to show the views of this diverse selection of people.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 02 2014, @02:17PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 02 2014, @02:17PM (#63060)

              My wife and I use AC style comments to vent off. Usually it is when I do not want to hear the other end of the comment. I just want to spout off and move on. I do not want to get dragged into a 3 week battle of wits with some 14 year old and how good their google skills are.

              I use them a lot. But not all the time. As I know my 'internet image' is key to future jobs too. Do not think for a second no one would google you. They *all* do it. I put up with it, as I like to have money.

              However take for example your 'name' fliptop. How is that any better than the AC name? I put my real name in my field. I am honest about my AC comments. They usually are off group think. As that is a good way to end up with a stalker (had 2 who would mod bomb me).

              to me it indicates you're unwilling to stand behind your opinion.
              You would be wrong. Have you *ever* had your opinion changed because of an thread conversation on a site such as this? No, you probably dug in and started googling to find *anything* to support your positions.

              Posted this AC just to have a bit o irony rubbed in here so you can see why you are wrong. Plus I am pissed off at 3 people at work who took down 3 racks of computers went home and left 5 people standing around unable to work :)

            • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday July 02 2014, @07:18PM

              by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday July 02 2014, @07:18PM (#63209) Journal

              I don't recall ever posting as an Anonymous Coward,...well, not since I got my Slashdot signin. But I still think that Anonymous Coward is a valuable id. And I don't think the IP for them should be logged. (Yeah, the NSA will know anyway, but in most cases they won't care. An employer might. And might get a court order.)

              That said, I will agree that the percentage of valuable posts from Anonymous Coward is much lower than from most named accounts. If you don't want to read them, set your filter level above 0. Then you'll only even see the ones that someone thought was valuable.

              --
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      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:16PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:16PM (#62632)

        If the average AC is 20 IQ points lower than a named poster, then in those locales AC might only be of a 120 or so level. Which is still pretty good. But try that on my local newspaper site, and its not going to be so civil once the discourse drops below room temp (Fahrenheit)

        • (Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:27PM

          by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:27PM (#62641)
          Wait... where did you get the idea that people posting here or on Slashdot have above-average IQs? (Identifying what the blinkie lights do on a router is not on any IQ test.)
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          • (Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:33PM

            by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:33PM (#62647)

            I'm pulling the average up around here (sorry couldn't resist posting that)

            • (Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:50PM

              by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:50PM (#62657)
              Me too, I scored 96% on my last test!!
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        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:30PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:30PM (#62645)

          I'll take that ball and run with it that, in that the completely uncontroversial (LOL) book "the bell jar" theorized that humans from areas with generally higher IQ generally had stronger civilizations and vice versa. See Somalia for the last couple centuries vs "New England east coast" for the last couple centuries. In both cases civilization, or lack thereof, comes from within.

          "emergent" "self organizational" groups can have a civil society if their avg IQ is significantly higher than 100, but when its significantly lower, you get the worthless comments section of my local newspaper, typical youtube comments, instructables comments in the old days, about half of hack a day comments...

          So don't expect civil society to self organize on an anon neocon creationism blog, but an anon tech blog will be reasonably civilized, due mostly to IQ differences.

          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Sir Garlon on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:59PM

            by Sir Garlon (1264) on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:59PM (#62663)

            I never read "the bell jar." Unfortunately I disagree that intelligence per se is the driving force of civility. Plenty of highly intelligent people are conceited, bombastic jerks. How we define the boundary of our community matters a lot more. There's a tendency to try to challenge "outsiders" and "defeat" them.

            --
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          • (Score: 2) by Foobar Bazbot on Tuesday July 01 2014, @08:19PM

            by Foobar Bazbot (37) on Tuesday July 01 2014, @08:19PM (#62674) Journal

            completely uncontroversial (LOL) book "the bell jar"

            The Bell Jar is a novel about mental illness by Sylvia Plath. I suspect you mean The Bell Curve.

            See Somalia for the last couple centuries vs "New England east coast" for the last couple centuries.

            I can see why you use New Jersey, but Somalia seems like a really strange example for the high-IQ -> civilization argument. :p

            • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday July 01 2014, @08:41PM

              by aristarchus (2645) on Tuesday July 01 2014, @08:41PM (#62683) Journal

              No, probably meant The Bell Jar, because all that Hi! IQ does not entail being particularly sane, or even culturally polished and literate.

        • (Score: 1) by present_arms on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:38PM

          by present_arms (4392) on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:38PM (#62649) Homepage Journal

          Hey don't accuse me of having a high IQ

          Oh wait

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        • (Score: 1) by RobC207 on Tuesday July 01 2014, @10:15PM

          by RobC207 (3408) on Tuesday July 01 2014, @10:15PM (#62733)

          Well that's alright. My local newspaper took care of that problem by banning anonymous posts and requiring account-create confirmation where they _call_ you. Result: almost no more comments.

      • (Score: 2) by SpallsHurgenson on Tuesday July 01 2014, @11:29PM

        by SpallsHurgenson (656) on Tuesday July 01 2014, @11:29PM (#62770)

        No, you are not alone. There have been a lot of worthwhile anonymous posts, both on slashdot and on soylent. I've no problem with people posting anonymously and in fact believe it is an important feature that every bulletin board system should offer. There are often things that people do not want attached to their identity but nonetheless are worth saying whether because it is an unpopular opinion, or they worry about legal or economic repercussions, but the anonymous route. Is this feature abused? Of course it is, but we shouldn't reject the option just because of a few bad apples. Better to use tools like moderation to filter out the problem users rather than deny the anonymous option entirely. I'm glad Soylent - and Pipedot, though it took them a while to get there - both allow people to post their messages anonymously and would greatly regret the loss were the option to disappear.

         

      • (Score: 2) by Marand on Wednesday July 02 2014, @05:12AM

        by Marand (1081) on Wednesday July 02 2014, @05:12AM (#62865) Journal

        Am I the only one that doesn't find that AC's are a waste of time? I've found them quite civil here and, frankly, even on the Green Site I bumped into quite a few respectable AC posts. Was I just lucky over the last 15 years?

        It's another form of that thing where you can have 10 good things happen to you in a day, but one really bad one, and all you'll remember later is "Man, that was the worst day EVER!" People think of ACs are universally terrible because occasionally there's a nasty post with the name attached, and that's the one they remember, not the dozen good posts.

        I always read (here, and at slashdot prior) at 0+ expanded and -1 visible but collapsed, and what I've noticed is that there are just as many non-AC trolls as AC ones, and frequently the non-AC responders are even more vitriolic and useless than the worst ACs. However, people frequently call out AC posts as being beneath notice, maybe because of the shared name subconsciously affecting people's opinions. I've wondered before if that perception would change if all anonymous posts were given a unique name of some kind instead of being lumped into a single "Anonymous Coward" name.

        The people ignoring ACs just for being AC apparently value credentials (an account) more than content. It's not a new concept, but it would be interesting to see how many of those anti-AC people deride the appeal-to-authority types that value celebrities' opinions simply for being celebrities...

        So, no, I don't think you were just especially lucky. When I posted over there, I did so anonymously because I didn't comment often and never wanted to bother logging in just to do it. Trolling was never part of it. I figured if what I said had merit it would get noticed and modded regardless of whether I used an account, and that was usually true; most of the time my AC posts got modded up for the content because I tried to be civil and informative even when disagreeing with someone.

      • (Score: 1) by cykros on Wednesday July 02 2014, @02:04PM

        by cykros (989) on Wednesday July 02 2014, @02:04PM (#63053)

        I'm with you here. If we remember WAAAY back, the first thing that really got people up in arms on the old site was the ridiculous notion that we should have to log in in the first place!

        IDK about how it went with y'all, but the only reason I ever registered on the old site was because I'd been around posting as an AC for awhile, and decided I got sick of waiting for the cooldown timer to post another comment. Demanding registration is a great way to chase off potential new contributors, and stifle discussion.

        That all said, you do have the option to filter out most AC's, other than those comments that get modded up by the community, and that also is as it should be. Don't like AC's? Browse at +1, or +2...you'll likely not see many.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:54PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:54PM (#62660)

      I would rather do the opposite. Sure, there are people who check the "anonymous coward" box so that they can be an asshole without it affecting their image or karma. But there are people like me who just prefer the purity of the discussion that can result from being anonymous. Each thing you say is judged only on its own merit, without bias being introduced by things you've said previously said or facts you've revealed about yourself. I've never understood the hatred of anonymous on Slashdot.

      • (Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday July 02 2014, @12:54AM

        by frojack (1554) on Wednesday July 02 2014, @12:54AM (#62798) Journal

        One can't hold a discussion with a drive by AC.

        Its like ACs spray paint their opinion in the night and then run away. Never being held accountable for their arguments or taking responsibility for defending their position.

        Its their way of saying I've had my say, but I won't be around to acknowledge yours.

        --
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  • (Score: 2) by DECbot on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:11PM

    by DECbot (832) on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:11PM (#62626) Journal
    While this is very enlightening, I find nested comments the most civil because you don't hide and ignore opposing opinions. </ducks>
    --
    cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
    • (Score: 1) by islisis on Tuesday July 01 2014, @10:15PM

      by islisis (2901) on Tuesday July 01 2014, @10:15PM (#62734) Homepage

      maybe it's also because they require a token amount of cooperation to structure the discourse, meaning its not just a temporal offload of first thought in head.

      i also think the idea that comments attached to articles just come and go feeds the perception it is a time for social immediacy rather than organising information

      i do find that 2ch suffers from the worst combination of flat posts and anonymity... like high schoolers lining up over their first ever smell of game hunting prey

  • (Score: 2) by BradTheGeek on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:23PM

    by BradTheGeek (450) on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:23PM (#62638)

    No. Fuck you both for posting this and submitting it. May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits. :P

    • (Score: 2) by cafebabe on Wednesday July 02 2014, @01:32AM

      by cafebabe (894) on Wednesday July 02 2014, @01:32AM (#62805) Journal

      And you, sir, are of the genus Folivora.

      --
      1702845791×2
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:36PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:36PM (#62648)

    Just because I microwave cats, squeeze gats, lure people into my basement, and adopt kids I find in shopping carts in the parking lot, doesn't mean I can't be civil when I critique important news articles like this. Oh, wait, this is filler. Never mind. I can tell when it's between Memorial Day and Labor Day, because there's no real news. As an exercise, count the number of studies, surveys, and interviews with people selling their books that the 24/7 news media runs as filler from now until Labor Day. Anyway, e-mail me if you want a pizza roll.

    • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:43PM

      by isostatic (365) on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:43PM (#62654) Journal

      In the UK it's called the silly season, although between Israel, Rolf, the sport, and isis rumbling on, there's news enough at the moment.

      • (Score: 2) by DECbot on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:55PM

        by DECbot (832) on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:55PM (#62661) Journal

        Don't let legitimate news stop us from reporting mindless drivel. The masses must be curated.

        --
        cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
  • (Score: 1) by _NSAKEY on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:54PM

    by _NSAKEY (16) on Tuesday July 01 2014, @07:54PM (#62659)

    I'd rather hit the Page Down key to move past some filler comment than to deal with expanding/collapsing everything in threaded discussions. For that reason, I've always preferred flat over threaded discussions, but it's good to have both so that everyone can get what they want.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by everdred on Tuesday July 01 2014, @10:07PM

      by everdred (110) on Tuesday July 01 2014, @10:07PM (#62730) Journal

      > it's good to have both so that everyone can get what they want

      ...provided the default is threaded. Take it from me; I worked for a web platform a few years back that offered three comment views: flat chronological, flat reverse-chronological and threaded. Threaded would have been great, except that due to chronological being the default (and thus, what nearly 100% of users used), nearly everybody would reply to existing comments as new comments to the top-level post, rendering conversations nearly impossible to follow, no matter what comment view you used.

      You and I like to change settings, but defaults matter hugely.

    • (Score: 1) by cykros on Wednesday July 02 2014, @02:23PM

      by cykros (989) on Wednesday July 02 2014, @02:23PM (#63063)

      Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but I think the "threaded" in the article refers not to the differences between "threaded" and "nested", but the difference between either option (which, in the database, are the same anyway) and flat, wherein one is not responding to a specific post, but responding to the entirety of what has been posted in a given top level post and comments that have followed thus far.

      That said, I'm with you on not particularly enjoying the "threaded" default view here, and naturally keep my personal settings at nested.

  • (Score: 2) by Blackmoore on Tuesday July 01 2014, @09:46PM

    by Blackmoore (57) on Tuesday July 01 2014, @09:46PM (#62714) Journal

    what website were they collecting from? certainly not Fark, where the toll ratio is much higher. those guys have it down as an art form.

  • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday July 01 2014, @11:00PM

    by kaszz (4211) on Tuesday July 01 2014, @11:00PM (#62762) Journal

    Threaded forums allow you to dump sub-threads that has gone bad with little effort. While the flat model forces everybody to head in the direction of the last poster.

    The subject of discussion also matter. Discussing something that can be proven or falsified leaves way less room for filler users, ramblings and trolls. It's easy to implement a mental noise filter by looking at which posts that contribute with knowledge and which doesn't.

    Anonymous posts may be a pain but it's a necessary mode of operation to kick some minds out of their mental comfort zone without lube in order to present information that may not align with your perception.

  • (Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Wednesday July 02 2014, @01:35PM

    by Aiwendil (531) on Wednesday July 02 2014, @01:35PM (#63038) Journal

    When using a threaded forum I've found the tedency to try to find a consensus/common ground stronger, and in unthreaded/flat the tedency to post opinions are stronger.

    Basically it is the difference between using a telephone or a stage [with shoutbacks] when trying to get your point across.

  • (Score: 2) by evilviper on Wednesday July 02 2014, @03:26PM

    by evilviper (1760) on Wednesday July 02 2014, @03:26PM (#63096) Homepage Journal

    more than 20% of forum comments were uncivil.

    Screw you!!!

    --
    Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.