Comments on: Comments don’t belong on the MSM

By: Keeping comments under control « doctorvee

Keeping comments under control « doctorvee — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:49:26 +0000

[...] answer is that they are mainstream media comment sites. As I have pointed out before, trolls, flamers and knuckle-draggers are attracted to MSM comment sites like flies on a shit. The [...]

By: doctorvee » Journalists, bias and comments

doctorvee » Journalists, bias and comments — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 00:14:57 +0000

[...] that comments on MSM sites were almost universally awful was when Scotsman.com introduced them. I wrote about it at the time. The comment box obviously just attracts loudmouths and morons. Anyone looking for good debate [...]

By: Guido Fawkes

Guido Fawkes — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 07:08:33 +0000

Perry De Havilland advised me when I started bloggiing to ignore the comments and write for the 95% who don’t make comments. In my case the 99.5% who don’t make comments. Most of them are mad obssessives.

People get really uptight about the comments – don’t is my advice.

By: Bill (Scotland)

Bill (Scotland) — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 07:45:11 +0000

Oh, by the way, there is another amusing blog recording comments overheard in New York:
http://www.overheardinnewyork.com

(PS this might be a duplicate post as an earlier comment didn’t appear)

By: Bill (Scotland)

Bill (Scotland) — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 07:31:12 +0000

I had a good laugh reading a few of the SpEak your bRanes posts. A few of the comments there would merit their own entry, too!

However, amazingly awful as some of the comments on various of the MSM sites are I think that there is at least as much (and probably a lot more concentrated) lunacy amongst bloggers themselves; they have taken the trouble (and when I say ‘they’, I include myself obviously) to set up their own little space on the web so that the rest of the world may benefit from their ‘wisdom’. I think the ‘lunacy quotient’ is not particularly dependent on the popularity of the blog in question – they all exhibit weirdness from time to time and some seem permanently agitated/deranged. What is considered ‘normal’ simply reflects the fact that most people are as weird as everybody else – commenters in MSM sites have simply chosen another outlet for their rants.

By: doctorvee

doctorvee — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 01:19:40 +0000

It's true that some MSM blogs are much better than others when it comes to comments. The Economist's blogs, for instance, seem generally sane.

By: Dylan

Dylan — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 01:07:51 +0000

I agree, but on different grounds…I’ve found myself so addicted to posting on MSM blogs that I’ve done virtually no work all week…

Actually, it has to be said, at least on the theage.com.au, the quality of discussion is a good deal higher than that in most usenet groups.