Bleeped out, it's "John Gabriel's Great Internet F***w*d Theory."
Essentially, Normal Person + Audience + Anonymity = Total F***w*d. Seeing comments on Youtube, IMDB, most message boards, you get the idea.
Comment boards are the new hot thing for a lot of sites. CBC.ca added one fairly recently, and as a result brought the average IQ of the site down several points. It, as well, gets lowered to a lot of name-calling and pointless never-ending debates about the seal hunt and Paul McCartney. Is it necessary? No. Really, it isn't. I doubt there's somebody who looks at the comment board, and says "Oh, they really don't like this. We better change it."
That being said, there was a fire in Halifax yesterday morning on Spring Garden Road. The comments are mediocre, sympathetic at best, except for this lovely one:
there was a lot of manly gear downtown this morning
and many manly men doing manly things
not to mention the womanly women doing manly things womanly
and there were lots of lights, too!
oh, all the flashing lights!!!
Your comments, please? (Ignore the possible irony)
4 comments:
Discussion boards and very public commenting things usually get out of hand quickly. After a bad experience with a discussion board I decided to stop using them, although I do miss being able to discuss things with large groups. Blogs are so one-sided.
That's true. The only message board I really frequent are the Snopes message boards. They're pretty good at removing trolling, or entering a discussion with ears open. They do occasionally flame, but most of them are civil.
Very accurate observation.
My friend and I had several ideas about this and - well - I can't broadcast the details here, but let's just say it's a good idea and it's related to this topic.
On the other hand, there are a number of excellent forums out there. I actually wish I could make my blog more like a forum, or at least get some more idea-bouncing comments. Maybe I just haven't posted anything yet worthy of such discussion, but I agree with meags about blogs being one-sided, and I suspect that when people visit a blog, they have this preconception in their mind, and will thus not as readily make comments. (Though, yes, a lot of blog content is perhaps too introspective for this.)
P.S. I guess comment boards sort of reflect the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and what not. You'd be a communist if you didn't allow comments.
P. P. S. Did you disable the comments on your "Pardon?" post? I remember reading a long comment by stephanie and making a comment of my own, but I can no longer find a link to said comment page.
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