The chumbox (https://www.theawl.com/2015/06/a-complete-taxonomy-of-internet-chum/ https://www.theawl.com/2015/06/a-complete-taxonomy-of-intern...) used to be a

The chumbox (https://www.theawl.com/2015/06/a-complete-taxonomy-of-internet-chum/ https://www.theawl.com/2015/06/a-complete-taxonomy-of-intern...) used to be a good barometer of the spamminess of a site's content. It appears that recently Wordpress rolled out the chumbox on free sites. It turns every one of them into a ghastly display dreck. It also normalizes the chumbox. Seeing a site without at least one chumbox these days is becoming difficult. It's not hard to imagine a future in which the Gut Doctor follows you around to every site you visit, like Big Brother dressed in a clown costume. Strangely, I also find myself going directly to the HN comments before even clicking on an article. Maybe its the inevitable result of the Gell-Mann amnesia effect finally wearing off: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect