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The current state of forums and comments is pathetic on the internet. Most group attempting to engage in open discussion are defenseless against the combination
by djtriptych 15y ago
The current state of forums and comments is pathetic on the internet. Most group attempting to engage in open discussion are defenseless against the combination of spam, Eternal September, flame wars, etc. There ARE technical solutions to this problem - I don't buy that people just don't want to hear open discourse.
- jlarocco 15y agoI somewhat agree, but I don't think it's as dire as your comment makes it sound. Going by sheer numbers, there are probably a million crappy, spammy forums for every good one. But, I've found that most topics have at least one or two really good, (mostly) spam free forums where real discussions take place and the signal to noise ratio is really good. Comments for articles and blog posts do seem to be more hit or miss, though.
- djtriptych 15y agoyeah it's frustrating to me because discussion forums really are the best place on the web for detailed thoughtful conversation. avsforums is an unbelievable repository of information, for instance. However, actually extracting that information from a 3,000 page avsforum post is nearly impossible - that's the problem with most good forums. That and the moderation efforts are extraordinarily high even in very good forums where people generally agree on what they want to read. I suppose I'm just saying that we nerds need to provide better tools to automate some of the moderation cost.