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Well, most comments on the net are utter shite. I don't blame them. Hacker News is different, but you don't have to go further than arstechnica to see the start

by tormeh 12y ago

Well, most comments on the net are utter shite. I don't blame them. Hacker News is different, but you don't have to go further than arstechnica to see the start of rapidly declining comment quality. A mainstream publication like NYT? Hats of to them if they manage an open discussion that's not just trolling, hatred, keyboard warriors and bigotry. I'll believe it when I see it. Just read the comments to The Economist. You'd think such an archetypically highbrow publication would have highbrow comments. You'd be wrong. Only niche websites have good comments. I guess some spamfilter-like technology could be applied to filter out bad ones, though. Wikipedia also has an engine to filter out bad edits. Should have lots in common.

Crito 12y ago
I find it interesting to compare "second tier" 4chan boards like /g/ (technology) to the discussion boards of other websites (like arstechnica). Typically, a place like /g/ compares very well, if not better. Sites like to blame things like the "Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory", but I think most of the blame lays on the site for having poor moderation.
- tormeh 12y ago
  4chan's moderation is mostly just filtering for child porn. /g/ being good is because it's a niche place. Proper moderation costs proper money, and proper moderation doesn't scale. Moderation can't be the solution.
  - Buetol 12y ago
    But crowd-sourced moderation like reddit/HN scales really well: Let the users do the hard work of flagging/voting and a small community of moderators to do orientation-related work.
  - Crito 12y ago
    Outside of /b/ (and one or two 'containment' boards), they do a pretty decent job of modding out hate-speech. Throughout, even on /b/, they keep shitposting (posts intended to do nothing but lower the signal/noise ratio, pushing active discussions towards expiration) way down. I would argue down below the levels seen even on default subreddits. Reddit has a serious shitposting problem.

by tormeh 12y ago

Crito 12y ago

I find it interesting to compare "second tier" 4chan boards like /g/ (technology) to the discussion boards of other websites (like arstechnica). Typically, a place like /g/ compares very well, if not better. Sites like to blame things like the "Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory", but I think most of the blame lays on the site for having poor moderation.

tormeh 12y ago
4chan's moderation is mostly just filtering for child porn. /g/ being good is because it's a niche place. Proper moderation costs proper money, and proper moderation doesn't scale. Moderation can't be the solution.
- Buetol 12y ago
  But crowd-sourced moderation like reddit/HN scales really well: Let the users do the hard work of flagging/voting and a small community of moderators to do orientation-related work.
- Crito 12y ago
  Outside of /b/ (and one or two 'containment' boards), they do a pretty decent job of modding out hate-speech. Throughout, even on /b/, they keep shitposting (posts intended to do nothing but lower the signal/noise ratio, pushing active discussions towards expiration) way down. I would argue down below the levels seen even on default subreddits. Reddit has a serious shitposting problem.