I occasionally take a look at the comment sections on the sites of a couple of my local newspapers, and they’re pretty discouraging. Some of the most extreme hate speech gets moderated out, but what’s left is still pretty depressing–lots of illiteracy, a general absence of logic, and a big contingent of right-wing dipsticks.
On the other hand, the comment sections at the NYT are–relatively speaking–a bastion of correct spelling and reasonably coherent thought. (I haven’t spent much time looking at other national-scale sites such as the WSJ, so can’t comment on them.)
Any thoughts on why this might be? A difference in moderation? Real Americans ™ don’t read the NYT? Confirmation bias on my part? The Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory in action?
Judging by my local newspaper comment section, the coming election would probably be a tight race between the Right Wing Xenophobic extremists of SD and the nazi party. Regular polls put them around 5% but at the average internet forum they usually get favorables over 70%.
I kind of miss the good old days of internet where it took an above average IQ to operate a computer and go online.
I think once the percentage of morons trolls and racists reaches a certain level, the more intelligent people won’t post to or even read the comments sections. I don’t understand why newspapers can’t select which comments get posted, like they do with letters to the editor.
IIRC, NYT comments all have to be OK’s by someone before they appear to other readers. If they had open comments, I suspect the level of stupid would go up considerably.
Might it be anything to do with whether or not the site requires signup before posting? Without any obstacles like signup or moderation, any idiot can say anything, and they do.
It also means people can generally post faster - and less time to consider what you’re about to post (assuming you even have the capacity to consider it) means a generally higher level of stupid.
I bet the comments section are a better reflection of your local newspapers readership than you’d want to believe. The percentage of right wing crazies in an age group seems to increase as you get older, and newspapers don’t have a very young audience.
The Chicago Sun-times is notoriously bad for this. I am not sure of the why, all I know is that I only read an online local paper when I am directed to it by a link in some other forum. I invariably shudder and move along. To be fair, I have a few pals that enjoy writing satirical comments in that paper’s comment sections for comedy purposes. I sometimes wonder if the sun-times comment section is like a dozen authentic wackos and a few hundred people who are bored at work.
I think moderated comments are the way to go, but then I am reasonably intelligent.
Some papers are better than others. As you mentioned the New York Times has a pretty sane comments section, but then again they employ a full time staff to moderate it, a luxury few newspapers can afford these days.
The Houston Chronicle is probably the worst of the major papers in this regard. The crazies on there appear to outnumber the sane people by about 50 to 1. I doubt anyone is policing their comments section.
It also depends on the types of stories. Any article about immigration will bring out the yahoos in droves. Same thing with just about any story involving race (which is why a lot of papers these days are turning off the comments on those pieces).
Also as someone mentioned above, the more complicated the registration process, the less likely someone will be to post a jackass comment. That’s why I think the Straight Dope is probably one of the better Internet forums out there. This is one of the few places where you can have a reasonable conversation with someone who is your idealogical opposite…for the most part anyway.
The internet is a pain in the ass. It’s labor intensive, it gives our content away and you can’t make money on it.
The internet is a great tool. Being a weekly, it allows me to publish relevant content on a daily basis and allows more reader interactivity.
Part of reader interactivity is the community forum. With the advent of facebook and other social media, people are increasingly coming to expect some sort of two way communication opportunity with businesses like they have with their online friends. They want to feel like their opinions matter.
The hard truth is that most of them are idiots and their opinions actually don’t matter because they are unconsidered and usually not encumbered by facts or logic. But you have to let them think that their misspelled predictable pronunciations of proletariate drivel are valued. So the community forum stays up.
It would be wonderful if the forum could turn into one like the SDMB, where most of the idiots are intimidated by the proper english, grammar and all around discourse…but the forums take on the persona of the people that frequent it.
The want to make anonymous catty remarks, jump to conclusions and try to impress each other with thier wit and cogent grasp of current events.
In my local online big-city newspapers, the posters are usually the same dozen people or so who are extremist idiots and post at 4 or 5:00 am.; this is their daily routine. Then there are a few normal people who post, but it’s probably fairly discouraging to want to add your reasoned response above a bunch of rantings and ravings.
Our local paper’s comments are like YouTube, man. It’s awful. It didn’t really affect me personally until my boyfriend started running for mayor, and even then I didn’t realize it was going to actively make me furious every day. I shouldn’t let it get to me, but it’s absolutely impossible not to - the truly whackadoodle illiterates don’t bother me, because they’re not, you know, specific. It’s the people who you can tell are reasonably educated but just plain assholes who hurt your feelings. They’d never say it to your face, either.
I’m waiting with baited breath to read something about how Candidate A lives in sin with a painted harlot. I’ve gotten postcards from all the major candidates with their happy smiling families - I tell him we should go down to Olan Mills with the cats.
I agree, of course, with the OP. I don’t read my (European) local paper on the net, because the comments are so depressing. I can’t understand why they allow them. Just about every piece of article, especially if it is about some criminal activity, is followed by those outbursts of stupidity and hatred, sort of dragging the whole otherwise respectable newspaper down into some kind of repulsive pit.
Why do they allow it? Why not just skip the possibilty to comment on every article? Do they think they’re taking democracy one step further by allowing the mob to rule their pages? I do not understand it.
I don’t believe this is true though, I believe the majority is sane but don’t add comments to an article about some criminal activity, for instance. - Why would you? What the heck can you say? Some bloke put a car on fire. Ok, too bad, I carry on with my day. - The morons, on the other hand, while in minority, get the unstoppable urge to write something about “foreigners” or the end of the world or advocating once again a police state. It gives you the impression that every one who reads the piece is an illeterate asshole, but that’s not necessarily so.