Periodic USSM comment update
Here’s the state of USSM commenting:
You’ll note a lot more disappearing comments lately. The short version is that editing comments to say “[namecalling, see comment guidelines]” each time is a pain. So they’re just going away without comment. Off-topic posts, same thing. Semi-spammy links… nuked. And so on. We haven’t yet started regularly deleting posts that are awful in content (spelling/punctuation/etc), but we’re getting there. That’s not the kind of conversation we want to have, and I worry that that kind of stuff spreads quickly.
All of which has actually led me to wonder what the value in having explanatory comment guidelines. But that’s a whole other thing.
And you AOL people… you’re killing me.
Comments
25 Responses to “Periodic USSM comment update”
[Your wish is granted! See the front page post, thanks.]
And ill-formatted, illogical comments for which instant death is requested by their HTML illiterate authors will also be deleted.
Thank you. I simply have to get up to speed on this.
I will miss the editing comments, even when I didn’t see the original post. They were often quite humorous. I guess the pressure of always being witty has taken it’s toll.
Please consider adding the occasional editing comment just for old times sake.
Yikes. I’ll take the blame this time. Whenever I come back, so do the disappearing comment posts. sorry.
I support you guys totally in this. Keep up the good work.
We haven’t yet started regularly deleting posts that are awful in content (spelling/punctuation/etc), but we’re getting there.
But I LIKED the jc-o-tronic…
EC, I couldn’t agree more. The jc-o-tronic thread still stands in a humor class of its own during my USS Mariner posting/reading history.
I’m sure it helps that I post a lot less here than I used to.
Since JC seems to be posting far less than he used to, perhaps someone could (literally) reverse-engineer that jc-o-tronic software, and maek setances that ottamatikly mimmik jcs poasts.like this 1.and this won to.
yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. now thatd be neato
8 – Jim, come back! I miss your stories like “Willie Bloomquist’s Grandmother Hates Me” and “Help! I’m Trapped in the Oakland Press Box!”
I worry that speaking of J.C. will cause him to reemerge from the cracks of blogdom and torment us all with spelling/grammar errors until our baseball brains all symbolically die a meaningless death.
No, my baseball-sized brain has already died a meaningless albeit symbolic death already. Here in Japan, I used to look forward to JC’s posts as a substitute for morning crossword puzzles. Trying to divine the underlying meaning of his (her?) run-on sentences, cryptic spelling and random punctuation was as stimulating as a triple expresso (er, espresso).
And you AOL people… you’re killing me.
You mean that people who believe AOL’s incredibly misleading advertising and pay $23.90 a month for a dial-up connection when DSL costs less in most places (and usually comes with all the spyware/spam/antivirus perks that AOL would have you believe can’t be had elsewhere) aren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer? I’m shocked, truly I am.
Keep up the good work. I’ll keep…not commenting very often.
AOL people are also remarkably difficult to identify because of AOL’s dynamic IP addresses.
The only way to permanently remove one AOL user from posting is to ban them all. Interplay did that in 1999.
I’d much rather that your moderator energies were spent on the fine posts and the heaps o’ info & analysis, and not on comment editing. A fine choice. Besides, a thread that’s mostly relevant and on-topic is generally more fun to read. Not that we all aren’t deliriously entertaining, but most folks I see posting here can work a little flare into a comment and still stay on topic.
Deanna, tragically, I took a promotion that took me off the sports desk at my paper. I’m now the night news editor. So no more clubhouse escapades, no more road-trip misadventures, and no more Willie-hate … other than the generic statistical variety.
How about some Griffey Kudzu here! I live for Griffey Kudzu! Griffey for M’s D/H! C’mon folks give me some Griffey Kudzu!
It seems much of the commenting problems recently involve referring to other blogs on the net. This is one area, that in my mind, is unclear in the comment guidelines. Perhaps clarifying the protocal you would like commenters to follow and what links are ok and what links are not would help.
My experience has been that further defining the expectations doesn’t help and often makes things worse.
This isn’t the forum for your guys personal crusade about the issue. Everyone who has sent us an email about the issue has received a response.
We’ve said repeatedly that USSM is our house, not some public place. Do you go into someone’s house and demand to use their roof to hang political banners campaigning for some initiative?
We’re not interested in hosting mud-slinging contests about an issue we’re not involved with. If you want to discuss this further (without calling us censors or some other garbage that will encourage us to ignore you), feel free to email us.
I appreciate the response, Dave.
I certainly wasn’t any part of some personal crusade, I was just curious why my comments were getting deleted. I get most of my news online, rather than the MSM, and I like to stand up for bloggers and other internet news sources–I think they’re becoming more and more the best place to find out about what’s going on in the world.
I imagine the animosity that seems to be hanging around this issue is a result of something I’m not privy to, so I’ll leave it at that. I’m a reader of the USSM (and San Shin, and Mariner Musings) and I’d be just as peeved if you guys got jobbed by a local writer.
Keep up the good work Dave, I love your stuff. And again, thanks for responding in a way that doesn’t dismiss (or delete) what I’ve been trying to say.
That should say, USSM (and San Shin, and Mariner Musings) FROM WAY BACK. Obviously only one of those blogs is still around :). I’m worthless without an edit function.
Well, now my posts HAVE been deleted, sometime in the last couple of minutes. You might as well delete these three too, and then I’ll stop bothering (or supporting) you altogether. Thanks.
That’s been almost all me on the deletions in this thread, btw. Feel free to flame me/call me an ogre/etc for reading through the queue and deleting before seeing Dave had replied.
I want to point out that comment deletions, with extremely limited exceptions, have everything to do with topics, content, and related characteristics. They’re not dismissals of views or whatever.
It’s like the Griffey kudzu. Griffey screeds that are off-topic, even if they’re well-thought out and written well, get deleted no matter what my opinion on the points of the comment. They can’t be allowed to exist. It’s not a judgement on a viewpoint or a person.