Monday, April 06, 2009

Neven on Internet Comments

A thoughtful post by Neven Mrgan about internet comments included this sad little bit:
The single worst Internet “feedback” I have ever seen was a YouTube comment on a video of a family visiting the zoo. As they watch bear cubs play, the three-year-old says, “awww, they’re like little kitties!” The comment, plainly visible on the first page: “kitties? they’re bears you stupid bitch”

Can you imagine a public forum - a tech convention, a book signing, a high school debate - where a lone sociopath could get away with this sort of thing?
I remember being surprised by this XKCD for singling out YouTube comments for being so miserable, but he was right: it's a special kind of shit.

I also like this point from the end of Neven's post:
Captchas, user registration (including banning), comment moderation, and community guidelines all help, but not everyone wants to spend time running their blog like a night club.

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