Lurker
Discuss.
Liberal Arts Major
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~ Ogordemir ~
"The sciences have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." ~ H.P Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu
Liberal Arts Major
The question is whether, from a customer service perspective, websites are justified in providing an opportunity for their users to censor comments. History bears this model out in practice. Even GameFAQs and its spinoffs rely largely on user self-moderation through marking messages, since the ones that matter have too few moderators to effectively "patrol" the boards anyway (unlike this one).
But I agree that giving the mob a way to censor anything without review is a questionable practice - not from a business standpoint, since having a mob of any kind is probably a good sign, but simply from a usability standpoint. If half the comments are essentially blocked and you're getting only the demented ravings of the mob that blocked them, why are you still on that website? Why would you bother to post anything?
If review is too costly, I like models like Engadget's, where the post is replaced by a notice saying it was "downvoted to oblivion"; it still holds its place in the thread and you can click to reveal it, you're simply able to skim over those if you don't care. Otherwise, I echo the sentiment of this article and don't personally peruse any websites with an aggressive self-censorship mechanism.
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~ Ogordemir ~
"The sciences have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." ~ H.P Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu
Lurker
"If half the comments are essentially blocked and you're getting only the demented ravings of the mob that blocked them, why are you still on that website? Why would you bother to post anything?"
I generally avoid forums like the plague because my thoughts are too disorganized to cohesively keep a conversation going over the course of a few days, but... I think people continue to post either because they don't care that they're being heard(just to put their two bits in), or, the underdogs that get in (up/down)vote wars to keep their opinion viewed.
Personally, I generally don't like the idea of moderating posts unless they contain spam or gratuitous amounts of vitriol.
I mean, vitriol? This is the internet, your angry spittle might get on the tophats of other distinguished gentlemen!
Liberal Arts Major
This is true, and there's also the "someone is WRONG on the internet" principle. But at that point the conversation has degenerated far beyond the point where any value could be recuperated.
Personally, I generally don't like the idea of moderating posts unless they contain spam or gratuitous amounts of vitriol.
As an important subclass of vitriol, there's "offensive" posting which I consider valid, most notably racism. If I wanted to hear about the biological inferiority of the colored peoples I would join Stormfront.
I mean, vitriol? This is the internet, your angry spittle might get on the tophats of other distinguished gentlemen!
Cleaning my own monocle is simply undignified!
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~ Ogordemir ~
"The sciences have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." ~ H.P Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu