"Popular Science" Online Eliminates Comment Function

[TygrBright]

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-09/why-were-shutting-our-comments

A politically motivated, decades-long war on expertise has eroded the popular consensus on a wide variety of scientifically validated topics. Everything, from evolution to the origins of climate change, is mistakenly up for grabs again. Scientific certainty is just another thing for two people to "debate" on television. And because comments sections tend to be a grotesque reflection of the media culture surrounding them, the cynical work of undermining bedrock scientific doctrine is now being done beneath our own stories, within a website devoted to championing science.

The article includes some interesting results from studies of peoples' reaction to reportage with and without comments.

In the spirit of the article, I'll refrain from comment here.

tacitly,
Bright

[The Magistrate]

1. I Sympathize With Them, Ma'am

There is just no bottom anymore....

[Jackpine Radical]

2. No bottom? We don't know that, Sir.

The Republicans are still searching for it.

[The Magistrate]

4. And Keep Going Deeper And Deeper, Without A Bump, Sir

I think the evidence is sufficient for a preliminary conclusion....

[Jackpine Radical]

5. I'll accept it as a working hypothesis.

We are certainly closer to evidence of absence than to absence of evidence.

[xocet]

28. Plenty of Room at the Bottom

Plenty of Room at the Bottom
Richard P. Feynman (Dated: Dec. 1959)

This is the transcript of a talk presented by Richard P. Feynman to the American Physical Society
in Pasadena on December 1959....

I imagine experimental physicists must often look with
envy at men like Kamerlingh Onnes, who discovered a
field like low temperature, which seems to be bottomless
and in which one can go down and down.

...

http://www.pa.msu.edu/~yang/RFeynman_plentySpace.pdf

[OnlinePoker]

12. Just when we think they've hit rock bottom, they bring out the dynamite. n/t

[Half-Century Man]

51. As we hit what was percived as the bottom

we lay there in pain, as the throbbing starts to ebb; we feel the ground crumble away. It was just a ledge, there is lots of pit left.

[jmowreader]

20. We do know that.

Imagine a concrete pipe, suspended vertically, of infinite length. The Republicans believe there is a bottom, even though there's no possible way there could be, and are bound & determined to find that bottom.

[pscot]

3. Vandals 1, free Speech 0

[Xyzse]

6. I don't know

I think it might be best if they changed their commenting system to basically just allow emails with extensions that have:

.edu
.gov
.mil
.museum

It would stifle discussion, but at least it would make it so it would be by people who are at least somewhat educated, and they have to go by their actual names.

Still, they probably went to the best route that they could take.

That sucks though.

[jeff47]

9. Like LibertyUniversity.edu? (nt)

[Xyzse]

15. LOL, Touche

[Pretzel_Warrior]

14. I think it's a great idea. Hopefully it is the way of online media in future

because I never expect when I read a hard copy of the NYT or The Smithsonian or other journal to then have to see comments below with people arguing--usually from a position of ignorance--about a well-researched and professionally edited piece.

It demeans good quality journalism to have those commenters with the crap they spew.

[Xyzse]

17. Maybe... Then again, they could go the newspaper route.

They write articles but they would have a review board that would read through comments that are cogent and well edited.
They could be the ones to decide what comments to allow.

It takes more resources though. I don't know how well that would work.

[IDemo]

19. Our local just dumped Disqus for Facebook

The comments have vanished, which, given the political leanings of this area, isn't all bad.

[reddread]

25. which mcClatchy rag?

home sweet home?
To paraphrase Joe Strummer-
Its not at all about free speech!

[IDemo]

29. Idaho Statesman

Or "Idaho Mistakesman", as they're sometimes called.

http://www.idahostatesman.com/

[EvolveOrConvolve]

35. I'm pretty happy that the Statesman dumped Disqus

Gone (mostly) are the rabid posts from homophobes, racists, sexists and random asshats. The comments may be slimmer now, but they're far more cogent.

[IDemo]

36. I've seen only two comments so far

Though I don't diligently check with every story. Even the two biggest draws - anything climate or Obama related, have failed to attract comments.

While I can understand them moving away from anonymous posters who had a bad habit of proving everyone's sentiments about Idaho correct, I have to feel there would be a better way to identify folks than requiring a Facebook account. Some of us are never going to go there.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

38. I usually read the LTTE section

It used to get three or four pages of comments, but most of them were complete horseshit.

Now, they get 5-10 comments, but almost all are good reads (even if I disagree with the sentiment). Today's LTTE section is a good example: http://www.idahostatesman.com/2013/09/24/2778229/letters-to-the-editor.html. 5 comments, each with some substance.

BTW, it's easy to setup a fake Facebook account and start posting.

[lastlib]

34. KC Star did the same

it got rid of some serious RW riff-raff--'twas pretty toxic over there.

[Posteritatis]

22. That'd be their letters pages for the most part

Comments sections will just be a stream of kneejerk on most articles; an actual decent discussion of the issues in them is usually going to be beyond the scope of that sort of medium.

[NYC Liberal]

39. The NY Times does that

Their comments section has 3 views: All, Readers' Picks, and NYT Critics' Picks. The last shows comments that were selected by the Times; I almost always just read those rather than all the dreck.

[hunter]

7. "Beam me up, Scotty, there's no intelligent life here..."

Just look at the comments on most YouTube videos.

[JI7]

8. this is too bad but i can understand, the internet has made it possible for those

that people usually ignore in person to get their crap out in other ways.

i don't know if they already do this but maybe they can require people to log in to comment and they can ban people from commenting ? but it's probably too much.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

10. Very happy to hear this. Wish it happened more often.

Comment sections aren't protected under the first amendment. A person can take the article and post it on a blog and bash away. It's a free country after all.

[Posteritatis]

23. More to the point, the rhetoric on science articles actually tangibly, objectively harms science. nt

[reddread]

26. not nearly so much as Government restrictions, etc

there is no comparison. Blather means nothing compared to no funding for open research.
Its hard to believe a bunch of yahoos can even be considered a factor...
objectively?
no way.

[Posteritatis]

27. Now that you've exemplified the issues in the article, I suggest you read it. (nt)

[reddread]

42. I have a better idea

this will be a widening trend. After decades of the noise level on the internet, particularly in its lower quarters,
public commentary on newspaper reporting will become just a little less free.
Instead of blanket eliminations or other attempts to restrict and discourage uninhibited expression,
the simple inclusion of an ignore function can enable a cleaner slate for those who would rather not be
confronted or disturbed by an individuals point of view or misbehavior.
I think that would be quite the cure.
I encourage you to put me on ignore, as Im about to figure how to do the same for yourself.
consider yourself honored. I'll never forget my first.

[Posteritatis]

43. Quod erat demonstradum II: demonstra harder. (nt)

[hatrack]

90. Hahhahhahhah!!!!!

[Democracyinkind]

57. You really need to read the article. Your comment is highly ironic given the substance of the link.

[Posteritatis]

82. It really is precisely what PopSci's talking about, isn't it? (nt)

[Democracyinkind]

83. Yup...

[bettyellen]

59. Gosh, you're really in favor of commenting on articles you didn't read, huh?

And it's working out so well for you too, LOL.

[LanternWaste]

73. The people are not being denied, discouraged or restricted from uninhibited expression

"restrict and discourage uninhibited expression..."

The people are not being denied, discouraged or restricted from uninhibited expression-- they are merely compelled to do it on someone else's property....



It does seem to beg the question tough: How precisely does one know if a comment is (as you petulantly phrased it) "disturbing" enough to ignore unless it's read first? Prophecy (which does seem to be quite the cure as your premise indicates)? Or thinking very hard about one's first (for all the relevance it adds to a discussion)...?

[SleeplessinSoCal]

47. I disagree

Comment sections may try to trash the science or the author of the article, but science is still science. The study isn't harmed, only the discussion about it.

[Posteritatis]

49. Harming the discussion harms the process, especially when it "informs" public attitudes. (nt)

[Eddie Haskell]

11. Good, it's all just theory anyway.

PS+SA = BS

[Pretzel_Warrior]

13. what? Popular Science + Scientific American = B.S.?

what are you talking about?

[awoke_in_2003]

16. I think we have a babble thumper amongst us. nt

[Eddie Haskell]

87. Hardly.

[Eddie Haskell]

86. You got it!

[shraby]

24. I've been reading Scientific American now for around 40 years..haven't found any

BS in it yet. Bite your tongue and clip your fingernails..deeply.
You just dissed an excellent magazine.

[Eddie Haskell]

88. When they start publishing for the government, they deserve to be dissed.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-people-believe-conspiracy-theories

[steve2470]

53. please explain that comment, I'll wait, thanks nt

[Vashta Nerada]

84. There's mountains of evidence supporting theories.

Where's the evidence for your god?

[NealK]

18. K&R n/t

[Posteritatis]

21. It sucks, but they're right.

Discussion of scientific issues is often painful enough here (e.g., moonbombing, Apollo denial and the LHC farce) and this isn't a generations-old known go-to place for people who want to discuss science. PopSci, SciAm and various other publications basically have a firehose of ignorance aimed at them all the time and, as they point out, the contents of that hose actually are damaging them.

[Tien1985]

30. You know,

Generally I hate it when sites disable comments, but in this case, I'm cool with it. The few times I've read the comment section on Scientific American I walk away irritated with all the garbage.

[LostOne4Ever]

31. Almost every time I look at any comments section

it full of right wing nuts spewing pure insanity.

This was a good move.

[SoCalDem]

78. There are people paid to bombard all kinds of sites

It obfuscates the topic...and turns people off who may want to have a real discussion..

It happens here all time now, as well..

No matter how inane the topic, there are some "dedicated" folks who will find fault and create side-issues to get topics locked or to bait people into arguing with them..

I have never understood why people (who are not being paid) would deliberately create anonymous chaos ..who has the time to waste in such pursuits

[madokie]

32. I've been reading popular science magazine

since I could read but I've never checked out their online stuff.

[secondvariety]

33. Good.

As much as I try not to, I still read the comments and always regret it.

[lunasun]

37. "Uncivil comments" yes they were correct to call them that and

........"the cynical work of undermining bedrock scientific doctrine is now being done beneath our own stories, within a website devoted to championing science"....
yes they were right to drop out of the ignorant game these knuckedraggers play by shutting the door on comments

[A HERETIC I AM]

40. Now HERE'S a great quote;

I cannot feel sorry for a woman who hits hard times in spite of her best attempt to kill her child off."

Here's the entire post so I can't be accused of taking it out of context;

06/13/2013 at 10:44 am

My mom had 9 kids (quite the opposite from Miss S.) and went through financial collapse and suffered poor health. She didn't ever once consider aborting, if she did neither my brother nor his son would be alive today.

That said, I cannot feel sorry for a woman who hits hard times in spite of her best attempt to kill her child off.

Found on this page about 3 comments down.



Yeah, I think they are doing the right thing

[Half-Century Man]

52. Wait.....The mom never got an abortion

and therefore the writers brother and nephew were saved.

[Gormy Cuss]

64. Wow, commenter totally missed the point, like most finger waggers. n/t

[zappaman]

41. Welcome to the Fascist State of America.

What happened to free speech?

What's wrong with presenting Creationism? Evolution is just a theory too.

So what if science says the WTC could have collapsed like that after burning at a high temperature for hours thus weakening the supports? What's wrong with asking questions?

So what if all the scientific and circumstantial evidence points to Oswald killing JFK? What about some of the minutiae that the WCR did not address?


So what if scientists say the climate is changing? The earth has been around for 6000 years and done just fine!

I WANT MY COUNTRY BACK!!!!!!

[reddread]

45. two things come to mind, those fools Frank Zappa and John Lennon

http://www.assassinationresearch.com/v1n2/deaths.html

http://911blogger.com/news/2013-01-29/mae-brussellthe-queen-conspiracy-research

Brussell had their support.
they must have been absolute fools.

&list=PLR0cTzgwyxXRT9b_terdbU1kMS3swxCQ3&index=1

[zappaman]

46. Stephen King killed John Lennon

The guy with this van who used to park a street over from my house said so...




Steven Lightfoot, the man who claims that Stephen King killed John Lennon, attempted to, er, expose the truth at a Sarasota City Commission meeting yesterday. The mayor told Lightfoot that Casey Key, where King lives, is not under the jurisdiction of Sarasota County. The whole thing was captured on video.

http://boingboing.net/2009/02/18/stephen-king-killed.html

[reddread]

48. the difference between asking a question and making an assertion

would you associate your neighbor with
John Lennon
Frank Zappa
and Mae Brussell?
You see, I asked you a question.
I did not make any assertions.
not even by implication.

[zappaman]

50. Yes. n/t

[reddread]

62. thats funny

was your neighbor followed by the FBI, harassed, persecuted and "paid back" by the government, too?

[zappaman]

66. 73. n/t

[reddread]

67. yup thats what i thought

got nothing

[Rex]

74. Stephen King the horror writer?

[zappaman]

75. Yes..THAT Stephen King.

http://lennonmurdertruth.com

Enjoy the reading....

"Now I was confronted, months later, with who actually pulled the trigger: famous author Stephen King?!?! Too much to believe? Beyond comprehension? Over all our heads? Is Nixon that tricky? Well, buckle up good readers, Stephen King writes all about it beginning with Salem’s Lot, five years before the crime, where he writes about shooting a man in the shoulder blades, stalking a politician with a gun in The Dead Zone, Johnny being the main character. He even writes about “…the fellow who killed John Lennon” in, I believe, three books. He practically confesses in his 1983 Playboy interview. He has even admitted to me, in his own handwriting, that I “…haven’t got the whole story yet…” and in a subsequent letter, signed Stephen King, he throws in a veiled bribe if I'd quit exposing this.

In Summary:
The story about Mark Chapman is a cover-up. Bold print government cryptographic codes that include the killer’s face and true identity, the killer’s alleged name and letter to the editor printed before the murder and Richard Nixon’s book, The Real War, in back issues of Time, Newsweek, and US News and World Report magazines printed before, during, and after the night of December 8, 1980 prove that Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan arranged for the author Stephen King, then barley famous, to assassinate John Lennon. That King’s writings draw, dramatically, from the crime and that he taunts us all in his interviews and comments only makes this the story of a lifetime. My 24-page booklet contains everything you've seen here and much more. Please order your copy. I guarantee it is the absolute truth about what really happened to John Lennon. Happy Code Cracking!"

[bvar22]

44. More painful evidence that our culture in the midst of a rapid descent...

... back to the Dark Ages.

[alp227]

54. If only Youtube and Yahoo News would do the same.

Their comments sections make KKK meetings look like yoga sessions.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

55. Lol, so true! Every time I read either of those I deeply regret it.

[joshcryer]

56. Google is trying to force people to use their name on YouTube.

With little success.

I keep saying to sod off though because I don't want a space in my name... there are others out there with my name and I don't want to be confused with them. I've been going as "joshcryer" for over a decade, and every "joshcryer" on the internet is me, myself, and I. As far as I know anyway.

[Posteritatis]

60. It's downright baffling how insistent they are with that. (nt)

[47of74]

89. No shit.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

58. Good for them. We really don't need every article on line open to the incoherent babblings

of any creep with a keyboard.

[Dash87]

61. The most effective trolls are religion ones.

Posting something like, "Dinosaurs were around at the same time as people idiots. You athiests are all the same and a lot of this 'science' crap is fake!" will generate possibly hundreds of angry responses.

These aren't people that are actually religious. They just know how effective this sort of trolling is and jump on the bandwagon.

[lumberjack_jeff]

63. They could learn something about community moderation here.

Imperfect as our setup is, people who lack fundamental respect for science should be MIRT'ed from the Pop Sci online site.

[reddread]

65. how should the less intelligent folks be weeded out?

its always a question for me, why people dont appreciate the lesser gifts displayed by others?
Is it just that important to be superior that people cannot accommodate the realities of intelligence and
more so, the gullibility of diminished intellects in the face of the best propaganda money can buy?
really, what tools are there beyond wishing they would shut up and disappear?
and how many times must you click your heels to reach that lofty goal?

[reddread]

68. of course, thats the ticket

second class citizenship!

[ret5hd]

77. I think you forgot to change your socks.

[Posteritatis]

81. ha! (nt)

[reddread]

85. implying?

Just in case you are suggesting I would play with socks, allow me to state for the record-
I dont do lying. After finding out long ago that I am a terrible liar, and learning about Deceit and
Self Deception, I just cant go that way, intentionally, and hopefully not too often accidentally.
I can be wrong, mistaken and confused, but I cant be bothered with intentional dishonesty,
and I wouldnt expect anyone else to appreciate deception in the place of real information.
This may be reflected by my historical interest in propaganda and media mendacity, a problem that truly exists,
and has for some time.
These are subjects that gather little attention in these times of post-accountability, and understandably.
I am living in the past, to a certain degree, not bending well to the winds and tides of media mind wash.
It took me a long time to understand what was happening when people disrupted political discussion boards,
my inherent belief system could not easily understand their motives, particularly as the results seemed so counter to
stated concerns.
I think I have a handle on why and how these things occurred.
Perhaps that is a reason I allow myself to slop my punctuation and grammar.
My writing is pretty distinctive and I leave it that way to assure myself
that if anyone attempts to (whats the word?) post as me,
theyll be spotted as they were the one time it happened, so long ago.
and whatever I have to say, I dont need to prop it up with phony ID's.
I'll leave that to the military and whatever subcontracted individuals to do.
On the other hand, if you are really concerned about my laundry.
damn straight. These socks are pretty rank.

[lumberjack_jeff]

69. a) it isn't a matter of intelligence

b) the same way DU weeds out the non-democrats.

I'm a guy who lacks a college education and calls himself "lumberjack". That doesn't mean that I lack curiosity or respect for science. Most stuff in "Popular Science" (as the name implies) is written to be apprehensible by the general public.

If a poster comes in there ranting about Moses and Noah, the community can (and arguably should) be empowered to PPR the individual to drive the signal to noise ratio back up.

[reddread]

70. Popular Science is to Science

as Reader's Digest is to digestion

[reddread]

71. weeding out?

really? who calls that?
Perhaps anyone without signed correspondence from Hubert Humphrey and George McGovern should be eliminated?
I suppose I would get pretty lonely quick.
What are the signs of a true Democratic Party member?
The "ic"?

[lumberjack_jeff]

72. I suggest reading about the DU community moderating system.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=modsystem

In general, the membership ourselves do most of the legwork to keep things on track.

[reddread]

76. true scotsmen?

Is that a three person tent, or is that a Sears Poncho?
Thanks for the link!

[lumberjack_jeff]

79. It is what it is.

Play the ball where it lies and all that.

Personally, I think it's working surprisingly well.

[Posteritatis]

80. A juried moderation system on a site like that would be a nightmare, actually. (nt)