Thursday, April 26, 2012

MKM Open Thread By Request

Welcome to your MKM Blog open thread for April 26, 2012, and maybe the next few days too, by special request. 

I got a special request from a good friend of the balog to throw up an open thread today.  Hey, it's no skin off my back.  So, here you go.  Be funny.  Don't make CJ regulate.

I'm ghost, y'all.


57 comments:

  1. Thanks IMG. Gawker's new system appears to be up and running, and couples with the fact that (for a brief period in time) noone is last night's DUAN had stars anymore, I thought there might be a need for some space to complain / tell people to stop complaining.

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  2. The Gawker system isn't particularly revolutionary as far as I can tell, though one implication is clear - if it rolls out on Deadspin, the +1 is dead. The replies all come streaming out of context, not grouped as replies (as they did for a while early in Deadspin's last redesign).

    On the plus side, a few of us have already headed over to Gawker to "fill the gap" with Deadspin-syle comments. Sharting dropped a beauty. Now would be a good time to see if we can influence the new commenting culture there...

    Also, the Texas bball thread was probably the worst commenting cesspool I've seen in years.

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    1. The Amazing SneijdermanApril 26, 2012 at 9:54 AM

      It seems like everything besides two featured threads per post will be gone, too. As it stands now, the only way most of the reply comments on a post will be intelligible is if you're part of that discussion. Otherwise, it'll be miserable to try and piece together all the different replies. If Gawker really wants to encourage discussion, they'll have to expand the threading beyond just two featured comments.

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    2. I'm not sure if that's entirely true about +1s being dead, considering that four +1s and some ticket to the goddamn internet have Sharting as the #1 featured comment in the Bohemian Rhapsody post. It certainly takes away from the flow in the "Latest" tab, but if everybody who replies to any thread is just sorted by their time stamp, than there won't be much of a rhyme or reason to that tab anyway.

      +1s will be just as out of context in that tab as an "OMG. I know exactly what you mean! It reminds me of a time when I was 14 and babysitting and fell asleep on the couch..." type comment when there have already been several comments that it could be referring to. I think the latest tab will be somewhat of a disorganized mess, but on Deadspin, if you receive a +1 or two and approve them, it seems like you can find your way to being a "Featured Discussion" relatively easily.

      I may be completely wrong about this, but based on our DUAN experiment on Sploid and what we've seen this morning, it looks like that may be the case.

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    3. I don't want to sound hysterical, but this new system is fucking awful. Without even broaching the topic of how it'll work on Deadspin, how the hell does it work on Gawker?

      It looks like there are 5 featured threads now in the Announcement post. The only way to read comments not in the featured discussion tree is by clicking "Latest", which is a byzantine clusterfuck of reverse-chronological unthreaded comments.

      And it's not like the Featured tab makes any more sense. Besides the obvious fact that even dozens of Featured Discussions will leave most comments in the unthreaded ether (and there doesn't seem to be an easy way to tell what ends up Featured), even here the order doesn't make sense. I'm looking at the 1st discussion tab in the same post, and here are the timestamps of the posts, relative to right now, in descending order: 32 minutes ago, 9, 15, 13, 10, 6, 25, 18, 4, 25, 27, 14 minutes ago, etc. Good luck keeping up with that conversation.

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    4. @ BH: there's the crucial issue. Non-threaded comments make no sense; and the threaded comments showing the most recent reply first also make no sense.

      No friends, no stars, etc. I don't care about, but at first glance I don't see how this will help foster discussion, which was their (claimed) goal.

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    5. @Echo

      Yes, exactly. That's how I should've put it. Not only is the Latest tab in reverse chronological order, but so are replies in all other threads (incl. Featured). That's fine if everyone replies to the first guy, or it's at least readable, but when two folks reply to the OP, and one replies to the first reply, then 3 folks reply to the 2nd reply 40 minutes later, etc. they're all still being organized in most recent order. The nesting gets extremely ugly very quickly.

      Curiously, this doesn't seem to apply to conversations you pluck out and follow individually. For instance, my chain with Sharting here: http://gawker.com/5905316/?comment=48396164 shows in the way you think it should. But to find that, I had to get lucky and see his reply in Latest comments, etc.

      Essentially, it's taking our threaded comments and making us play Go Fish!

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    6. It seems like the only purpose is to discourage commenting. Which is fine, on Gawker - if I were Denton, I wouldn't want to have that shit on my site, either.

      But for us? I can't imagine any of the editors think we do not contribute something positive to their site.

      Then again - we don't really do threaded "discussions," anyway. It's basically single jokes, followed by +1s. Which will still be easy to read in the "Latest" view. And you'll still get a notification of your +1s. So essentially, the only change is that, while reading through "Latest," you'll see a bunch of +1s, and have to click through to see which joke they were given for. Not terrible, really.

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    7. In addition, it will strongly encourage people to post extremely quickly (and perhaps with less interesting or funny material) because the only way to see new material will be to sort through the "Latest" thread, which a) people won't want to do for the reasons you've all mentioned, and b) will let good comments get overlooked in the sea of replies (esp with no star, friends, or color system to highlight ones that are more likely to be good).

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    8. Good point Steve_U, and my comments are more about Gawker. However, as the Texas baseball thread showed, there is a chance that the new system somehow encourages more idiotic posters who might have been discouraged by the hierarchical system (or not seeing their pink stuff published). And, if they start replying to each other, they will consistently end up among the featured comments unless the algorithm is significantly smarter than I have faith that it will be.

      Eventually we'll find a way to make it work, but I imagine that it is going to be painful.

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    9. I haven't posted on this thing yet, so I don't know exactly how it's set up, but is there a way to set all replies to "auto-approve"? It's going to kill comedy pyramids in the admittedly unlikely event that the first poster leaves their computer.

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    10. That's the issue. So long as the comment volume stays relatively low, and most of us stick around, it should be essentially the same.

      If this encourages the WFAN crowd to start chiming in, however, this could get ugly, fast.

      Delete
  3. @ All

    Wow, I'm pretty confused. So far, from what I have observed:

    1) The "Featured" discussions are capped at 5 total discussions. These discussions, you would think, would be ordered chronologically, but they are not. (Perhaps they are ordered by when the original poster "Approves" them?)

    2) The 'latest' discussions is basically a twitter feed of comments.

    Questions:

    1) If I make a reply instead of an original comment, will is show up on "Latest?" Or would the OP have to approve it before it shows up anywhere?

    2) There is nowhere to view a purely chronological discussion, correct?

    3) There will be only five discussions, at most, that we can view in (pseudo-) chronological order. Otherwise we will have to piece the comments together from the timeline?

    Anyway, I think the last time they did a commenting overhaul, there were quite a few changes to the system even after they rolled it out. So maybe there are some tweaks to be implemented down the road. I, for one, would not be a fan of a DUAN in which only five threads could be viewed in Timestamp order (or will DUAN be cancelled?)

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    1. I don't know on 2 and 3, but on 1 - unless Sharting instantaneously approved my +1, it doesn't seem to require manual approval before publishing. Perhaps only "deleting" requires manual intervention?

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  4. One thing seems clear -- there will never be another spider bite post, where a dozen or more great comments gather steam. This is too bad.

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    1. The timing of this post, only hours before the Latrell Sprewell doll post, is hilarious in retrospect.

      The question remains whether this will still occur in the new system, but I don't see why not.

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  5. This quote from the Denton interview concerns me:

    Powwow’s secret algorithm parses comment text for length and quality and automatically tries to push the good stuff to the front

    If length=quality, I'm personally fucked, and I think that's short-sighted regardless.

    So far, however, these changes haven't even affected my ability to not read Gawker. So that's good.

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    1. Raysism the Algorithm BeaterApril 26, 2012 at 11:57 AM

      "I'M IRONICALLY MENTIONING THE NAME OF FORMER PENN STATE DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR, GERALD SANDUSKY!!1!!

      OH, AND IF I MAY ADD ONE ADDITIONAL THOUGHT, AN HE SEXY!

      /insert a pun dealing with the male genitalia here"

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  6. I have a very hard time believing that this is the intelligent, focused, editor-involved discourse that Denton was looking for.

    It seems like the same cesspool it always was, only with an organizational structure that I have yet to understand.

    MaverickIsAirborne asked a good question that I don't think Tommy really answered, probably because he hasn't been told yet, of what the plan is if this new system doesn't work? I have the same concerns about the comment section turning into ESPN or Yahoo, and it will get old wading through pages of shit to try to find good jokes if that is the case.

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    1. Holy crap was that impossible to read - 700 entries of people all saying one of two things ("It's the military and he can't insult his boss" or "It was a harmless opinion shared by many"), but with thousands of words each.

      I only made it about 10% of the way - just far enough to see Raysism entry (hilarious) and hope someone picked it up to build on it, or at least laugh (they did not).

      The juxtaposition between that post and the simultaneous one here on Sprewell was perfect

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  7. Universal Enveloping AlgebraApril 26, 2012 at 1:06 PM

    The action figure thread is fucking incredible. +1 to everyone involved. I regret leaving the house just in time to not participate.

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    1. Universal Enveloping AlgebraApril 26, 2012 at 1:12 PM

      I just re-read the whole thing. I'm a relatively new guy, but it might be my favorite Deadspin thread of all time.

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    2. Seriously. This thread made my whole day. So many great comments.

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    3. That's fantastic. The comments are loading weirdly for me, and not all of them seem to be showing up, so my apologies if I copied anybody.

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  8. I'm counting on all of you to figure out this new commenting system and continue to drop the funny, so as to make it worth clicking on the typical Deadspin post.
    As for myself, I'm going to ask the kids on my lawn if they can help me use the new system. If not, I'm chasing their asses off my property.

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  9. The whole fucking Sprewell thread is being ruined by the lack of love for my Andre Rison doll. PEARLS BEFORE SWINE!!!

    /slams door
    //kicks feet uncontrollably while crying on bed

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    1. After the habit one (hilarious BTW), you're experiencing the Law of Diminishing Returns.

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  10. And the Sprewell thread has begun its inevitable descent into "Warning: Gay" type comments.

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  11. As awesome as that Sprewell post is (and it is fucking awesome), it's also really disappointing to look at that and realize that, due to the dismantling of the comment process, that's probably the last time we'll ever get to see something like that happen. Instead, since they're "short" comments, GawkNet will shuffle them to the back of the pile for some Yahoo commenter to leave a poorly-spelled manifesto explaining why thugs like Sprewell and hip-hop music are destroying our future...which will be considered "more relevant", so long as it's long-winded. I mean, go back and look at that foul ball video earlier, and look at the comments (pink glasses required, for the time being). It's a mess. With no approval process, I fear a bunch of mouthbreathers who get their point across by capitalizing select words and using lots of exclamation points for emphasis will be what represent the site going forward. It's too bad, and I hate to sound so fatalistic, but I can't help it, because threads like that one are my favorite things on Deadspin, and they're about to go the way of the Dodo. Ah well, we'll always have Paris, or something.

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    1. I should add that the entire time I typed that, "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" was playing on my work radio.

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    2. I could be wrong...but won't the "All" option still show every comment that's been made?

      That option will make replies difficult to place (and you'll have to wade through the well-deserved >30 +1s to FEAST), but I think you'll still be able to see everything.

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    3. Yes, it'll show every comment, but like everything else, in unthreaded reverse order. I don't know if the problem with this comment system as it applies to threads like the Latrell Sprewell one (or the spider bite one, etc.) will be that you won't see new jokes, or be able to easily +1 them. If you're on top of the Featured and Latest tabs, I think that won't be all that different.

      But the fun part of these threads to me is watching all threads combust simultaneously. Three good jokes come in, and boom, on the next refresh they've all got 5 +1s, etc. It's impossible to keep up with the tone of an entire post with this system, it's too segregated. You almost have to click on every joke you like and open in a new tab to keep up with it as a thread, a problem that is exacerbated if the Featured tab doesn't operate like we think it should.

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    4. I get the concern, but this seems premature since we still don't know (and won't likely ever know) anything concrete about the moderating algorithm.

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  12. @SbV8

    My apologies if I'm putting words in Uwe's mouth here, but I get the impression he'd agree with this based on his post: Whether we can still see all comments being made is besides the point. Like Uwe said, the worry is "[awful pink comments] will be what represent[s] the site going forward." That's my concern, anyway: What kind of commenter--and by extension, comment--is Deadspin seeking with the changes?

    I haven't been a starred commenter very long, and going back to some of the highest pageview stories is really an eye-opener in terms of pink comments. The foul ball thread hurt my head. You can already see on Gawker that the discussions can quickly turn into the same two basic points being endlessly argued. A simple peek at other large sites with voluminous commenting shows the danger of, as Uwe puts it, letting everyone chime in with whatever is on their mind. I know the moderating thing can and should focus those discussions and keep them on track, but again, that's beside the point for people like me (us?). I don't want a serious discussion about what impact Dwight Howard leaving the Magic will have or whatever the fuck. I seek out other sites for that kind of thing, including SB Nation blogs dedicated to the teams I love.

    I agree with Miserable Shitehawk that people like me, the kind who obsesses (in a good way, I think/hope) over reading and making good comments and who comes to Deadspin because of the jokes are very much a minority, and I get why Gawker Media wants to capitalize on the untapped audience out there. Their site, their money, they don't owe me anything, etc. For every user like me out there who goes to an SB Nation blog to seriously talk sports and goes to Deadspin for laughs there probably exists 20 or whatever people who only go to a couple sports sites that tend to cover all sports and all teams. Alternatively/concurrently, I'm sure they want to draw in people like me who DO go to such niche sites, only they want me to stick around Deadspin more for that kind of thing. I get it, understand it, and don't begrudge them that at all.

    Understanding doesn't mean I won't miss it, of course, if in fact the comment section changes for the worse. I don't have nearly as much time invested in the Deadspin commenting culture as most of you, but I still enjoy it very much and don't want it to go away. The last month or so has been really hectic for me at work, and more and more I've been scanning the comments at home instead of even attempting to contribute. (In large part, that's also because I don't want to glut up the comments with mediocre comments that are made solely to participate). I hope we don't lose any of our great and hilarious commenters, but I think that's inevitable. Whether it's because we're losing status symbols (as dumb as it is, I still get a kick out of seeing that gold star next to my name two months after the fact) or because it's simply yet another change, we're bound to lose some people.

    I mentioned above that I haven't lately had time to comment as much as I'd like due to some work matters. I probably would have missed this thread if my friend, another commenter, hadn't sent me a GTalk message with a link to the story and a prediction that it was going to be fantastic. It was the perfect story to unleash the wit of the commentariat. I stayed a little later at work to catch up on some things I wanted to get done but didn't due to checking in on that thread. I'm sure it'd sound insane to most people that I'd spend so much time not only laughing at great jokes but making jokes in the hopes it made others also laugh, but there it is. I hope that doesn't go by the wayside.

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    1. Yeah, you hit it pretty much on the head.

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    2. Yea, thou hast truly smote that nail upon the head.

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    3. This worry that the site is going to be flooded with insane pinkos seems misguided, to me (apologies of course). Leaving aside the occasional outlier (like the "Worst People" foul ball thread yesterday, which was a genuine outlier), how many pinkos do you see in a day? Do you even see twenty pinkos in any given average day? How many people are trying to comment on Deadspin these days?

      So, let's be generous and say: twenty different pinkos on an average day (by the way, this is insanely generous on most days). Let's say, sure, soon all twenty of those people will be "approved" automatically.

      How many of those twenty are genuinely of the insane illiterate Yahoo! variety, as opposed to just being clumsy joke-makers or people with painfully earnest discussion in mind, honestly? Honestly, not most. Not even half, on the average day.

      Now, how many of the insane illiterate Yahoo! sorts will be getting replies to their insane illiterate comments? Not just one reply, but multiple replies - more replies than the number of +1s appended to the best comments in a given thread? Here, if you're saying that they're going to get more replies than the number of +1s given to the best jokes in a thread, then you're tossing out the window almost literally everything that we know about the existing Deadspin commentariat, unless you think that Powwow also comes with an automated army of robo-repliers.

      Now, how many from among that small minority of insane illiterate Yahoo! comments that do get a bunch of replies do you also think won't get moderated to some off-thread hashtag if they're genuinely insane and illiterate? Think about it.

      Now, from among the vanishing minority of the remainder that sneak through the cracks, are you ready to say that those will represent a permanent death to comedy pyramids? Because I'm not.

      It's the same website. It's the same commentariat. The same number of insane illiterate Yahoo! people will show up every now and then, as they've always done, post one or two comments, then leave because the existing commentariat doesn't reward them for their stupidity (RIGHT?). And the people who enjoy making funny comments and laughing at them will still characterize the place.

      I get that pearl-clutching about the imminent assimilation of Deadspin's comment section into the Borg of sports-internet stupidity is, like, a six-week tradition in certain corners. But, come on. We know absolutely nothing about how this new system will work once people settle into it. Hell, based on any reading of what Nick Denton and AJ Daulerio said today in the comments over on Gawker, we don't even know what the new system will look like when they're done tinkering with it. The lack of reply nesting is annoying. The potential for an unreadable Latest tab to cause stagnation of the Featured tab is out there. But the thing just went live today on some whole other site altogether, one with an entirely different entrenched culture and commentariat and set of standards.

      This is all premature. Let's relax, make jokes, and stop entertaining ourselves with the frankly very silly fantasy that there's some barbarian horde of ESPN.com retards lurking just outside a door that's soon to be removed. There's (again, very rare outlier posts notwithstanding) virtually no evidence for that, nor has there ever been.

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    4. I may very well have posted the above in reply to the wrong thread. Apologies.

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    5. (Guess it got deleted. Thanks, back button!)

      This worry that the site is going to be flooded with insane pinkos seems misguided, to me (apologies of course). Leaving aside the occasional outlier (like the "Worst People" foul ball thread yesterday, which was a genuine outlier), how many pinkos do you see in a day? Do you even see twenty pinkos in any given average day? How many people are trying to comment on Deadspin these days?

      So, let's be generous and say: twenty different pinkos on an average day (by the way, this is insanely generous on most days). Let's say, sure, soon all twenty of those people will be "approved" automatically.

      How many of those twenty are genuinely of the insane illiterate Yahoo! variety, as opposed to just being clumsy joke-makers or people with painfully earnest discussion in mind, honestly? Honestly, not most. Not even half, on the average day.

      Now, how many of the insane illiterate Yahoo! sorts will be getting replies to their insane illiterate comments? Not just one reply, but multiple replies - more replies than the number of +1s appended to the best comments in a given thread? Here, if you're saying that they're going to get more replies than the number of +1s given to the best jokes in a thread, then you're tossing out the window almost literally everything that we know about the existing Deadspin commentariat, unless you think that Powwow also comes with an automated army of robo-repliers.

      Now, how many from among that small minority of insane illiterate Yahoo! comments that do get a bunch of replies do you also think won't get moderated to some off-thread hashtag if they're genuinely insane and illiterate? Think about it.

      Now, from among the vanishing minority of the remainder that sneak through the cracks, are you ready to say that those will represent a permanent death to comedy pyramids? Because I'm not.

      It's the same website. It's the same commentariat. The same number of insane illiterate Yahoo! people will show up every now and then, as they've always done, post one or two comments, then leave because the existing commentariat doesn't reward them for their stupidity (RIGHT?). And the people who enjoy making funny comments and laughing at them will still characterize the place.

      I get that pearl-clutching about the imminent assimilation of Deadspin's comment section into the Borg of sports-internet stupidity is, like, a six-week tradition in certain corners. But, come on. We know absolutely nothing about how this new system will work once people settle into it. Hell, based on any reading of what Nick Denton and AJ Daulerio said today in the comments over on Gawker, we don't even know what the new system will look like when they're done tinkering with it. The lack of reply nesting is annoying. The potential for an unreadable Latest tab to cause stagnation of the Featured tab is out there. But the thing just went live today on some whole other site altogether, one with an entirely different entrenched culture and commentariat and set of standards.

      This is all premature. Let's relax, make jokes, and stop entertaining ourselves with the frankly very silly fantasy that there's some barbarian horde of ESPN.com retards lurking just outside a door that's soon to be removed. There's (again, very rare outlier posts notwithstanding) virtually no evidence for that, nor has there ever been.

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    6. Hey, ReverseApeChemist, don't worry, you're not the first guy to put something in Uwe's mouth.

      Delete
    7. @Sharting

      I don't really disagree with you in your description of the status quo. To be clear, I don't think the pink commenter volume on the site now is a problem, and I agree that even if we assume every single one of those commenters posted under the new system, it really wouldn't be that big a deal.

      My concern/point is the possibility they're trying to court that ESPN.com hordes. It sure seems like they're trying to reach a new audience. I don't understand why you'd change the system and its emphasis if not to do just that.

      The same number of insane illiterate Yahoo! people will show up every now and then, as they've always done, post one or two comments, then leave because the existing commentariat doesn't reward them for their stupidity

      That's true as is, but what's the point of revamping the system if not to change the existing system? To seize on the word "horde", imagine the current system as a barrier actively blocking that horde, with a few breaking through. The concern, at least for me, is that they're throwing down that barrier and saying, "Come on in!"

      Your argument seems to be "it'll be more of the same, just slightly different." I can't see that as being true, because if it were they wouldn't be changing it, right?

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    8. @RAC -

      I get what you're saying. But in order for a change to the back-end structure of the comments on Deadspin to attract the ESPN.com hordes, you'd have to be living in a universe in which the psychotic children and federal prisoners who do the commenting over on ESPN.com A) are even aware that Deadspin exists, B) know, or care, anything about how comments are arranged/displayed/moderated on some random contrarian sports blog, and C) pay close enough attention to the goings-on on a site they don't contribute to or read regularly to go, "Oh man, they've changed how the comments are displayed on Deadspin! SIGN ME UP!"

      I just don't think any of those three things is remotely, vaguely possible. If any of them were, we'd be seeing a lot more pinkos on a day-to-day basis.

      Your concern about them seeming to court the ESPNers is understandable. But you have to place the Powwow thing in its appropriate context as a change that is being made across the entire Gawker network to address problems (cliquishness, bitchiness, trolling, morons back-patting each other for doing a mediocre job of expressing their utterly commonplace opinions) that are epidemic on the other Gawker sites. Interpreting Powwow as a change targeted specifically at Deadspin - one of Gawker's more niche-oriented blogs, with one of its smaller commentariats - is kind of like interpreting the building of a new transcontinental interstate highway as a move targeted at the Ramada Radisson in Pete's Armpit, South Dakota.

      I'm not saying nothing's going to change. As Denton described it yesterday in Gawker's comments, this is social engineering as much as software engineering. But the degree to which it changes Deadspin is nearly entirely dependent upon how much we, the current commenters, allow it to change our own behavior. Keep making jokes. Keep ignoring the stupids.

      Everybody thought Deadspin was about to become Yahoo! each of the previous gazillion times they made major overhauls to the comments: when they opened them up to non-bloggers; when they introduced stars; when they introduced the ninjas; when they redesigned the whole site; and so on. The constant that has kept Deadspin from falling apart each of those times (to whatever extent we can all agree it hasn't) is that level-headed commenters just kept making jokes, and kept ignoring the stupids.

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    9. Sharting, I hope you are right. My lingering concern is that the ESPN-types who do show up now are discouraged because their comments don't appear. The immediate gratification of seeing their comment published to the world is missing, and they move on. Over time, I imagine more of them will fall in love with seeing their own words published, and more of them will respond to like-minded folks. I don't think it will happen right away, but I do expect a slow snowball to build even if we ignore them.

      It won't be the death of comments as we know them, but I do think it will become an increasing annoyance - especially if comments in the "latest" tab aren't threaded (threading would let them talk to each other while we ignore them).

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    10. @Dubai -

      I have a dirty, dark secret: I'm not all that freaked out by terrible, utterly clueless comments. I remember back in the months (and months) before I became a commenter, there were lots more - and I mean LOTS more - commenters on the site every day. More stars, many many more grays, and presumably many more pinks, too, although of course I couldn't see them back then.

      And, truth be told, most of them were miserable. Simpsons screencaps abounded (remember those? Like, there'd be several per post) and sometimes it seemed like nearly half of the comments on a given day were either direct quotes from lame movies or "so-and-so approves"-type nonsense.

      And that's how it was when I fell in love with the comments. Can you believe it? Now, it's like a gory bus accident with guts strewn across the roadway if one person posts one Simpsons screencap in one post in one week: everybody slows down to rubberneck it, waiting for the ninjas to show up. Back then, half your fellow drivers were Simpsons screencaps (to torture this bus/roadway analogy beyond all usefulness).

      I remember, not long after I got starred, I had what I thought was a gut-bustingly hilarious back-and-forth with a now-long-gone starred commenter where we were putting funny words in Jay Mariotti's mouth. I mean, man, I was dying laughing. It was only later, after I'd seen him make one too many Simpsons references in other threads, that I did some research and discovered that while I'd been earnestly coming up with funny things for Mariotti to say, this guy had literally been copy-pasting from IMDB.com: not one of his contributions had contained even one original word. And he was a starred, fairly prominent commenter who commented all the time. That type of shit wasn't just commonplace back then: it damn near defined the comments for a while.

      Now, no right-minded person would say that the average Deadspin comment hasn't improved since those days. But Deadspin's comment section was a vibrant, teeming, amazingly enjoyable place back then, and the kind of place where the guys who made great jokes were known, and revered, and held in awe.

      The point I'm making here isn't hey! we need more shitty commenters! It's just that, for as terrified as we all are of an influx of annoying retards who want to, I dunno, talk about their fantasy teams or whatever (and "we" is genuine here: I don't look forward to it either), it's worth remembering that our beloved comment section has played host to lots and lots of annoying behaviors over time, and has never yet become anything less than the funniest, sharpest, coolest place to crack jokes on the internet.

      Anyway, that's just one guy's (potentially ridiculously optimistic) opinion. THE SORT OF THING THAT WILL BE EXALTED ABOVE JOKES IN THE DE4DSP1N 2 CUM!!1!1!!

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    11. @Sharting

      1) Great post. I'm sold.

      2) How can I go back in time? I COULD HAVE BEEN A GOD!!1!

      (Note: I never would have been a god.)

      Delete
  13. At 3:17 PDT, the rapper known as The Notorious B.A.L.O.G. was murdered at a stoplight. We don't know who did it. Will we find out? Who knows. It's LA. This happens. He's dead. Deal with it.

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    Replies
    1. Yeah... this right here
      Goes out, to everyone, that has lost someone
      Who earned their plus ones.

      Seems like yesterday we used to rock the show
      I made you laugh, plus ones would flow.
      Didn't know how far this gimmick would go
      Notorious, they got to know that
      Time to write all these don't come for free
      Words don't always come easily
      I'll think of you in DUAN, eternally
      You had a mad week, you just lost the steam.
      In the future, can't wait to see
      If you have a greatest hits CD.
      Reminisce some time, the day you called out Ken
      Tried to raise some hell, when you started in
      Couldn't feel Baloggins' pain it was real
      I wonder why you chose to be the heel.
      I wish you could give me one more laugh (one more laugh)
      I know you still living your life, after death

      /exits stage quietly

      Every thread I take, every joke I make
      Every single day, every "Ha!" I take
      I'll be missing you
      Thinkin of the day, when you went away
      I will hold your place, waiting just in case.
      I'll be missing you



      (Ed. Note - The End)

      Delete
  14. Make 'em say "ugh.."
    Na, na, na, na
    Na, na, na, na

    Make 'em say "ugh..ugh.."
    Na, na, na, na
    Na, na, na, na

    Make 'em say "ugh.."
    Na, na, na, na
    Na, na, na, na

    Make 'em say "ugh..ugh.."
    Na, na, na, na
    Na, na, na, na

    Make 'em say "ugh.."
    Na, na, na, na
    Na, na, na, na

    Make 'em say "ugh..ugh.."
    Na, na, na, na
    Na, na, na, na

    Hey, yo..

    Make 'em say "ugh.."
    Na, na, na, na
    Na, na, na, na

    Make 'em say "ugh..ugh.."
    Na, na, na, na
    Na, na, na, na

    ReplyDelete
  15. I just tried to +1 RMJ's comment in the electrician post, and it told me "You don't have the permission to comment on this site." Also, a bird just shat on me while I was walking home.

    I CAN TAKE A HINT, THE NICK DENTON

    ReplyDelete
  16. Th-th-th-th that's all folks.

    ReplyDelete