An Open Letter to the Deadspin and MKMUB Commentariat

Hi,

How are you all doing?   Really?  That bad.

Look, I'm going to do this one little posty thing and then vanish, because this Marv and CJ's balog now, and I genuinely have nothing to do with its management at this point, other than still having a copy of my security badge that no one made me turn over at my exit interview.  I don't know that they'd agree with any of what I'm about to write, so I'm just speaking for myself here.  And, frankly, I'm so sick and jet lagged, I may not even really be doing that.

I love you guys.  All of you.  Okay, maybe not Raysism, Bronze Hammer, Hammerclaw, or Dubai, but you get the point.  And that's why it pains me to say this, but I feel like about 98% of the readers have gotten so caught up in their pity party that they've turned into a miniature Pete Gaines without even noticing it.

Yeah, things are different.  Yeah, I hate reading anonymous internet commenters' opinions about anything.  Yeah, I hate trolls.  Yeah, all those things seem to be a part of the new commenting system for the time being.

But, you know, things aren't perfect, and this is a really small piece of imperfection in the grand scheme of things.  The writing is still really good.  There are still dozens of clever hysterical people perfectly capable of making great jokes visiting every day.  So, the choice seems pretty simple: (1) make the best of an imperfect situation, same as you do every day you commute to work, visit the airport, or get married, or (2) you know, leave.  I hope people would opt for (1) between those options, but (2) is perfectly valid if that's how you feel.

But creating shitty burner accounts and torching the place is bullshit.  I remember back in my college days, we lost our lease on our house, and proceeded to absolutely trash the place.  I mean, threw bottles through every window, punched through the walls, dumped garbage everywhere.  It was a totally mature adult reaction.  And the best part was that the people it hurt the most were us, because we still had to live there and try to bring girls back there for another semester.  The landlord was going to tear it down anyway, so we basically did him a favor.

That's what you're doing.  I don't know if you think you're Robert Redford in Sneakers - which is such an awesome flick albeit a little dated - and you're exposing weaknesses so they can be fixed, but you're not.  You're just making the place more hospitable to trolls and less like a place people will want to comment.

I have an email account associated with this balog.  It basically only gets email from two sources - other Deadspin commenters who have my email, and a notification when there's a new comment here.  It's getting harder and harder for me to check that inbox.  It's just endless negativity.  And if try to say something radical like "hey, you know, maybe shit will get better if we all just go back to making jokes," I'm somehow in Denton's camp.

I hate to say it, but I feel like the comment section is in better shape on Deadspin right now than it is on MKMUB.  We're trashing our own house.  You can blame Denton all you want, but he hasn't created a single burner troll account yet.  A bunch of you have.

If any of you are interested in preserving what the Deadspin commenting section was, the best way to do that is to go about business as usual.  I hope you'll do that.

I also hope you all die of syphilis.

With love,

IMG

An Open Letter to Nick Denton ... So, About Those Burner Accounts

Hi Nick,

Can I call you Nick?  I know it's not Ned, but hopefully it's cool for someone you've never heard of to address you so casually.  It's a sign of friendship and trust, and you know what, Nick (I can call you Nick, right?), I do like you.  I respect you for recognizing that America's insatiable appetite for all manner of tabloid reporting would combine with the Internet to produce megabucks way before those no talent assclowns at TMZ or FoxNews.com figured out.

Let's talk about those burner accounts.  On Deadspin, which is the only one of your sites whose comments I consume on a regular basis, they've been dreadful.  They bring out the worst dregs of internet commenting.  They discourage regular commenters from contributing for the same reason graffiti and litter might discourage you from visiting a park.  They suck.  And I'm not sure they add anything.

Now, the stated reason for their existence is they make it easier to leak to you guys.  That's a noble and worthwhile end, but the means are - how do I say this while maintaining the friendly respectful tone I'm looking to strike here? - not entirely logical.  First, let's start with the general proposition that anonymously leaked information in the comments section of a weblog, or webalog if you will, is unlikely to be as reliable as, for example, a person's description of themselves in a classified ad in the Weekly World News.

Second, if there is someone who is interested in leaking meaningful information anonymously, wouldn't you think that they might prefer a more discrete location than the most surgically dissected comment section(s) on the Netwebs?  The chances of detection just go sky high if your information is made public in its raw form, rather than filtered by editors and republished in their own words and combined with their own research.  I've known a few anonymous whistleblowers in my day, and most are beyond paranoid about revealing any detail that might give away their identity (again, that's supposedly the point of the Burners to begin with), so writing it in an extremely public forum would probably not be a significant incentive to come forward.

Third, whether intentional or not, you have now chosen to place your long-standing commenters at something of a disadvantage relative to these anonymous folks.  When I joined Deadspin back in the stone ages of 2009 or so, the site didn't require any info from me.  Now, every one of us is forced to link our accounts to a twitter or google or Facebook account, making us far more identifiable.  If we want to retain any goodwill we've built up over the past few years - and we're told that historic goodwill does play a role somewhere in the Powwow/Kinja algorithm - we need to use these publicly linked accounts.  Meanwhile, some new reader off the street can come in and comment without any of these hassles.  That's fine, mind you, but it should at least be an option for us regular commenters, too.  (Not that I care if you know I'm @ironmikegallego on twitter.)

Fourth, and this is where I think we get into it, there's really no good reason to combine an anonymous leaking public forum - even if there were interest in publicly leaking things anonymously, as counter intuitive as that may be - with a general commenting account whose purpose is to respond to existing articles with jokes or clever insights.  We used to - and may still - have a #tips forums.  That would make a fine spot for these anonymous reports.  Why should they be limited to leaks that relate to a given story, after all?  Wouldn't the best leaks be completely unrelated to anything you're already covering?

I think the only sensible reason to have Burner accounts is to encourage anonymous drive-by commenting.  People who never would have taken the time to make a real account, and yes, people who never could get past the approval hurdles in the past, can now just come in and comment willy-nilly.  And, maybe this too is a worthy end.  If it increases site traffic and revenue, more power to you.  It's your sandbox, we all are just playing in it.  But to quote Thomas Aquinas, "don't pee on my shoe and tell me it's raining."  You've made your feelings about commenters clear.  You didn't think there were a lot of Nobel Prize winners who cared about their stars and making snide jokes.  But there a few of us who have done some interesting stuff and who appreciate being treated like adults. * If you plan to monetize our contributions - and more power to you if you can pull that off - at least be honest with us about how you are doing it.  We're not your enemies.  We're your friends.  We're your biggest fans.  We're the people who are addicted to your product.  You don't have to kiss our ass, but there's no need to kick us in it either.

Anyway, just take this for what it is:  A prolix haphazardly-typed screed from someone you've never heard of that you will never read.

Also, what does AJ smell like?  Is it a mix of Axe body spray and Top Ramen?  That's always what I figured.

Cheers.

Your pal,

IMG

* Edited because it made me sound like much more of a whiny bitch than I intended, whether that was an accurate depiction or not.

Go Kinja, Go Kinja, Go!

Okay, so that did not go well.

Let's not kid ourselves, the Kinja rollout lived up to all the hype, which is to say that it was awkward, clumsy, and not terribly conducive to what we do, or perhaps I should say, what we did.  So, it's over, right?  We're all going to be writing stuff for Bleacher Report next week.

Pardon me, but I've seen this movie before, and it was directed by Michael Bay that time, too.  When the last redesign rolled out, we all freaked out.  It was buggy as shit (remember when "IMG Fail" wasn't just a dig at me?).  Hearts were gone.  So were our messages.  The "expand all replies" option was gone.  For a while, we didn't even have a blog view option, so shit was all muddled up and confused.  There was a featured comment thing that, frankly, I guess never got fully worked out.  

But that all got fixed.  And it seems pretty silly now when I look back at how much hand-wringing went into an aesthetically pleasing and ultimately pretty successful refresh.  

Kinja is different, of course.  The previous redesigns were largely site redesigns that only incidentally affected the world of comments.  Kinja is a wholesale revision of the comment section.  A casual reader might not have noticed the difference today.  We all did.  And, one would think, that when one sets out to specifically revise a comment section, they would hopefully take into account the opinions and needs of the commentariat.  Yeah, that didn't happen here.  Clearly, this redesign was not done with Deadspin commenting mores in mind.  

But, we are here at another crossroads.  Things will either get better, or they won't.  We can make the best of it, tell some funny jokes, adapt what works to fit the new design, or we can act like a bunch of shitty Gawker commenters and throw shit all over the place.  You are free to do what you choose.  I'm going to give this every chance to work.  And, if it doesn't, I'm going to totally change my tune and rip on everyone involved.  

MKMOT (June 14, 2012)

Oh, you!

Fireworks last night! Let me try to address a few things in the laziest way possible, for it is the only way I know how.

First, I am struggling with the new trend of referring to our new troll-like visitor(s?) as "Guy Who". Haven't there been hundreds of "Guy Who"s in the last few months of this balog, virtually all of whom have brought more to the table than this one? Why should he be THE "Guy Who"? Just because he's recent and notably shitty? That's like saying Gosselin is THE "John". Don't. If we're going to continue to discuss this jagoff, which is entirely up to you all, I challenge you to come up with a better name.

Also, let me preemptively address any further accusations of hypocrisy and/or inconsistency. Those of you who have paid attention know that we have made it crystal clear that we have several different editors, with literally zero coordination between our efforts. That's the kind of steady ship we run around here. I have explained repeatedly that my editorial policy differs from CJ's or IMG's, and that just because I am the most active voice doesn't mean that I am the loudest. I won't always endorse what those guys do, but I can all but guarantee that I'll never step on their toes. I hope you find our public disagreements clumsily entertaining and readable. But they are not inconsistent with anything that's recently been said about our policy, so let me nip that in the bud right here.

As for the comment that I quasi-reprimanded and CJ removed last night, it was an attack on a commenter more so than a comment, which I have publicly declared to be where the line gets crossed. However, in recent weeks, I have allowed arguably similar comments to stand, so I (not CJ) addressed it with a reply rather than a removal. The reason for this is simple. You guys have shown a positive response (statistically) to controversy, and also, as I recently mentioned, an ability to police yourselves. My personal theory is that if it's interesting, fosters discussion, and won't turn off our readers, I'd rather let you guys handle this kind of shit in your own way. You seem to have fun with it. Unless it's racist or similar hate speech, because, you know, fuck that shit. Remember, I hold myself out to be little more than the provider of a forum. If I have one rule that trumps all others, it's that you guys dictate the content. If I could post a poll about "let it stand vs. remove", I would. I do what I think will keep you guys coming around. If I'm doing it wrong, or right, please weigh in in the comments.

The bottom line is this- we are what we say we are: a balog for you guys. And we're consistent in our inconsistency. As far as I go, my number one goal is to keep it interesting, and the method I choose is almost always going to be letting you guys do that organically. Other editors may take different approaches from time to time. That is fine. Nothing is hard and fast around here, except my erection when I see this kind of activity.

Keep it up below, and I will too. It's open.