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Trolls are, of course, never a problem at Neatorama, for all of our commenters are of a genteel, refined, and learned sort. Also: good looking. But this Saturday Night Live clip does apply to some darker fora on the Internet.
-via Boing Boing
Ars technica published a post about a hot button issue entitled “Guns at home more likely to be used stupidly than in self-defense.” After a couple of dozen comments came in, the fifth-to-the-last paragraph was edited to say:
That’s the bad news. In the limited scope of the review, the primary positive effect assigned to guns is deterrence, and, more specifically, deterrence against violence. Although, “Results suggest that self-defense gun use may be the best method for preventing property loss,” this doesn’t count from a public health perspective. And that’s only the start of the problems; as the National Academies of Science noted in a report quoted by the author, “self-defense is an ambiguous term.” As Hemenway himself puts it, “Unlike deaths or woundings, where the definitions are clear and one needs to only count the bodies, what constitutes a self-defense gun use and whether it was successful may depend on who is telling the story.” If you have read this far, please mention Bananas in your comment below. We’re pretty sure 90% of the respondants to this story won’t even read it first.
Finally, on the third page of comments, someone mentioned bananas. Redditor metageeek took a screenshot of the comments. Things got even sillier after that, with some readers mentioning bananas used as weapons, and other commenters totally confused. How about you? Do you ever comment without reading an entire post? Link -via reddit
I’m amazed at the different reactions we get from the variety of posts here at Neatorama. Some items have no comments at all; others have discussions that go on for days. The same thing happens at the Neatorama forums and in the Upcoming Queue section. Some discussions are overwhelmingly positive or negative, others feature a lot of differing opinions, and some veer off-topic into something completely different. What kind of web commenter are you? Veteran journalist Michael Malone takes a look at the different types of commenters.
The Troll — Everyone knows this guy (and it’s usually a guy), who intentionally visits sites in order to stir things up, provoke a furious reaction from other posters and then disappear. Classic examples are the Free Republic types who visit Daily Kos and vice versa.
The Skimmer — The commenter, usually sour, who reads only a headline or sentence of a piece, draws exactly the wrong conclusion, and then embarks on an embarrassing rant.
The Kumbaya — These folks always show up two-thirds of the way through any heated on-line debate and ask, “Why can’t we all just get along?” They are inevitably ignored or trashed.
The Parser — What would we do without the Internet Grammar Police? These folks assiduously correct the online writings of others — never quite catching on that the Web is designed to be fast, fresh and sloppy.
There are a couple of dozen types identified altogether. Link -via Geek Like Me
(image credit: ABC News)
