Not everything is as it seems. Predictable MSM blast here by James Farmer, of The Age but this time not at the bloggers themselves: Comment is twee I am utterly sick of blog comments. Honestly, I've had enough. Enough of the flaming, the trolling, the moderation, the spam, the 'who's-got-more' syndrome, the inanity and the sheer stupidity behind allowing them on sites like theage.com.au. They devalue our content, insult much of our readership, piss off our advertisers, waste massive amounts of our time and place us at an enormous legal risk. They're also perhaps the least web-savvy thing we, as a large media organisation, should be doing. They're yesterday's online communication forums, they're twee. This, needs revisiting. Let's get rid of them now.
Thing is - this blogger half agrees with James Farmer. I've seen the comments on my own site and on my fellow bloggers' and the worst they get is incorrect but still readable. But at the newspaper just mentioned, you just need to look at any regular lifestyle column and the illiteracy of the average commenter is staggering:
Not so fast: a lot of 'splaining to do when your teenage son finds it accidentally. "Ewwww" he says.... [Migs is a bit sheepish at June 6] puts up hand*...ooook...i'll join yours then...[ecboy under a thumb at June 5] what do I tell you people....research, research research practise, practise an then some … [KARMA at June 6] *whisper* just between you & i, bornagirl...it's only to keep the peace...i'm not surrendering...[ecboy keeping the peace at June 6] Tea spluttering out the nose moment, here.Yes, where do you keep it, flightless bird? It's a bit like 'where to put the jewelery' - every place you think of you imagine a burglar finding easily… [bornagirl at June 6]
Rivetting stuff. I don't know how James Farmer finds the exchange above incoherent, near-illiterate and pitched at the lowest common denominator. The pathos is moving and the creative use of the written word poetic. Bloody MSM snob! Labels: education, intellect | 
Thoughts on "[msm commenters] wot us illit ... lit ... er ... wottev'va"
-
Crushed by Ingsoc says ... (06 June 2007 18:16) :
-
Colin Campbell says ... (06 June 2007 22:48) :
Add your thoughtsComments is what it is all about.
Otherwise it's just a one medium.
We blog to get away from Telly.
I read the article and of course he had the comments turned off. I clicked the Google link and there you were James, right at the top.
I do agree with him a bit. I am not sure you have to have comments available for everything. I also think that they could just chill out. Talk about a tedious job, moderating punters comments.
But as Ingsoc says, often the comments are better than the original article, especially on MSM so called blogs, with their post a straw man, tear it down journalism style.