I don’t know if anyone else does the same thing, but I tend to shy away from commenting on blogs when they have lots of comments. There’s something about it that makes me feel like my comment is always going to get buried, and there’s virtually no chance to respond to a comment, so I don’t even bother. Over the past few months, Pharyngula has become like this. I still read it, I just don’t bother commenting. It’s not uncommon for Pharyngula to get more than one comment per minute. This post has 2113 comments in just over 12 hours (that’s 1 comment every 20 seconds x 12 hours), and this one has 1480 comments. I suppose the more commenters there are, the more readers there are, but wow. Once comments get into the upper double-digits, I don’t even attempt to read them, so it’s hard for me to believe anyone else is.
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Pharyngula’s comment section is unreadable because every single threat degenerates into fighting with a troll. It doesn’t matter what the topic is, whether PZ’s talking religion or biology, a fight will break out – usually within the first dozen posts – over something that is such an obvious attempt to derail comments that the commenters should know better.
And there’s really no way to stop it because it’s a facet of both Pharyngula’s growing recognition and the touchy subjects that PZ blogs about. It’s only going to snowball at this point and get worse. Which is too bad – often the comments over there led to me learning almost as much as the original article. Not anymore though – there’s only so much you can learn from watching commenters smack down yet another troll’s bad logic and namecalling.
Sigh – that should be “thread”, not “threat”. I guess the threats that PZ’s been getting there lately have lodged in my brain. Or I’m not a very good typist. Either is likely.
I don’t comment over there anymore either. Mostly because the discussion always narrows down to one or two people in the field exchanging ideas; everyone else is ignored.
…unless they’re trolls, then everyone gets a chance to take pot shots at them.
But you’re right. I’ve had a feeling that Crackergate has moved PZ out of science blogging into pop blogging, and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing. I really miss the science and the discussions. Now it’s just an internet flashpoint.
I guess that depends on who you’re leaving your comments for. If I’m responding to an open call for opinion, I would hope that it would be read, but if I’m correcting a point in a post, or responding with a personal aside, I might be leaving it for the blog’s owner to read and respond to, not necessarily everyone who reads the blog.
Or, I might leave a comment because I recently started reading a certain blog and wanted to introduce myself to the blog’s owner. Hello!
I think the cracker incident is what caused PZ’s forums to blow up, mostly the result of trolls and hardcore believers flaming him. I hope once the freaks find a new target for their indignation the noise will subside significantly.
I was thinking about the Pharyngula blog, and wondering what, if anything, can make the comments section useful again. I’ve also seen this problem with other blogs. When they get a lot of commenters, it’s hard to even interact with it.
One website I used to visit (codeproject.com) had a threaded comment system. This allowed people to comment directly to someone else’s comment – rather than having one long comment block. So, users could run off on one or more separate discussions without mucking up the rest of the comment section. When someone replied to your comment, you’d also be notified by email (so people didn’t need to go back try to find who responded to them). They also allowed users (all users) to vote a comment up or down. After a few votes, high-rated comments turned red, and low-rated comments turned gray. I realize that voting on comments can allow a group of people to simply reinforce the viewpoints they agree with, but it’s better than nothing and allows people to easily skip the trolling comments. (See http://www.codeproject.com/Lounge.aspx to see their comment system.) I still think they have the best comment system I’ve ever seen.
Slashdot sort of uses this system. Although, even their system can get unwieldy.
I kind of wish that pharyngula would expand into a larger bulletin forum so that specific topics could be discussed. One sub forum for religion stuff, another for biology stuff, another for book reviews.
I kind of wish that pharyngula would expand into a larger bulletin forum so that specific topics could be discussed. One sub forum for religion stuff, another for biology stuff, another for book reviews.
Huh. I hadn’t thought of that. Although, I think Myers tends to view religion and science as interconnected (i.e. religious belief tends to skew people’s science views, so a good way to promote science and rationality is to attack religion), so I’m doubtful Myers would ever accept segregating the site in that way. I’m sort of 50/50. On one hand, the political/religious stuff could alienate Christians and Republicans – thus driving them away and missing the science. (It’s also interesting to see this segregation where even some pro-ID sites will play politics by being pro-military/pro-gun/pro-Republican, which creates a nice, comfortable environment for many people.) On the other hand, many bloggers feel it’s important to point out the ways religion/politics is messing stuff up (e.g. Chris Mooney and his book, “The Republican War on Science”), and think that political parties should suffer when they are anti-science.
I agree… I wish I could participate more in the skeptical blogging community… but I feel buried. Oh, why am I even writing this, you’ll never read it….
Oh, why am I even writing this, you’ll never read it…
Heh. I read all the comments.