BGR:
I’m tired of reading nonsense and of interacting with people that solely troll this site just to get a rise out of other commenters and start a holy war in the comments section. I’m tired of having to delete crap and I’m tired of people complaining that a few thousand people ruin it for millions. Maybe I’m just tired of you.
Another site turns off story comments. BGR is one of the biggest in recent months to do it though.
For me, I feel like all this talk about turning off comments is missing an important point: The reader who actually wants to read (good) comments.
Everyone who turns off comments and says Twitter or blog posts are equally good ways to comment only look at the communication between the blog owner and the commenter. But what about the other readers?
Twitter is especially bad since all context is lost and only works for the moment. If I visit an interesting article one week after it was posted I would have to go through a lot of trouble to find comments on Twitter.
But blog posts are not much better, compared to just read the comments attached to the original article.
I totally understand if you turn of comments based on spam, insults and generally bad comments that take too much time to cater. But do not claim that other means of communications is equally good, because that leaves out the other readers.
And I’m happy that I can submit this comment here 🙂
Feh. BGR was tired of their “writers” getting the virtual crap kicked out of them for BGR’s terrible link bait articles.
The problem is BGR, not the comments. If you post unconfirmed bullshit every time, you’re filtering your readership automagically to include only people like that. They’re sick of something they choose to get. Posting insightful items and features and not just linkbait and made up stuff is a good way to get polite comments from insightful readers.
As a BGR reader, its about damn time lol. That comment section was a mess. I was attacked personally daily on it but I found it rather entertaining
In my opinion the quality of the comments on a site, depends on the quality of the site and it’s content.
Hence the fact that BGR has a problem with crappy comments, comes as no surprise to me.
“The problem is BGR, not the comments. If you post unconfirmed bullshit every time, you’re filtering your readership automagically to include only people like that.”
Exactly. If you post crap, don’t be surprised when you attract crap.
“The reader who actually wants to read (good) comments.”
Agreed. I’d don’t care if comments are turned off on bad sites but I’d hate to see comments on sites I like, like The Loop, ever be turned off.
I love comments. But as Aetles says above, “good comments.”
It seems that popular sites these days get hit hard by vitriol from people who just want a rough and tumble discussion. In my view, that type of commenter tends to be youthful and lack perspective. These days, it’s apparently popular to hate Apple passionately among that demographic. I don’t care if someone hates Apple; but it’s pointless when it’s merely a bunch of name-calling instead of acknowledging the various points of view. Or even acknowledging the facts.
Engadget, Verge, and Techcrunch all suffer from this plague of drooling Apple-hate. The comments to Siegler’s Techcrunch posts are awesome in a “can’t stop looking at the train wreck” kind of way. All three of those sites should just give up and turn comments off.
I miss good Engadget comment threads from years ago. I hope this site continues to be a refuge from all that.
What about introducing mods, as Engadget has done?
Engadget isn’t 1/2 as bad as BGR. At least those comments are moderated. They also have a larger ‘helpful’ crowd. It is totally BGRs fault for this happening though – the shit they put out 1/2 the time is just perfect food for the trolls. They’re asking for it.
Moderators mean more work and/or money for the site in question. Lots of sites don’t see enough value to go that route.
I think many frequent commenter would not mind moderating for free. Though most people don’t read all articles, they do read all the big news that tends to start the flame and troll wars. All BGR has to do is give a checklist of things that count as disruptive commenting to those appointed mods.
I’m sure they wouldn’t. But it still means the owners of the site have to monitor and ride heard over the moderators, too. They would be representing the site in question. Again, it’s a lot of additional hassle for some sites and many don’t see the value (if any) in it.
This only further shows how different sites are: there are those who want the page views and nothing else; they don’t care about the community they cater to. I realise that this is a business, but there’s still a huge difference between creating good content and not accepting comments because of the additional work and producing crap or regurgitating crap and expecting readers to swallow it and shut up.
I volunteered to moderate the comments on The Loop for free should the need arise someday, but I honestly don’t see this happening. The Loop has high quality content and it’s readers are — with occasional exceptions — intelligent.
Am 01.02.2012 um 22:54 schrieb Disqus :
i see a few people from BGR here. I personally don’t like that they shut off the comments section, i do believe in moderating it. a few bad apples shouldn’t spoil the whole bunch.
Agreed. There were a few dumb assholes there but I think they turned it off because they were getting trashed by Commenters SO much for blatant apple slant. There have been trolls on that site for years, they shuttered it now so they can keep spewing their nonsense uninterrupted
BGR’s quality of reporting is quite awful compared to other tech blogs. That’s why you see (or used to) a lot of trolls hanging out there. BGR is the no name motel around the corner in a shady downtown neighborhood which is quite famous for 2 hour rental arrangements for dirt cheap price. Geller however thinks he is running Hyatt.
Though I miss reading the comments (and contributing) which definitely made some slow days at work go by fast.
A big shout out to Norm, Goofan, Grizz, Fatties, Bringit, PAPI, Scroat, Rimfail…and tonnes of others who made the site worth visiting.
[Retracted]
Yes those guys were good trolls… btw after reading this site it seems like another apple fanboy source for news, recommend any other sites?
You could always head over to Jizzmodo. Just leave already.
You mad brah?
Well this site says they are Apple oriented. Nothing wrong with that.
I just use Google reader with feeds from different Technology sites such as Techcrunch, The Verge, Endgadget, Wired, Gizmodo, etc…
I removed BGR though – Boy Genius aka Geller is an arrogant overconfident underachieving piece of turd.
Now BGR gets about 3 comments per post. It was fun while it lasted.
If that was their goal – they can just shut it down and speak among each other. Which from the looks of it now – it pretty much what BGR has become.
Totally subjective.
You did your share of slinging as well.
Thanks! Was fun while it lasted.