suave.house

HELLSRIDER

LeLoi

The man makes some good points and in a funny way too.

I love Kotaku and it's writers but this guy scorchingly hits its weak spot for MASSIVE DAMAGE!!!

No?

Well anyway I thought it was a good comment.

I normally discuss my opinions of the banning system privately (for fear of getting banned) but I had to say that this post sums up the fact that TPTB can't be right all the time.

Billkwando

timebombtimmy

UNSTOPPABLE

Pantsman

UNSTOPPABLE

Its obvious you did something wrong if you got banned.

Yes. "Obvious." Because getting banned is hard evidence that I did something wrong. You'd make an excellent brainwashed Chinese citizen, faithful to their "people's government." Or a great supporter of the police who arrested Hurricane Carter. OH NOEZ, RACISM!? <-- Now you can ban without thinking about it. Aren't I nice?

Remember this ISNT your private soapbox.

Never made that claim. Not even once. But, hey, keep trying. It's good to have goals.

Shit before I got this job Id call out Mark and Luke all the time, yet we are still mates to this day. Why? Its all in the tone and what you say.

Good for you. I'm not looking for "mates" online. My "tone" does not, in and of itself, disqualify my words or my position. It doesn't, on its own, disqualify ANYBODY's words or positions. And if you actually believe it does, you are worthy of pity.

Id say reading that comment of yours you have a shit attitude mate. Speaking as another commentor and not someone who works for Kotaku.

You respond to my post as "another commenter and not someone who works for Kotaku," proceed to ban me (as another commentor, right? XD) so that I cannot offer a rebuttal... and I'm the one with a "shit attitude?" My attitude may not be all sunshine and roses, but at least I don't shut my ears and shout "LALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" when somebody speaks to me in an unpleasant "tone."

Dont like it get out.

If it wasn't already painfully obvious that discussion here is throttled by rules meant to filter out--wait, why am I even bothering? You were given your "job" after winning a popularity contest! Good work, Miss America.

By all means ban this account too. Look up my IP and ban it, the entire region I'm posting from, or the entire range of IPs my ISP uses. Institute another invite system. I'll get into the ranks again, and again, and again, even if you find and ban the two other active accounts I still have here. I know umpteen different ways to circumvent your petty little barriers, not the least of which is the ability to act just like your ideal commenter. Don't doubt it; I've done it before, and even garnered praise. I'll do it again. My comments will be seen, regardless of what you think of my "tone."

Why will I continue to come back, again and again? You can figure that one out yourself. Though I doubt you possess the mental acuity to process such painfully obvious information. You'll default to assuming it is some sort of psychological failing, and continue to play the role of the fool. It suits you well, "King of Kommenters."

@Brian Crecente: What an excellent, well thought-out rebuttal. Clearly you are my intellectual superior. XD

I remember this teacher I had once. He seemed less concerned with teaching and more concerned with hanging out with the "cool kids." He was a pathetic human being. And he would have said exactly what you did.

Homard Lobster

It is hard to keep up with all of the comments posted now. Maybe some sort of moderation system would help with the comment trouble.

Adam In Texas

I'm not saying that my comments are absolutely the best, nor am I implying that I deserve to be commenting. However, I agree that some of the things people say on here are complete trash and adds no value to a discussion, which I believe it was intended to be.

kidCasey13

Barf#1

Optimistic Prime

"Amen to that!"
"I agree."
"Good point."
"You go, girl!"

It's just filler. Also, take the time to exhale whatever snark you feel rise to the surface. (I sometimes have a problem with this as well, so I'm not blameless.)

If you feel your comment won't add a laugh, a point, or something even remotely important to the discussion at hand, let it go. Say it aloud if you need to get it out of your system.

And for chrissakes, please don't repost your old comments or direct readers offsite to your personal blog to read. Keep it local.

Hell, I don't even know if this'll be considered helpful. If not, I apologize.

Does Not Equal

One Way Mule

Sorry for the double post.

98abaile2

Granted it won't stop the large percentage of idiots that inhabit the internet from posting, but it might lessen the burden. It would also allow you to choose moderators from some of the more respected members, instead of just the staffers checking posts. Further easing the burden.

98abaile2

FancyShmancy

@RandomPoster:
Good point! LOL

Probably wouldn't do much to stem the tide of something as huge as the RE5 post in question, but I do think it could only help.

Xiedo

_Ted_

Does this site implement posting a few comments that need to be approved first before regular posting? I thought that's how it worked when I first started here.

I've read a lot of topics here (I seriously give the site around 55 hits a day and the tab bar goes into around 35 after I've clicked every single new post to thoroughly read it) and not very often have I read overtly offensive posts. This is a good posting community, and it was that one topic that seemed to just set a lot of the immature people off, or those who just couldn't handle it.

kylo4

Blah8

Witzbold

If only they had a better banning method, as it seems banned people just make new accounts. Sometimes that's okay, as people will occasionally learn their lesson, but the majority of the time it just allows people to continue to spout moronic things.

It's almost impossible to really ban a person, rather than an account, though. Perhaps there should be a lengthier application process, with essays or something. Hah.

ArticulacyFTW

That said, and as someone who remembers when far less people frequented the comment-line, I agree totally with what you've said.

splines

Blake Ruff

The one within your profile with the cat jumping out of the cake is by far the superior one.

Witzbold

Blake Ruff

Witzbold

Blake Ruff

xBETAx

I agree and I posted a comment that reflects that basic view on that articles page but it was probably lost in like commnet 250 or something so I doubt anyone read it. like this comment I'm making now

Oh and as long as Kotaku doesn't become like gamefaqs this place will always be great

pokebud

TheeAhaMoment

d.omen

Unfortunately, a significant chunk of that personality is undesirable for many reasons already mentioned. When you give the general public access to anonymous voice, people use the opportunity to be jerks.

Good luck on whatever solution you come up with, Brian.

Lezard

turbofreak

and thats why I cancelled my xbox live membership. Sick of having bigot 11 yr olds screamin in my ear (yes there is a mute), without punishment.

But there was a great point made in this post. But removing the right to comment, removes a right in a sense that of free speech... which is by all means free but it must be liberal in use. So that trolling comments and bigoted responses will slowly fade out over time as people become more educated... but lets be realistic here it will never fully go away.

Im just thankful some do try... that is a comfort in itself

ibu

It's been said now, but I also concur with the above: dialog is critical. I believe in the core of my soul that when the moment comes we cannot talk about an issue, we have lost something very valuable and difficult to get back. There is no issue that cannot be discussed. Will some people flame/troll/etc. rather than making valuable contributions? Yes, unfortunately. But usually it's not too hard to skip them (though I understand some threads get out of control).

Also, I'd like to agree with those above who have said the comments are part of why they read Kotaku. I come for the news, stick around for the comments. I frequently find bits of background information or opinions that would not occur to me otherwise in the comments section, so I would be sad indeed to see the discourse restricted.

KillianD

Now what I do think could go well is granting users the option to filter comments on a post, hiding posts that are too short, contain certain words/phrases, are by certain other users, or simply manually. After all, who can complain if you choose what you can read?

Withmyrice

-Y'know from Anchorman...

GOLD5

I remember before when you'd have to submit a comment and it has to be insightful in a way that you have to be approved first. That worked, I think.

Now you have people posting "first" or whatever bile they have on a particular game/system/genre/etc. Sure you can just ignore them but it is annoying. Like flies when you're eating.

That's why I don't post on anything that I know is controversial. Somebody will surely try and piss you off.

Note to the kids: Don't comment on posts which has more than 150+ comments. That's where most of the shit happens.

excaliburps

Bon5ai

KM91

who cares

Kotaku's continued success has meant way more eyeballs, and with that comes more community interaction and more scrutiny by your regulars. I find it disheartening that Homard was banned for pointing out some of the double standards that exist here. Yeah, he didn't do it in the most polite way, as Witz said, but his point was still valid. You can't take the high road and bark at people for being juvenile, then post a "maximum risky, tee-hee!" item about the latest Japanese touching game or whatever. There has to be some kind of consistency, or at least a really clear understanding of what is and isn't acceptable, both by editors and commenters.

Figure out you envision Kotaku to be, and then lay down some concrete guidelines to nudge it towards that end. Otherwise, the people who can help you achieve that vision, who *want* to help you achieve that vision, will just end up shaking their heads and moving on to someplace where they feel like they're getting something in return for their time investment, instead of being punished for their opinions. Meanwhile, the trolls you ban will just keep sparking up new IDs and coming back for more shit disturbing. And eventually they'll outnumber everyone else.

Off topic, @ Crecente: With all due respect, and I say this with only the most constructive intent, you really need to start spellchecking better. Sometimes your typos are kind of an endearing trademark of your posts, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who found "dilutes there intelligent discourse" unintentionally funny.

Z-Word

Bastard11

So is there a solution? It really comes down to whether you want exclusivity for the sake of better quality. Which would alienate many people. That, and tighter moderation would, obviously, require more moderators.
In all, it's a thorny topic. Maybe a flat out appeal/chastisement like this will help in itself. If only for a while.

MajorMcMuffin

I'm kind of surprised that you didn't see this coming given how race (thanks Rev Wright) is presently a hot topic. Full disclosure, I left a couple of comments in that epic thread - I don't think they were over the top, but YMMV. I think that some folks, including myself, have a bit of a hair trigger thanks to a decade or so of forced "diversity training" which basically assumes that all people of weak pigment are rascists until proven otherwise. My problem with Croal's interview statements was not that he saw racism in the trailer but that he implied that anyone who didn't see it was some sort of reprobate who is not even worth talking to.

Canoehead

Not that I really read much of the other sites (a smidgen of io9, maybe), but I'll wager there's not as much clutter there as there is here. It makes a solution more difficult. I don't envy the Brians and their coworkers the upcoming task.

Does Not Equal

You can only have so many people, so many voices, so much input, it's all noise except for a few people.

I remember when there was no comments. I remember when there was a time a post was hot when it got to 30-40 comments. Now you'll see unproductive and careless comments. /b/ tardisms and stuff that is an utter waste.

Kotaku is -the- gaming source. But it's comment section is too big. It needs a hard reset. An impossible task with the way it is set up. Back to the day when you could follow a comment thread without having to wade through the crap.

Often, I don't even bother if the thread has more then 150 comments. Usually my point has been said and I don't want to add to the clutter and crap. It is even worse when you get home or come back from break and there is a great topic but it is spammed with over 300 posts already.

Kotaku 'jumped the shark' when they were trying to get a new ban hammer monitor and did it by a popularity contest. It created a "me me me" type mantra that Kotaku merely supported. I defriends several people because I wanted nothing to do with them.

Guys, I love your site, but this crap has been going on for a while now. I'm overjoyed that your addressing it finally. Forget the Ban hammer, we need a Ban Scythe to cull away the weeds.

huginn

Grimmjow Jeagerjaques

Personally i'm stoked that i can say some of the abrasive shit that i sometimes do (i kneejerk like anyone else) and not get instantly destroyed by mods. I appreciate it and try to at least maintain a semblance of substance to my commentary in spite of my ouchie rhetoric, and that is, for me, the difference between something that's a waste of everybody's time and a consise representation of a reader's opinion.

I thought, when i was allowed to comment, that i was being invited, partially, to a kind of amateur journalism, where my "job" was to apply myself and view the stories through "my lens" and make commentary thereof, ideally supplementing the story.

I think it's maddening to see stories with over a thousand comments: There's no way i'm going to be able to read through all of that, because most of it is likely not worth reading. You got the old regulars and a few new dudes and dudettes that write genuinely great commentary, and then for each one of them there's at least a dozen people who simply shout the same generic opinion over and over again.

I think the gates should just be shut on all new commentors for a while and spend that time thinning the ranks, because there's a ton of painful reading for almost every story with real substance.

I'm sort of expecting to get thinned out with those ranks, but so be it. At least i won't have to wade through 10 pages where 6 of them are the same comment with varying composition.

Sunjammer

I'd rather see a mass banning -- myself included -- and leave the better-spoken commenters behind than have a user-driven ratings system implemented.

Simpler is better in this case.

Does Not Equal

Fizgot

moethemoblin

Point 2] I enjoyed when Kotaku was a small, tighter community before anyone and everyone could get a commenting pass. While I do think everyone has a right to voice their opinion, the amount of opinions has watered this concept down. I enjoy the times on Kotaku where there are a few back-and-forths in the comments section where people discuss something in a level-headed fashion. Unfortunately, this becomes a huge mess as the number of comments grows and tracking one conversation becomes EXTRAORDINARILY difficult. Right now I see there are 511 comments. I a) feel like my comment is a small drop in a large ocean and feel like no one will ever read it and b) I've honestly skipped over about 490 of the comments to post my own. This leads to a problem: multiple people probably had these ideas and posted about them already. I went through and read all the comments on the RE5 story, and 90% of them discussed racism in regards to white zombies and/or spanish zombies. It was essentially the same post repeated over and over and over again.

Klaymen

I believe it's well moderated, I also love that the bloggers post along with us average schmucks.

z357x

ggodo

ggodo

deckard47

kagai

I don't have access to historical data, relating to Kotaku, but I think if someone looked they would find an increase in "viewership" correlating with the flood gates of commenting being opened.

People like to have a site identity, it builds a relationship between the site and the user, it makes them come back for more and post comments...to feel like they are a part of something.

If Kotaku were to mass ban people, to thin the herd as it were, you most likely would see people not coming back, they would find another site that would allow them to create a site identity.

When you make your club smaller your club gets smaller.

I totally think commenter policing is the way to go, like the Joystiq family currently uses, where the users vote up a comment to stand out boldness or vote down a comment into oblivion.

kagai

I hope we can find an easy way to find the few that seem to rely on the lowest common denominator in order to make their point.

I would like to continue posting and perusing the various posts made by my peers.

sascha23

ggodo

Sloopydrew

Destructoid, on the other hand, is dead to me.

Diverse-Nerd

Put another way, Witzbold, the exemplar of humanity that he is, has the stick. The star is carrot-ish, but that also follows the general Gawker Empire rules (if I'm not mistaken), and connects to multi-tap when not, and multi-tap by itself is too infrequent and not very large (as it should be).

In a perfect world, there would be something to help sort the wheat from the chaff, as opposed to only pucking out the rocks and the dropped gold coins.

Slatz_Grobnik

Does Not Equal

San

You can't expect someone to own up to - or modify - behaviour if you don't tell them what is going on. For example, I was banned for several weeks [a ban lifted by Gawker eariler this week]. I was banned after only a couple of weeks of active membership, I couldn't think of anything I had done that could have constituted offensive or undesirable behaviour and I enquired to Kotaku as to *why*. Then two weeks later I enquired again. Then a week after that someone got back to me and said the ban was lifted. To this day I have no idea why I was disabled from making comments in the first place.

Not wanting to cry poverty or anything - it got resolved - but only after persistent enquiry from my side due to my utter confusion. If we're going to have a policy of 'if you upset us we're going to ban you' (as does exist here on Kotaku at the moment) that's fine, but it needs to be transparent.

The member being banned needs to be informed that they have been, and why, for the ban to have any beneficial effect on their behaviour.

Hedgeworth

It's not even that racism is so hot topic, but it's one that A) we've rarely if ever directly addressed here and B) we're gamers. That we're gamers means a lot of things, but one of them is a general belief in our nerdy superiority. We're not the jocks or the preppies. We're enlightened. We think.

So, when someone comes in saying that maybe we're not quite as enlightened as we think, it spawns a fair bit of ire.

Couple that with two other strong themes in gamer culture A) an undercurrent of Libertarian thinking and B) the "games are fun, and not about thinking" and there's a serious possible storm brewing.

That is, really, what's the most disturbing about the event. It didn't create discussion as much as insurrection. Most people either dismissed or accepted Croal's position whole hog. That fight drowned out the other, more respectful ones.

Slatz_Grobnik

Lets make Kotaku A better place to live on the internet.

~Sauce

MasterSauce

maybe you should visit a slaughterhouse.... it might convince you to re-evaluate that statement.

there is nothing noble in our species.

i_lie_to_fit_in

Speak for yourself.

Jac21

tk.

No one believes in 'freedom of speech'. You will accept the norms of the environment you exist in, or you will be punished.

in 1939 Nazi Germany, no one is going to tolerate your respect for Jewish people.

in 2008 internet blog Kotaku.com, no on is going to tolerate your racism.

in a 2008 vegan community, no one is going to tolerate you being a carnivore.

Ultimately, you will conform, or you will be punished.

'intelligent discourse'?

no.

try 'accepted discourse'.

i_lie_to_fit_in

MidnightScott17

I am a long standing proponent of accountability and one of the major problems I have with forums (aside from the spelling errors) is the utter lack of accountability amongst posters. It is perfectly fine to disagree however among game players these disagreements often devolve into spats of name calling and profanity, as a mature adult I am able to recognize and appreciate differing opinion as well as tolerate pig headed stubborness.

However, I am deeply disheartened by the amazing vulgarity often found in many forum responses, the arrival of the ban hammer would not in my opinion be an issue of censor ship but rather a lesson in manners and politeness. Human beings are evolved primates and as such should be able to carry on productive, thoughtful and respectful dialog.

For those amongst us who feel the need to spit bilious hate speech I offer up this suggestion: The Internet is a huge place give birth to your own blog where those of your ilk can congregate in like minded splendor.

I offer nothing more good day.

pABSO

A few months ago I was reasonably active in the comments section - now I rarely even look at them, much less communicate. Even without the flamewars I've found the quality of discussion here has dropped pretty sharply.

But - I /am/ here for the news, not the community. So as long as Kotaku itself doesn't implode from the flame wars, I'll be sticking around - just not in the comments.

Achenar

There NEEDS to be some recourse to preserve the integrity of this great site. The intelligent posts tend to get ignored if they are past the first 100 posts (probably less) and that's really sad. I could let much of that go without much concern if the first hundred were intelligent, thoughtful posts, but most are not. In fact on this article alone I could point out a many few comments that are not necessarily stupid per se, but really shouldn't be there. This article truly -demands- more thoughtful response than those many hundred one liners it has been getting. If you are going to respond to something that has ramifications to the site as a whole, but only have one sentence to say, is it really necessary to say at all? Of course it is a case by case situation, a great writer can say all I've said here in maybe 1/4 of the words I've used. But that is in short supply and is definitely outweighed by the mass stupidity of the rest of the posts. I believe the bottom line is if people don't care enough to put some thought into their posts and contribute to the site, their posts just bring the site down, and they don't care so much about the site as a whole, so in turn they should be banned.

Anyway, I'm sure this post will generally be ignored though, since I'm probably on page 6 now or something.

Kojiro

One thing That I've seen on other sites that I like is an ability to either select "+" or "-" to either bold and draw attention to the excellent comments and gray out and mute the worthless ones.

I think that system would work great here. It would allow the community to take a more active participation in the sites progression, which will be a lot faster and in real time when compared to the Banhammer Mondays.

The slight alteration I would have would have the commenter's that are grayed out completely automatically be put in a que for possible banning by the staff.

I would also put the number requirement for banning pretty high so that a few posters won't be able to gang up on a poster they don't like or disagree with.

The community would decide who should be heard and who shouldn't. And the staff decides who should be banned by those nominated by the community through their votes.

The problem won't go away completely but I feel this would be an excellent way to cull the herd.

Another upside that I want to point out that it will also be a lot easier to pick out the choice comments.

Just look for the text that is in bold.

Silentsomnographer

thaKingRocka

And that comment is exactly why Crecente wrote this article.
Just because it's the internet doesn't mean we all need to act like shameless fools.

Bravo Crecente.
Thank you for writing what I have been thinking for a while now.

dantemustdie

KidU

Second, in response to "glorified Livejournal", Kotaku IS a blog. Commenting wasn't even on the site in the beginning. Your belief that taking away the masses' abilities to comment will undermine the value Kotaku has to users (a.k.a. what keeps them coming back) is, I think, mistaken. This is not the case as I believe this site's past has proven. It grew a user base in spite of commenting.

Camann

Witzbold

[www.collegehumor.com]

And this is what we want to avoid on kotaku. :)

WreckTheLaw

But my point was not really advice as to how to get comments, just how I see it working now, and why it's a problem. It was more an explanation as to why we get so many "trash" comments on this site -- people have incentives to make poor posts because they attract more attention :)

Huckleberry

I am aware this in itself is probably bannable behaviour, but if we are to discuss the reasons for the Kotaku policy and their viability then we need to have a little bit of freedom in our views or we are just telling the emperor how nice his clothes look so he won't smite us.

I understand the Kotaku policy and it makes sense but ideas like 'banhammer monday' seem like an excuse to dig up comments you didn't like that didn't get banned and have people punished for them. It is one thing to rule with respect, another to rule with fear. That sends out a worrying message.

I think it will be a long time before we find the answer or the correct middle ground but hopefully intelligence will win the day and we can all be happy...bar the trolls.

EdwinJ85

Witzbold is the new Cobra Kai.

Oh look, I'm not contributing.

Oh well....

Billkwando

"So what do you do to combat this? here are the simple rules to getting comments from your posts. Your comments should be:
- Towards the beginning of the thread
- Short"

Ironic considering your post is #479 and takes up a full page. ;)

But still well said.

Mr.SithNinja

I made a remark to a friend last night in response to videos of people pulling off pranks such as throwing items like tampons dipped in ketchup from numerous floors up into the main area of a hotel. (The tampon landed in a woman's hair, which they viewed as even greater success.) I said that we seem to be living in a "Jackass" culture, where too many people think they can do things like this or putting gallon water bottles behind cardboard cutouts of animals in roads and not suffer any consequences. I think that I need to amend that and extend it to the internet.

Too many people online feel that due to the facelessness that is the internet, they can say whatever they want because "It's only the internet." They feel that anything negative said on here doesn't matter because there's still a veil of anonymity, even with a name attached to their words. And when there's a minimum of negative reinforcement to negative actions, they believe that anything can truly be said.

It's a fine line to walk between trying to remove inflammatory remarks that serve no purpose and low-grade censorship. I'd like to think that most people are able to comport themselves appropriately, but some are not. We see this all the time in daily life. And of course, remarks can be removed, but they can't be un-read.

I really don't know what can be done at this time. Totally disabling comments does remove any kind of real interaction and makes the site basically into an online newspaper. Breaking out the banhammer on those who have been blatantly flaming does get rid of problems, but then the issue is balancing flaming/flamebaiting and spirited remarks that might be only a little overboard. Leaving it as is still leaves the issue sitting on the table, and will require the readers to police themselves.

So what to do? Something like a YouTube situation where comments can be voted for and against and ones that sink below a certain level are not shown? Sure, it'd work, but it would probably mean recoding the comments area. Having staff/moderators be able to edit or remove comments? Well, you'd need a lot of moderators and they'd probably still be overwhelmed at times just from the sheer number of daily comments. Plus, you'd have to have them apply to some staff member, and that would cut down on efficiency, I would think.

This is one of those issues where there's not a quick and easy solution. Still, hopefully this public admonishment has helped to cull any sort of angermongering, at least for a while. We can only hope.

(And one of these days, I'll write a short comment. Seriously. I promise.)

JimTheFly

The major thing missing from online interaction is the certainty that you are being heard. I believe this is the prime reason why people tend to make sweeping generalizations or outrageous comments - they're more likely to be responded to. People are more opinionated on the internet in real life because it gets them feedback.

Imagine an in-person conversation where five people are talking, for instance. Imagine that whenever Person A talks, everyone else listens for a moment and then continues on as if that person had never said a word. That is what it is like on the internet except that it is taken to an extreme. You have hundreds of people talking... how do you get responses? Your chances of being noticed decrease with specific variables:
- The longer your post is
- The farther down the thread/page it is
- The longer the thread gets
- The more well-reasoned and rational it is because the time required to respond increases (you've forced those who wish to respond to post more in order to adequately argue/discuss)

So what do you do to combat this? here are the simple rules to getting comments from your posts. Your comments should be:
- Towards the beginning of the thread
- Short
- Highly opinionated and ideally objectionable. Black or white, no grey area.
- Easy to argue against, taken by itself.

Here's an example that fills all of those requirements (except the first one): "I hate Nintendo because they only make kiddie games. MAKE SOME REAL GAMES FOR GAMERS, NINTENDO!"

My conclusion is that the way that commenters act in response to others posting is just as much a part of the problem as poor commenters in general. If nobody ever responded to, say, a one-sentence sweeping generalization, we would have far less problems as fewer people would make those comments in the first place. Of course, enforcing that kind of behavior is nigh impossible.

To sum it up, yes, I am basically calling people on the internet attention whores. However, I don't have to worry because nobody will read this, as it breaks nearly every rule I just listed as to how to get people to respond to your comments.

Huckleberry

Implement a comment rating system so obnoxious comments are hidden when they reach a negative rating of -10 or more and posts receiving a rating of +10 become bolded. And please, less QQ, more pew pew.

RoundEye

Why not do invitations again, but allow othes to invite people?

Patient

ChiltonGaines

I can't believe you just called me an asshat! Allow me to commence with the flaming...

In all seriousness, though, congratulations to Kotaku for wanting to foster a community of intelligent and thoughtful discourse, which is not something the interwebs are known for. Let fall the mighty banhammer, and may stupidity and ignorance fear its wrath!

RubyMars

I mean, between the fanboys, and the trolls, and the two thousand invocations of "Godwin's Law" everyday - "Has anyone else ever noticed that four right angles are all it takes to turn it into a swastika-box?" or "More like the Nintendo AuschWIItz" - this site is going to sink under the crushing weight of its commenters' collective incompetence

By the way, I actually just couldn't think of a good Nazi pun for the Playstation 3. If I coulda', I woulda' - now aren't I exactly the kind of person you're trying to get rid of?

Scorpi

I say cull the unwashed masses and let the guillotine fall.

MAKE IT RAIN BLOOD.

Ma1agate

If that means I have my commenting rights revoked along with those who make this place a little less welcome and objective than it was a year and change ago then so be it. Id rather have Kotaku being a bastion of thoughtful and insightful comments than a forum for trolls and teenage idiots who laugh and make jokes when sensitive issues like murder or rape turn up.

Brian has always let people have a wide berth with commenting but maybe its time to cull the crowd back to 500 or so 'good' posters. Honestly as I mentioned before, a good Kotaku is a respectful Kotaku and as commentators make this place come alive with buzz then its time to make cuts as the next overhaul to the site in my opinion.

Shaun

shaunomacx

Unfortunately, Crecente, I don't really have any fathomable solution to this problem, besides what etchasketchist said, which I think is a good idea. I just joined this site a few months ago, so I have no perspective on what it used to be. I'd say, just try harder to discourage people from commenting on controversial posts in the text if they aren't going to say anything of substance.

Good luck, sirs and madams of Kotaku. I, for one, enjoy commenting on this site, despite the trolls. Trust me, there is a greater number of trolls on any other gaming site. This is tame in comparison.

peAr nectAr

TechnoPirate

If you're asking for our input, Crecente, I imagine that almost everyone's answer is going to be "get rid of the chaff (but not me)". At the heart of it, it's your brainchild, do what you think is best for us all.

tk.

No it has everything to do with it. Because when the only people discussing the topics are you and your "stars" (please someone see the irony in this choice of adjective) or friends then it becomes nothing more than a glorified livejournal with ads.

Something tells me if you nuked 75% of your users youd ad revenue would drop by as much.

I think the offensive posts should be delt with. But don't decry the nature of the internet when you all but send out a signal flare to their armies.

You want to delete commenting from your site all together? Your choice.

But then this becomes nothing more than a rss feed really and people will move on unfortunately.

As I said, you want the gaming community to grow and grow up? Then we have to face some ugly topics and learn to accept there will always be ignorant people with internet connections who the civil minded types will disagree with.

If you want it to remain all sunshine and rainbows and fantasy then keep the politics off the site.

PSN: kingpsyz

But and I say but, if Ash had given us a good reason to read the rest of the article, i.e. refer to parts where N'Gai may have come off as more rational then I think we as readers would have definitely ventured to it.

sisedi

As for the comments, as I've said, I comment almost regularly, and I really don't have a problem when the noise level rises -- I tend to avoid the flamebait posts, and I don't bother combing through hundreds of comments to see if my opinion is unique. I find cathartic pleasure out of stating my opinion anonymously.

boopadoo

What's the purpose of Kotaku? Well, at the top it says, "Gossip, news, & leaks for obsessive gamers." In other words, it's about the blog posts, not the comments. I believe many comments add to the posts -- they sometimes even clarify or correst them, but the staff writers are really what Kotaku is about.

If commenting is beginning to damage the site, well ... that's no good. I've seen a huge change in the last couple weeks, and it's really bothered me. I love posting here -- I love (in a non-romantic way) the other commenters. I've even played with someone online, chatted, etc.

However, I'd rather lose that privelege than lose the focus of the site. Sometimes I feel that the commenters enrage some of the writers in a non-productive way.

I'm not really offering any solutions, because I don't know what Crecente is able to do ... but, I was excited the first time one of my comments was approved, and I got commenting privileges. The fact is, after that -- I didn't post for months, because I didn't want to screw it up (I waited to do that later ... sorry).

That kind of system created a pretty special place here, I think. And, I'll tell you what ... not being able to comment didn't stop me from coming here, because the stories and writing were always quite a step above other sites.

Anyway, just my two cents ... I'll let it rest now and go play Arcana Heart and Culdcept :D

jayntampa

But I don't know the answer to the problem either. The writers at Kotaku sometimes have a bit of snark in their stories. Even though I hope its all meant to be playful (more The Daily Show and less Hollywood Minute), sometimes the comments emulate the tone with none of the playfulness. Not everyone has a voice for satire and instead are just mean. Some are passive aggressive.

The only solution is the hardest solution of all: each of us as a person has to try harder to be better to our fellow man. To look inward and make positive changes despite what others around us are doing. As cheesy as it may sound, I've lived long enough by now to know its the only way that makes sense.

DARTH_TIGRIS

Zeouterlimits

Sudden Device

HerrVorragend

From: Kuro

(Carbon copy # 4213..or so)

Thanks man, this was a great article.

Kuro

daizyujin

Camann

zenpoet

I do have a question. Is the system still in place where you post comments "unofficially" so that after a certain amount of time has passed and a review of your comments have been made that your account becomes activated?

I wonder about this because, after noticing over time at how the rash of rather crude comments that have been appearing more often, if the system is still in place. I've come across a few banned accounts where the comment history ususally amounts to only one page's worth with none of the comments contributing anything worthwhile (i.e. "shit" comments). Thus, leading me to think to myself "How did this chap ever get to officially comment in the first place?"

If the system has changed (and again, I could be wrong about how it was structured to begin with or that it was never done away with), perhaps we could make a return to it? Or perhaps, set up a person, ala Witz like, to be in charge in reviewing/approving new commenters, with a set criteria in place for what Kotaku is looking for in a "few, good commenters".

As for for what Crecente had to say, well done. I don't think I can contribute anything more in regards to what all he said better than what most of you have already put forth.

I digress, as I'm in bad need of coffee.

Jest

mister_shhh