Idiot of the day 2014: Your one stop topic for everything dumb.

[superaielman]

http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/MSNBC-Host-Apologizes-To-Romney-Family-After-5104455.php Reposting this one to start the new year.

[Fenrir]

Yahtzee.
Sheer arrogance from, of all things, one of those millions "angry guys who talk about videogames"
We should never let internet celebrities say their mind

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/extra-punctuation/10857-To-Hell-With-Comments

"I've never liked comments. The practice, that is, of allowing anyone to speak their mind about a piece of content and leave it for all to see. Of all the hideous manifestations of Web 2.0 ooh-let's-all-be-friends-together huggy-muggy your-opinion-matters bullshit, it is the most egregious and the most pointless.

I consider it an insult that material created by trained people with experience and qualifications and talent is forced to share space on my computer screen with the musings of uninvolved people with no qualifications bar a keyboard and bottomless twattiness."

[Luther Lansfeld]

There are truly no words.

[Captain K.]

Eh, I kind of see where he's coming from.  (Although he was "trained"?  haha)  I've started seeing more sites just disable comments on newsposts because they're almost overwhelmingly negative or nonconstructive.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I see where the view he espouses is coming from, but apparently he forgets that "Web 2.0" and ordinary, untrained users creating their own content to showcase their opinions is the only reason he has an audience in the first place.

[SnowFire]

I liked The Oatmeal's take on comments, myself.  It's toward the end if you want to skip to it.
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/making_things

I know I have been adversely affected by one idiot on the Internet more than I should be, although I'm usually disciplined enough to back off and just not take the bait.

[Meeplelard]

It's amusing because while I watch Zero Punctuation regularly, I can hardly stomach Extra Punctuation that I almost never bother.  Either his topics aren't interesting or they're like the one linked to in this topic.

[metroid composite]

So...as someone who is at least partially on the content creation side....

One email list I'm a part of is the women in game development list.  And something that is extremely prevalent on that list is that someone will link to an article on say, Kotaku, that is an intelligent article addressing something about, say, not enough female characters in games developed in America, or a female character that was particularly poorly handled in a game, or an interview with a female game developer on Youtube or whatever.  This is almost always followed by an email saying "As always, don't read the comments."

If an insightful interview is posted with a female game developer and then is posted on youtube, the comments will be filled with stuff like "oh god, her boobs are sagging, gross."  If an interview is posted with a female game developer which people don't like, it results in death threats, people looking up her address, and threatening to find her and rape her.  (Not that death threats are restricted to females; well...maybe rape threats are?)

But the thing is, this isn't the only place I've seen the line "As always, don't read the comments."  I spend a decent amount of time these days on Starcraft forums, and every once in a while some main stream news source like NBC or CNN will run a story about how people play Starcraft professionally.  And...the comments are similarly toxic.  Stuff like wait, let me get real quotes instead of making these up, because while I've come to expect sexist behavior on the internet, these rather shocked me...
"Can they write a complete sentence in English that is grammatically correct? [...]"

"'Some Pro Gamers make 10 moves-per-second'
And yet can't pass History, Science, and English courses because they spend all their time playing games."

"It's a skill that comes in handy when they migrate from video games to online porn"

"That's funny, Professional gamers! This is a chosen career path? Does it pay in Cheetos and Red Bull! What's the average pay to be a professional gamer? "

"Gaming - the new addition. OK, they don't steal. But they are lost to society."

"I'd like their fast hands on me."

"Some programers make 10 moves per second! How to fry your brains in 10 seconds.
No wonder the majority of the population,can't string a sentence together,and not know what day it is! "

"Don't knock it.  It's an offshoot skill from all that masturbating."

"I'm not impressed. . . Any boob can learn to click real fast given the time.
Have these same people calculate a falling body in Earth gravity well and account the atmospheric drag in 20% humidity as an equasion. . . . they can't do it."

"I can make 10 moves per second................in bed"



(I did pick the worst comments, which was about half of the topic starters; a few people on Reddit decided to flood the comments with rebuttals to the negative comments, so the response posts are less representative.  This was from nbcnews.com, for what it's worth).

So I'm...pretty sympathetic to negative reactions towards internet comments.  That doesn't mean I want to get rid of internet forums or anything, but...yeah, not everything on the internet benefits from a comments section--discussion doesn't have to happen on the same page where you view the article/video/etc.

Side note, there's a TED talk on this subject; doesn't give all the answers, but it quotes some interesting studies:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u01Qs4x1S_U

[Fenrir]

Well yes. It's the Internet so there's some good and some bad. The Tropes about women in videogames girl banned comments from her Youtube channel and that was obviously the best course of action. The videogame community with all its privileged white males is particularly horrible re: social issues.

I find that the more popular the site/topic and the easier it is to comment, the more the comment quality suffers. I've never seen as much hatred in my life as on Yahoo news


On the other hand on the better sites, the original post only exists to spearhead an intelligent discussion about the topic that happens in the comments.
And you often actually get someone with better credentials than the journalist who made the first post say something on the matter and actually elevate the debate.


Anyway no matter what your stance is here, Yahtzee is so self centered he is literally saying "Fuck all comments" because he is angry that the plebes are ruining his comic genius by being able to talk at the bottom of his videos. It is ridiculous.

I'll just quote the comments at the bottom of his page!

"I have derived as much enjoyment from comments as I have from the content comments are regarding. So lighten up Yahtzee, you still are not THAT much better than all of us."

"I also find it hard to believe you have jokes ruined for you through the comments on a video considering how easy it is not to view them. "

"1) comments do not get equal billing. Most just disappear below the waterline and forgotten.
2) Without feedback the internet loses what separates it from a newspaper or book. It becomes a place to acquire non-dynamic data."

"Like Youtube comments, Miiverse posts can be completely inane and banal, but I do appreciate them regardless because every once in a while a well-written, genuinely entertaining and creative morsel from some nobody is highlighted. "

[Meeplelard]

The thing about Extra Punctuation is even when he has a good point, it comes off in such a way that it compromises the meaning of the point.  Let's say for sake of argument he's arguing the same stance MC portrayed, that comment sections often lead to downright insulting garbage like above.

There's definitely a way to handle it far more elegantly.  Making an article about it is fine, but I think he should take the angle of "Don't expect me to read the comments section"  would be better suited than "To Hell With Comments."  He can illustrate why he doesn't like comments sections and why he won't read them, but at the same time, he's not making a direct attack at them, more just stating his thoughts.

It's not just this one, there are others I just can't stomach because he thinks he's being clever with his in character forcefulness, but it doesn't work nearly as well in text as it does when he speaks.  I've actually tried to place his voice over it to see if it fixes the tone but nope, still doesn't work.

It contrasts MovieBob's Intermissions (his equivalent to Extra Punctuation) pretty heavily.  They are more analytic and give a better sense of thought rather than just attacking a point.  So if say, DC is screwing up in their movies, he'll try to find out what they are doing wrong and come up with ideas for them to correct it, so it's a far more pleasant, open minded read than Yahtzee (though, Movie Bob's opinions and taste don't always mesh with my own and he can be a little forceful about them but that's a different thing entirely.)

[AndrewRogue]

You mean the dude whose entire shtick is being arrogant, cynical and abrasive presents a point in an arrogant, abrasive, and cynical way? Shock. Amaze.

That said, honestly think you're overreacting. If you shave away the character from the article, the point is pretty evident that he's against inane, one-off, stupid commentary (ala the stuff in SM3DW or the vast array of Youtube commentary), not that all conversation about something is stupid. When you keep in mind the circles he likely runs in (mostly gaming/nerd material), it makes even more sense.

*shrugs*

I really think you're overestimating how much he is effected because "his content" is being commented on. I mean the article's foundation is the commentary in SM3DW, not his own content.

[Grefter]

Also I kind of get behind his questioning of the function of Comments, they are slathered over everything in the world these days, dumping them free form into loading screens is pretty inane.  In the majority of places the Comments section is a cesspool of nonsense because they are hit and run dumping places for (just like they say on the tin), comments rather than discussion.  If you want actual honest to god interaction about something go to forums or something that actually breeds interaction (even something with nearly the exact same layout as a comments section like Reddit works better than the comments section!), don't just have a comments section because you can and everyone else does.

And very specifically on the comments showing up in SMW3D world I would love to find who decided to implement it and ask what the intent was.  I don't see the function it provides the game, it isn't Dark/Demon's Soul/s here.

[Lady Door]

And very specifically on the comments showing up in SMW3D world I would love to find who decided to implement it and ask what the intent was.  I don't see the function it provides the game, it isn't Dark/Demon's Soul/s here.

Yeah, I was wondering that, too. You see it after you complete a level? There's no interaction? As Yahtzee asked, who is this benefiting, exactly, except for the mouthbreathing 14-year-olds mimicking the back end of a diseased warthog because "lol, 2 edgy 4 u"?

[Anthony Edward Stark]

I'm more surprised at what MC's bar is for "shocking."  I would think you'd be pretty desensitized from dealing with the Battle.net community for so long.  There were no slurs, no curse words, nobody threatening to torch anyone's house or rape their family.  That's positively tame by those standards.  Comments are usually shit but, c'mon, if you want awful comments you can dig a little harder.

e:  Like, look at this wow-playing motherfucker.

[Luther Lansfeld]

Reading Anita Sarkeesian's comments pages pretty much made me want to start the zombie apocalypse.

I admit I have deep contempt for all ANGRY AND EDGY video game Internet personalities and don't think they are really much better than Youtube commentators from the videos I've seen. Cynicism on the Internet is tiring, not funny.

[Lady Door]

Happy 2014th birthday, America!

[metroid composite]

I'm more surprised at what MC's bar is for "shocking."  I would think you'd be pretty desensitized from dealing with the Battle.net community for so long.  There were no slurs, no curse words, nobody threatening to torch anyone's house or rape their family.  That's positively tame by those standards.  Comments are usually shit but, c'mon, if you want awful comments you can dig a little harder.

e:  Like, look at this wow-playing motherfucker.

It's a matter of intent.  People on battle.net I generally assume are trolling, usually in a "I'm going to try to fit every offenssive word and racial slur I can think of into one sentence, even if the resulting sentence makes no sense" kind of way.  I find it highly doubtful that this is a real opinion.

Don't get me wrong: I've seen real opinions that made me angry in the starcraft community, but this typically happens in forums.  For instance, just about any topic discussing a female SC2 player seems to go pretty awful at some point.  But sexism, objectification, and transphobia are all things I expect from the internet.

What I don't expect is people equating games to an inability to construct a complete sentence.  I suppose I post mostly on gaming forums, but I find this opinion rather mind-boggling.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

It's the one thing that pro gamers actually do have in common with pro athletes in terms of public perception: that they have little to no real skills outside of doing something that children do.  If you replace "games" with "football" is it still shocking to you?  The comments for every "pro athlete is bankrupt" story are always things like "maybe he should have actually taken advantage of the free college education he got" or "must be hard to balance a budget when you can barely add."  The fact that pro gamers are not objects of admiration for most people like athletes are just makes it easier.

Also that dude's opinion is totally real. It's MMO-C, where mild racism is "necessary to prove your point."

[Grefter]

What I don't expect is people equating games to an inability to construct a complete sentence.  I suppose I post mostly on gaming forums, but I find this opinion rather mind-boggling.

Not sure why it does in that case.

Cue snare, kick, high hat. 

Thank you, I will be here all week.

[NotMiki]

http://www.theculturewatch.com/who-stole-our-culture

I'm posting this here because a relative put it on facebook and now my brain hurts.  I have to put it somewhere that is not the inside of my head or I will punch more things.  Don't read it.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

What I don't expect is people equating games to an inability to construct a complete sentence.  I suppose I post mostly on gaming forums, but I find this opinion rather mind-boggling.

Not sure why it does in that case.

Cue snare, kick, high hat. 

Thank you, I will be here all week.

C'mon, that fruit was low-hanging even for me.

[Luther Lansfeld]

http://www.theculturewatch.com/who-stole-our-culture

I'm posting this here because a relative put it on facebook and now my brain hurts.  I have to put it somewhere that is not the inside of my head or I will punch more things.  Don't read it.

*sobs* Why did I click it? You told me not to click it.

[Grefter]

Go in expecting everything to be blamed on socialism, not disappointed after seeing education being accused of being destroyed by as socialist agenda.  Yes it was definitely socialists that destroyed your education system, not the likes of Nixon and Reagan gutting funding spent on hyphen and neutering policy surrounding education.  I didn't get much further than the opening lines.

[Luther Lansfeld]

One of my relatives just posted the five step guide on Obama's America destroying master plan. Can we punch holes in the wall together?

[SnowFire]

Only allowed after you post the link.  I want to know how Obama's going to destroy America so I can prepare my own version for how to destroy Canada.  Won't they be surprised after their world-class private healthcare system is replaced by socialized medicine.