(no subject)

[randomness]

I should just know better than to read the comments, right?

Comments

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Yup.

[jtdiii.livejournal.com]

Generally wise....

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Hah! I find they can sometimes surprise.

(Our statements are not, of course, incompatible, it being possible to have ones faith surprisingly restored.)

[ceo]

That means this is our big chance to slag off r_ness in his own journal. :-)

[bedfull-o-books.livejournal.com]

*snerk*

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Clearly not. :)

Besides, people slag me off to my face, so this is no huge opportunity.

[merlinofchaos]

I bet you're reading the comments right now. With this very comment. You cad.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

You win!

(The intangible satisfaction of being right, that is.)

[merlinofchaos]

The only thing better than intangible satisfaction is cold, hard cash!

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

It's true!

Sadly, cash is not on offer at this time. :)

[digitalemur.livejournal.com]

Well yeah but that doesn't stop anyone _all_ of the time.

[drwex]

Well, um, duh. Yeah.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Does that mean I shouldn't have read yours? :)

(Edited to negate.)

[drwex]

No it doesn't mean you shouldn't have not read mine.

Parse that however pleases you.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

All right then.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

News site comments appear to bring out the very worst people, or the very worst in people, or maybe both.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Yeah. It was Yahoo! even.

What could I have been thinking?

[merlinofchaos]

I believe that news site comments are also inflicted by people with paid political agendas, trying to influence public opinion.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

In China, these commenters are said to be from the 五毛党 wǔmáo dǎng, or Fifty Cent Party, after the amount of money said to be paid for each favorable comment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party

[rmd.livejournal.com]

I'm always delighted to find one of the little gems on the web where one can safety read the comments. (metafilter is the prime example, as it's pretty much all about the comments)

But in general, yeah, don't go there.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Two places offhand where I find reading the comments fun and informative, as opposed to irritating and annoying:

Ta-Nehisi Coates' blog at The Atlantic and the shared FTAlphaville blog at the Financial Times.

It's probably not a coincidence that they're both heavily and visibly moderated.