
The dark side of Guardian comments - mhw
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/12/the-dark-side-of-guardian-comments
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arprocter
Amusing to me that there is no comment section on this piece.

Elsewhere on the Guardian there was an article [0] talking about the issue
(with comments open), and a lot the comments were along the lines of 'maybe if
you stopped deleting any disagreement'

[0][http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jan/31/comments-
audien...](http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jan/31/comments-audience-
censorship-criticism)

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nxzero
Curious if how abussive commenters would respond if they weren't blocked, but
comments were hidden so only mods & them can see them. Basically, auto-consume
as much of the abussive commenter's time as possible; have there pages load
slowly, have comments be buggy, give them CAPTCHAs, have auto response
comments viewable to only them requesting they be civil/nice, etc.

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J_Darnley
That's usually called a shadow ban. As a recipient of several across various
platforms: it is obvious when it happens. You notice the lack of replies to
comments. You notice the lack of downvotes. Then you just move to a different
account, another IP, or another exit node.

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nxzero
What works then?

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DyslexicAtheist
if people would stop being offended by everyone always it would be a great
start. I doubt that there is a technical solution other than disabling
comments though.

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jimmytidey
I do wonder what options for 'nudging' people away from these comments there
are.

For example, warning people their comment looks abusive, and pointing out what
a large fraction of people comment appropriately.

If a comment looks uncivil, you could show the author how generic and
meaningless prejudice comments often are, giving other examples of prejudice
comments that have been deleted.

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tim333
The Guardian could really do with a downvote button or similar. It seems one
of the easiest ways to deal with iffy comments. Not sure why they don't have
one.

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clloyd
I think there are disadvantages to a downvote button in some cases, the
current setup allows for every comment to be seen as an equal (as long as it
passes the community guidelines), which can be valuable when discussing
particularly contentious issues. I guess it's always a choice as to what
community you are looking to foster.

(Disclaimer: I'm a dev at the Guardian, but not in an area related to
commenting)

~~~
tim333
Guess there are pros and cons and it's a bit of a personal preference. I was
thinking that the Hacker News comments system works pretty well. Maybe they
could clone that?

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brbsix
The Fashion section attracted at least twice the proportion of blocked
comments as any other section. Not exactly a section I'd associate with
(presumably sexist and racist) straight white men.

    
    
      Articles about feminism attracted very high levels of blocked comments
    

This has me curious whether it is the subject matter (rather than the
sexual/racial identity) of female and minority authors that plays the largest
role in the negative comments.

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CM30
I suspect it likely is the subject matter. An article about something fairly
non controversial (like say, a popular game or film announcement) is by
definition going to get less personal attacks and troll comments than
something about a heated political/religious matter or anything involving
'social justice' related issues (from any side).

If more of the female writers write the latter type of article rather than the
form, this could lead to the stats shown.

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widowlark
Article and content aside, this is a really well thought out page design and
the visual aids they use are fantastic.

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brudgers
Related current story:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11478835](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11478835)

