The World of Commenting

"Readers With Plenty to Say"

In the article, Brisbane talks about the "world of commenters" particularily on the New York Times website.

  Claim:  "In the creation of something good, alas, expectations have risen. Now the thundering herd of commenters wants more."  Whenever something good is handed to the general public, something better is always expected.  Commenters on the internet will never be pleased and always have something to complain about. 

Concession:  "While these folks sometimes achieve their ends.." (these folks = commentariats)

1.  Brisbane's claim is supported week to week through the number of complaints sent to him since he is the editor of the New York Times.  He gives a list of examples of the complaints he recieves most commonly such as "comments are often not posted in the order they were submitted" and petty things like this.  I'm glad the world is worrying  about the order of posted comments when we could be spending time on solving world hunger...

2. The New York Times focuses on quality, not speed.  Commenters should  not complain about the lack of trying on the part of the workers at The Times.

• Human moderators are used instead of automaitc filters used today by many websites.
• These moderators are trained to "filter out personal attacks, obscenity, vulgarity, commercial promotion and other bad things while filtering in thoughtful, diverse and to-the-point comments."
• digital filtering is used to quickly delete offending matter
• Bassey Etim suprivises the desk of moderating comments.  She is always working with the 24-7 rush of comments from readers and is dedicated to the quality of her work.
• handling comments is like stopping a dike

 3.  Comments are handled differently in different parts of the growing empire of the Times.  Bloggers    can make their own comments without dealing with the human moderators.  Editors, web producers, and reporters can edit comments as well.

I agree with Brisbane's point - people always complain about the littlest things, never knowing the situation on the other side of the coin.  This happens all the time, all around me.  The other day, I heard about a teacher who hand painted a 't' onto the t-shirts of a club so they would not be made fun of.  Unknowingly, the class made fun of the mysterious 't' not knowing that this was done out of care and dedication to her students.  Sometimes I just do not understand why people complain and make comments so much.  Find out all the facts before you comment on something; you never know everything unless you have experienced it.  Like my mom always says, if you don't like something, do it yourself. :)