Question for Chris regarding articles and comments
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I am wondering if there are plans to finally roll out support for allowing article writers to moderate comments on their article. Of course I don't expect that all us authors will get ability to moderate - but if you are above certain threshold, you should be able to moderate. And not only this would allow good article writers to easily battle with trolls and content that's simply not appropriate on the page where there article is - it would be good motivation to keep writing. (Admins, I have same thread in Lounge, please delete it)
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I am wondering if there are plans to finally roll out support for allowing article writers to moderate comments on their article. Of course I don't expect that all us authors will get ability to moderate - but if you are above certain threshold, you should be able to moderate. And not only this would allow good article writers to easily battle with trolls and content that's simply not appropriate on the page where there article is - it would be good motivation to keep writing. (Admins, I have same thread in Lounge, please delete it)
I don't agree with this. What's to stop someone with a high enough rep removing legitimate comments on their article? Just because someone has a high rep doesn't mean that they are always right, or that they will always behave honourably. Sorry, but this gets my vote of no.
*pre-emptive celebratory nipple tassle jiggle* - Sean Ewington
"Mind bleach! Send me mind bleach!" - Nagy Vilmos
CodeStash - Online Snippet Management | My blog | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier
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I am wondering if there are plans to finally roll out support for allowing article writers to moderate comments on their article. Of course I don't expect that all us authors will get ability to moderate - but if you are above certain threshold, you should be able to moderate. And not only this would allow good article writers to easily battle with trolls and content that's simply not appropriate on the page where there article is - it would be good motivation to keep writing. (Admins, I have same thread in Lounge, please delete it)
No, I'm not going to allow authors to delete comments on their articles. That totally invalidates the ability for members to objectively and independantly review others' code, as well as making it impossible for readers to gauge the relevance of the comments they are reading. You've made the request in order to remove trolls and spammers, and this is a genuinely good reason to provide this feature. However, the flip side is that authors will be tempted to, and often will, remove those comments they don't feel are fair, accurate, or of their liking. And unfortunately the definition of fair, accurate, and to one's liking is extremely subjective. It is far more beneficial to readers to see a debate on differing approaches, as well as seeing genuine issues and objections being raised, than it is to see a comments board sanitised. Every message posted on every message board includes the ability to have that message marked as spam or as abusive, and enough votes results in the message, and any associated vote, being removed. We also have a Spam and Abuse forum[^] for reporting instances of spam or abuse. The community should be in charge of judging and removing spam and abuse, not a single member.
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
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No, I'm not going to allow authors to delete comments on their articles. That totally invalidates the ability for members to objectively and independantly review others' code, as well as making it impossible for readers to gauge the relevance of the comments they are reading. You've made the request in order to remove trolls and spammers, and this is a genuinely good reason to provide this feature. However, the flip side is that authors will be tempted to, and often will, remove those comments they don't feel are fair, accurate, or of their liking. And unfortunately the definition of fair, accurate, and to one's liking is extremely subjective. It is far more beneficial to readers to see a debate on differing approaches, as well as seeing genuine issues and objections being raised, than it is to see a comments board sanitised. Every message posted on every message board includes the ability to have that message marked as spam or as abusive, and enough votes results in the message, and any associated vote, being removed. We also have a Spam and Abuse forum[^] for reporting instances of spam or abuse. The community should be in charge of judging and removing spam and abuse, not a single member.
cheers, Chris Maunder The Code Project | Co-founder Microsoft C++ MVP
I somewhat expected this kind of response. But I guess it was worth a shot since I truly enjoyed writing articles on CodeProject and would love if I could still do that, only without getting trolled. Speaking of current system I would love if it worked. But it doesn't - there are posts with more than 5 negative votes and they are STILL showing up in the timeline; aren't hidden or grayed out. I understand that site benefits from more visits, trolling and flame wars - but what is completely ignored is the time and energy of the author; majority of them just gives up checking on comments and accept that their effort will be ___ on. Here are some examples - you tell me if they are really adding any real value to articles or are "beneficial to readers": http://www.codeproject.com/Messages/4338474/My-vote-of-1-Useless.aspx[^] http://www.codeproject.com/script/Forums/Messages.aspx?fmid=2219960[^] http://www.codeproject.com/Messages/3537485/My-vote-of-1.aspx[^] I really wanted to talk more about this, but as I see status quo will be upheld - I don't want to put more emotion and time into this.
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I somewhat expected this kind of response. But I guess it was worth a shot since I truly enjoyed writing articles on CodeProject and would love if I could still do that, only without getting trolled. Speaking of current system I would love if it worked. But it doesn't - there are posts with more than 5 negative votes and they are STILL showing up in the timeline; aren't hidden or grayed out. I understand that site benefits from more visits, trolling and flame wars - but what is completely ignored is the time and energy of the author; majority of them just gives up checking on comments and accept that their effort will be ___ on. Here are some examples - you tell me if they are really adding any real value to articles or are "beneficial to readers": http://www.codeproject.com/Messages/4338474/My-vote-of-1-Useless.aspx[^] http://www.codeproject.com/script/Forums/Messages.aspx?fmid=2219960[^] http://www.codeproject.com/Messages/3537485/My-vote-of-1.aspx[^] I really wanted to talk more about this, but as I see status quo will be upheld - I don't want to put more emotion and time into this.
Predrag Tomasevic wrote:
http://www.codeproject.com/Messages/4338474/My-vote-of-1-Useless.aspx[^]
That was his opinion and it was right that he had the opportunity to post it. You see, this prompted a dialog and while that poster was too pig headed to change his opinion, at least there was clarification and further elaboration in the subsequent dialog that I found useful. Look at it this way, if you posted a comment on an article and the author removed it just because he didn't agree with it, would this mean that you would continue to read and comment on articles or would you stop coming back to Code Project? What if your opinion was right and the author was wrong? Should authors be allowed to censor your comments because they got it wrong? What service is this to other readers if they simply accept the article is accurate because they can't see any comments suggesting otherwise? As an author, I would love it if people just voted 5 on my articles. The reality is otherwise, and I've just had to learn to roll with it. Every so often, there's a nugget in that low vote that actually means something and I learn from it.
*pre-emptive celebratory nipple tassle jiggle* - Sean Ewington
"Mind bleach! Send me mind bleach!" - Nagy Vilmos
CodeStash - Online Snippet Management | My blog | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier
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Predrag Tomasevic wrote:
http://www.codeproject.com/Messages/4338474/My-vote-of-1-Useless.aspx[^]
That was his opinion and it was right that he had the opportunity to post it. You see, this prompted a dialog and while that poster was too pig headed to change his opinion, at least there was clarification and further elaboration in the subsequent dialog that I found useful. Look at it this way, if you posted a comment on an article and the author removed it just because he didn't agree with it, would this mean that you would continue to read and comment on articles or would you stop coming back to Code Project? What if your opinion was right and the author was wrong? Should authors be allowed to censor your comments because they got it wrong? What service is this to other readers if they simply accept the article is accurate because they can't see any comments suggesting otherwise? As an author, I would love it if people just voted 5 on my articles. The reality is otherwise, and I've just had to learn to roll with it. Every so often, there's a nugget in that low vote that actually means something and I learn from it.
*pre-emptive celebratory nipple tassle jiggle* - Sean Ewington
"Mind bleach! Send me mind bleach!" - Nagy Vilmos
CodeStash - Online Snippet Management | My blog | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier
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The first one is clearly trolling and the account should be reported as such - it's always worth having a word with Chris and the team; if there's an account like this, Chris can have a quiet word with them to get them to try to moderate their behaviour. It could be, for instance, that they have voted 100 articles with a 5 with no comment, but the fact that they have to provide a comment for a 1 vote means that it looks skewed towards this. The second link - unfortunately, there's always going to be someone who says something like this. I've had them on my articles, and you just have to roll with it.
*pre-emptive celebratory nipple tassle jiggle* - Sean Ewington
"Mind bleach! Send me mind bleach!" - Nagy Vilmos
CodeStash - Online Snippet Management | My blog | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier
-
I somewhat expected this kind of response. But I guess it was worth a shot since I truly enjoyed writing articles on CodeProject and would love if I could still do that, only without getting trolled. Speaking of current system I would love if it worked. But it doesn't - there are posts with more than 5 negative votes and they are STILL showing up in the timeline; aren't hidden or grayed out. I understand that site benefits from more visits, trolling and flame wars - but what is completely ignored is the time and energy of the author; majority of them just gives up checking on comments and accept that their effort will be ___ on. Here are some examples - you tell me if they are really adding any real value to articles or are "beneficial to readers": http://www.codeproject.com/Messages/4338474/My-vote-of-1-Useless.aspx[^] http://www.codeproject.com/script/Forums/Messages.aspx?fmid=2219960[^] http://www.codeproject.com/Messages/3537485/My-vote-of-1.aspx[^] I really wanted to talk more about this, but as I see status quo will be upheld - I don't want to put more emotion and time into this.
The people you will find on this site and on the Internet in general are representative of the people you will met in the real world: there are cool people and morons. By publishing an article, you are putting something on a public place, open to good or bad written criticism. This would be the same if you would shout in the street or write an newspaper article. So you cannot avoid the trolls, that is fact.