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[Don]

I was messing around in ESPN and read yet another bad article (IMO) on Grantland which seems to be some site they're trying to promote and then I figure might as well check out the comments to see what people have to say, and then I rememmber that on Grantland you can't comment on anything. I also noticed that CNN stopped allowing people to comment on most of the articles too. Now I know it doesn't matter what you wrote on what topic, someone's going to say you're totally dumb and it's also Obama's fault. I know there's no rule that says you're supposed to have a discussion on everything, but it's pretty clear most of these sites do want people to talk about their articles. I know everyone would like to either have everyone respond to what you wrote with something like "WOW you're awesome!" but seriously, if you have any respect for yourself you should at least be somewhat aware that you're likely to be told you're totally wrong by a bunch of guys who had no idea what they're talking about. I'm not saying just because everyone disagreed with you that means you're right, but if you can be remotely considered an expert in whatever you want to talk about you should know there are a lot of stupid guys out there.

Of course, I'm pretty sure Bill Simmons in ESPN fakes his email since his mailbag all have way too convenient emails for whatever point he wanted to make, so I guess just saying "I can't hear you" isn't as bad as faking support for yourself. I mean sure, I get that it must be pretty frustrating for say a guy to debate the finer points of space travel and you get a response like, "The other day I was looking at Star Trek and I think their technology proves you wrong" but again, that's the burden of being an expert.

[Eric]

Internet comment sections are a cesspool without heavy moderation. 1 out of every 1000 comments might have something intelligent to say, the rest gives me brain cancer.

[Don]

Sure, but why post stuff on the Internet if you're not even willing to minimally moderate this stuff? It's like hoping you get the good of the Internet without any of the bad. It just doesn't work this way.

To use an example of the same site, Zaph Lowe (I think that's his name) allows comment on his articles, and what he says is usually insightful on NBA even though it's very mathy, so you see that people give him the respect in general. Of course there's still the guy that just says you suck but these are rare.

On the other hand, ESPN's been also promoting 538.com which has stuff like "Math shows the team leading at the end of the 4th quarter goes on to win 100% of the time" or "Advanced math shows us that had Cardinals not lost their starting QB to injury they might have won the last playoff game, but it's not certain" and people rightfully blast these articles for being stupid and though I can see they're moderated considerably heavier compared to other articles on ESPN, you're not going to be able to censor everyone.

[Eric]

Sure, but why post stuff on the Internet if you're not even willing to minimally moderate this stuff? It's like hoping you get the good of the Internet without any of the bad. It just doesn't work this way.

And therein lies the heart of the problem, you're assuming people understand how the Internet works, they don't. :p

[Don]

Well, the MPQ boards originally had random forum guys moderating the forum, and those guys can moderate the posts made by the developers. Sometimes I got the feeling some guy read about how crowdsourcing cured cancer and figured the Internet is some kind of source of infinite power given out for free. Well, there is useful stuff you can get out of the Internet, but you don't get it for free unless you're super awesome.

[Replay]

Eric, agree with me that Don needs to quit assuming people are good, intelligent, or even reasonably as competent at computers/reading/not eating your electronics as this social circle.

I have great faith in humanity. Just not all of it, and certainly not the greater mass of it to do anything technical.

[Don]

I don't have THAT high of an opinion of people on the Internet, but sometimes I think people are intentionally ignorant or faking it or something. There was a MTG event where they disqualified a guy for stalling because he was looking at the description of his opponent's Jace Beleren and the argument was that nobody playing at a tournament could possibly not know what Jace Beleren does. I mean it'd be like people telling you that political anything doesn't end up with a guy invariably blaming it on Obama. This literally have to be the first political anything you've seen online for that to happen!