Why You Shouldn't Read the Comments Section
To those of you who,after you read stories, write responses in the comments and offer an aware, sane take — whether you agree with the author or non — I salute yous. To those who read the comments because you find the conversation at that place informative and intellectually challenging, mazel tov. Equally for everybody else, forgive me, but I strongly suspect you lot're trolls, masochists, or both. That's why I'thou with Jessica Valenti, who this week in the Guardian questions why we still have comments sections at all.
"I'thou not addicted of comments sections," Valenti says. "I recollect you lot'd be difficult-pressed to find many female person writers who are." And when she notes that "Don't read the comments" has become such a familiar refrain, she wonders, "Why have them?" Sites like Re/code and Popular Science accept already eliminated theirs.
Similar Valenti, I as well didn't always shudder at the idea of comments sections, have not ever taken Caitlin Moran's stance that they're where "all the unhappiness in the earth dwells." Valenti says that when she started out, "Comments even made my writing meliorate... feedback from readers broadened the way I thought and sometimes changed my mind." I know the feeling — I spent much of my early career in nascent social media, as a host on the WELL and host of Salon's member community, Tabular array Talk. And I used to read comments on my early stories and observe a variety of thought-provoking perspectives.
Admittedly, a lot changed several years ago, when one specific person decided I was worthy of a personal grudge, and began actualization in the comments afterward every piece I wrote with his incredibly — wait for it — misogynist views about the sort of emasculating monster he'd decided I was. Just what was worse was that in a relatively brusk span of time, that one lone troll wasn't unique whatever longer. He became typical. As Valenti observes, "Sexism, racism and homophobia are the norm; threats and harassment are common." Comments are rife with "the never-ending stream of derision that women, people of color and other marginalized communities endure; the abiding insistence that you or what you write is stupid or that your platform is undeserved."
Of course, it's not just in the comments. Later this month in Vienna, the Organization for Security and Cooperation is hosting an all-day console on "countering the online abuse of female journalists." Considering there's a need for one.
What was one time the great opportunity for dialogue between writers and readers, a hazard for an evolving conversation, has for many of the states been instead a poisonous experience. And though Valenti says that "Ignoring hateful things doesn't brand them go away, and telling women to simply avert comments is just some other way of proverb we're also lazy or overwhelmed to prepare the real problem," I am perfectly content with adding the comments, similar the terminal ii "Matrix" movies, to my mental listing of things that lost the privilege of existing in my universe. It doesn't fix the problem, only I don't demand to ready the trouble; I merely need to not accept it.
I know others would disagree. Rebutting Valenti, Katharine Murphy, Deputy Political Editor of Guardian Australia, valiantly says, "Gear up aside the monomaniacal trolling, which is more than useless and empty than our worst excesses, or the corruption, which is sometimes plain weird, and the cynical and reflexive commentary most journalistic deficiencies designed to be a crowd pleaser rather than generate genuine insight – looking through what I'd group together as 'the gratuitous' – precipitous audience feedback enlightens." I merely wonder how much of that "sharp audience feedback" is left subsequently she removes all the other elements.
Murphy says that "Listening is a elementary human action of atonement, and a statement of humility." But I say that's an human activity that has to exist earned. Nosotros — and past "we," I especially hateful the kind of people who are especially targeted for harassment and ugly remarks, not just in the comments — don't owe hostile, anonymous strangers our attention. That doesn't make u.s. weak or unable to tolerate criticism. It means we take set boundaries on how we look people to care for us. When someone reaches out to me directly in a reasonable and thoughtful way — and that includes a critical i — I'one thousand generally responsive. But when a barista hands me coffee, I don't then make my own loving cup of java, hand it to him, and say, "Y'all suck at making coffee, loser, that's how you brand coffee," yous know? I think he'd think that was crazy.
Writing has become ane of the few professions at present in which in that location'southward an expectation of reciprocity, no matter how toxic the dynamic may be. But like many writers, especially female writers, I decided a long fourth dimension ago that ignoring the feedback of people who desire to selection fights is not an act of service, nor is it my obligation. And the fact that the give-and-take "commenter" is now all but synonymous with "troll" should tell you lot why.
Source: https://www.salon.com/2015/09/11/dont_read_the_comments_the_trolls_racists_and_abusers_won_reasonable_online_feedback_is_a_thing_of_the_distant_past/
Posting Komentar untuk "Why You Shouldn't Read the Comments Section"