Where I Affably Castigate and Compliment Various Commenters for Various Reasons
By Dustin Rowles | Posted Under Miscellaneous | Comments (186)
— Googergeiger, I’ve seen this line of humor a lot from you lately, and while it doesn’t bother me in the least, I have to say: A lot of commenters have taken this approach with me over the years and none have done it better than Tracer Bullet and admin. You’re obviously allowed to call my manhood into question, although I don’t know what benefit you derive from it. But if you’re going to do it, you really need to step up your game. Comparatively speaking, you’re kind of the 13-year-old girl of 13-year-old girl insults.
— That was seven years ago. Justin Timberlake was 23. He was a kid, barely out of the boy band stage. Are you really hanging on to that? And you think that the only distinction between Timberlake and David Duke is that one hates them and the other “uses” them? I’m not really all that familiar with Timberlake’s music career, but I’m pretty sure that the black artists who worked with him got something out of the arrangement, too. Thankfully, Timberlake is the only white person that’s ever exploited black culture for his own gain. Oh, except for Elvis Presley. Oh yeah, and the Rolling Stones. And practically every single decent white musician since the 1940s. But sure, Timberlake can take the exclusive blame for that.
*fist bumps Rowles*
Thanks, dude. — Forbiddendonut
— Thank you for being gracious enough to leave that comment. I’m sure you’d have found it on your own eventually, but I appreciate the sentiment.
— And a *fist bump* to you, Devil Child.
— One of the tactics we often use around here to keep us from going insane is to go to the effort of writing out lengthy comments in response to other comments we find deplorable or offensive. Then we delete them before posting because it’s typically not a great idea to get in a flame war with a reader. It’s not good business sense. This is one of those comments I wrote a lengthy response to and damn near posted it, but before I did, I looked up Rowen’s previous comments and I got the sense from those comments that Rowen is actually gay himself and like gp has fun with it. I don’t know if it makes me a terrible person to think this, but while I still found that to be a really bitchy thing to say and completely interrupted the awesome mojo of that thread, my anger instantly defused. It changed the entire context of my opinion.
Jerce also left a comment to this effect, and on behalf of TK, your courtesy is appreciated. Perhaps TK can chime in at some point, but he does have electricity and heat back now after a very miserable clusterf*ck of a week. When the zombie apocalypse arrives, he might let the two of you survive.
“Blocking people? What a joke.” — ChArlie
— Yes. Someone got blocked. Why is that a joke? Why do people get so bent out of shape about the idea of blocking a commenter? Commenters should be held to some standard, and that standard should at least be common decency, a little civility, and the ability not to say horribly offensive things in a public forum. It takes a lot to get banned in these parts, and isolated incidents in one thread is not enough to warrant a block. But a consistent pattern of shitty behavior over a lengthy period of time is. And I hate to do it, because it’s a pain in the ass. I have to email Seth, and Seth has to go into the system, and we have to root out the IP and half the time it doesn’t even take. For all I know, ChArlie is actually the person who was originally banned.
Look: Our comments section is fairly popular, and quite a few people read it (it has been suggested at times that people come for the writing and stay for the comments). Commenters therefore have an audience, their own readership of sorts, and as such, should be respectful of that readership. Other people are seeing your words, and it’s incumbent upon us to try not to let the place devolve into a YouTube comments section. If that means blocking someone every once in a while, then that’s what we do — not to chill speech — but to increase the flow of it among the large majority of readers who would less inclined to comment after reading some dude’s hate-filled bigotry.
— Woah! Holy sh*t, Eliza. You really take your Muppets seriously, huh? I don’t know why this needs to be said, but I’ll say it anyway: There’s no way to correctly rank the Muppets. A thousand different people could post a thousand different rankings and 95 percent will disagree with it. That’s what’s fun about a silly list like that. It’s not meant to be serious. You can’t really rank the Muppets; it’s like ranking your children. But most of the folks took the list in the way it was intended: With faux-indignation and rage, like the new transported man, who wrote, “YOU’RE KILLING YOUR FATHER, Dustin.” It’s a starting point for a silly bar debate, not the final draft of a UN resolution. Did you read the rest of that comment section, eliza? Because that was fun. That comment section made my week and not in a sadistic way, but in a “this is what this site is about” way. People lost their shit and argued about the ranking of muppets. It was fantastic.
Unless, of course, eliza was fucking with me, too.
— I know a lot of you get annoyed with some of the ads. And I know some of them are annoying. I honestly wish I knew how to solve this issue. I am so very sorry about whatever annoyances that they create. I loathe having to run ads, having to spend half of my work week tweaking ad networks and rooting out troubling ads and adjusting and tweaking to pull out an extra dollar or two a day instead of writing another review. The thing about running a website without ties to big networks with their own ad sales teams is that there’s no instruction manual on how to do this. People starting their own websites often email and ask about monetization strategies, and truthfully, I’m completely lost. I sort of string together seven or eight different ad networks without any real idea of what I’m doing. And you can’t run a Google search on it (believe me, I’ve tried. Hundreds of times over the last seven years). The internet is full of millions of smaller websites, and thousands of big websites affiliated with large networks with ad reps and sales teams and corporate strategies. We’re in the strange middle, where no one seeks us out so we have to seek them out, and the problem is, I have no fucking clue who to seek out. So I keep this bitch running with duct tape and spit and try and stick my finger in the hole whenever it starts to leak. I think we run a fantastic website with an incredible set of writers and an amazing group of readers with one major hangup: My business sense is for shit. And I keep thinking that if we * out the curse words, eventually those advertisers will flock! But damnit, it hasn’t happened yet. But I’m going to figure it out.
Also, I know there’s an annoying survey ad that pops up occasionally. I have no idea from which of the various ad networks it derives. I would get rid of it if I knew how. I assure you that the one one-thousandth of a cent we earn whenever it pops up on your screen is not the reason it continues to run. It’s because I’m an idiot.
Also, I hear that L’Oreal Paris has the BEST fake eyelashes. Never fake it again! (this message is approved by Gwen Stefani)
— At any rate, I think that’s probably enough responding to comments this week. If this tracks well with our readers, for the sake of transparency, maybe I’ll try it again every few months.
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Comments
Posted by: pissant at November 4, 2011 3:18 PM
I'm fairly certain eliza was fucking with you. That's the way I read it, at least.
I'm down with y'all banning people (or trying to). I've read a lot of great things in the comments around here and also been turned on to a lot of good movies/books/etc. from reading the comments and the articles. In fact, I can't think of a better comments section anywhere*. I really don't know how y'all attract so many thoughtful people while also mostly not attracting trolls.
* - And I really really dig that you don't have to log in. Please never ever change that. These Spotify assholes tell me I have to have a fucking Facebook account to use their service. I swear to god, Rowles, I'm bouncin' the minute you make me get a Facebook account.