Sommerville On News Comments
Times- Standard Editor, Rich Sommerville, comments this morning on comments being made to online news stories. In the space normally reserved for editorials, they had a number of comments made in regards the most recent police shooting that were posted online.
Unfortunately, that section wasn't made available online so, if you wanted to see the comments and can't access the Comments link at the individual story in question, you're out of luck.
posted by Fred Mangels @ 8:57 AM
22 comments
22 Comments:
Fred, I posted the comments here for anyone who has trouble with the TS site. There were 113 comments at the time. For a more up to date version, check the TS site
Standoff ends in shooting
So do all of these user comments expire after 2 weeks just like the news articles?
Regarding the statistic about an average blog having a readership of 1, that's because of spam blogs. The real figure is probably much lower because automated spam blogs far outnumber the ones being created by real people for other real people to read.
Thanks, Rose.
11:26 wrote,"do all of these user comments expire after 2 weeks just like the news articles?".
The news articles don't expire after 2 weeks anymore. I believe they're up for six months now.
and, "Regarding the statistic about an average blog having a readership of 1, that's because of spam blogs.".
That, and there's probably thousands, if not millions, of blogs that relate to subjects nobody cares about, except the blogger that started them.
I think that the times standard hit a new low with this unrestricted "blog". They are supposed to be a damn newspaper and if they wouldn't post libelous and anonymous letters in their paper, they have no business sanctioning it on their website.
Frankly, I am disgusted!
Sorry Fred, but the idea that real human-written blogs have an average of 1 reader is hogwash. At the very least, bloggers have a few friends who read the blog. Truly unread blogs, those with 0 readership, disappear because the blogger gets tired of talking to no one... or the blogger continues because he is mentally unstable and doesn't care. I doubt a majority of bloggers are mentally unstable. Now, anonymous blog commenters, that's a whole different matter.
So for example, bravo's blog continues because he is unstable? I knew it!
1:39 wrote, "Truly unread blogs, those with 0 readership, disappear because the blogger gets tired of talking to no one...".
Oh, I don't know about that. They still end up cluttering up cyberspace. I find blogs that haven't been updated in forever... all the time.
Of course, I'm not sure they differentiate between active blogs vs. those that have been left to wither on the vine when they compiled their statistics.
I would think that would make any statistics quoted in doubt. That said, we need to keep in mind their talking about averages. I would think that would be a vague things to deal with, since they're averages of millions of blogs and no criteria is given as to what they consider a blog.
Ooops. It should have been "they're", not "their".
If the average blog has only one reader then many Humboldt County blogs are well above average.
Why is that Carol Ann? SOURCE:
Comments:
Police beat
TS 12/12/06 (page 3)
Just because it looks like your sleazebag friends look even sleazier?
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It perhaps was not nice nor gracious - but it was accurate.
3:31 what on Buhne made you feel 'queasy'?
Actually what Carol was "queasy" about on the buhne list, as she explained on her dear hubby's blog when he posted the following:
Over the Top, but is it Slander or Libel?
"UNCONFIRMED REPORT: ******** was arrested by Humboldt County Sheriff's deputies this morning on suspicion of burglary. It is unknown at this writing whether the suspect is the same ******** who found himself at the center of a payola scandal -- later discredited -- involving campaign contributions"
Carol, now you are talking about the police impersonators when you darn well know you and hubby were upset at D.Bowman getting caught again, you were focusing on Buhne scooping, calling them rumors, when in fact it was sourced in the first or second comment in the thread.
We don't know D. Bowman. Sorry. Go imagine something else.
Carol and Greg, a good friend told me how hard you work and what well meaning people you two really are. I went back over what you wrote and now I want to apologize. You were right. There was no reason to believe you know Bowman. In general I agree that the thread was nasty. Buhne probably invites, too.
4:15
This is not about Carol and Greg who I believe are "true believers" but whom I know and also believe have gotten it so wrong and rant so much that they have done much more harm than good.
This is about the T-S running comments that are unrestrained, anonymous and unchecked. The whole thing is bad. It is worse than bad. They are the press and not a blog and should hang their heads (all of them) in shame. This is appauling.
You have no clue who I am, but if you want respond, at least respond on point.
The times standard is a newspaper and is held to high ethical standards. This is why they don't print every letter the receive, especially when the letter is libelous or slanderous, is anonymous or presents facts that are inaccurate. If they did this in print, they wouldn't be worth the powder to blow them to hell.
The problem with them allowing these out of control comments on their site and letting them degenerate regarding some of these articles (ie police shootings) is that it looks like they are sanctioning those comments. This is what is appauling. This is not free speech as free speech has been traditionally understood vis a vis the "press".
Additionally, private individuals do have limits on what they can say and putting these types of comments on a press comment section does NOT protect that speech if it harms someone else. Now with the recent court ruling regarding websites being protected like Yahoo and Google - this doesn't apply to individual sites that have the ability to delete and control speech that violates others rights. Even the T-S is held to the "New York Times" standard regarding these statements and if they can't meet that standard, they should not allow those posts.
Hows that for you Carol Ann...got anything of substance to say?
so, 1032, you can see, as usual, Carol has nothing to say in response, as per her and Greg's usual tactics...when they are blown out of the water with logical discourse they either do NOT respond or just respond with a short response which has NO SUBSTANCE or NOTHING TO DO WITH THE TOPIC AT HAND...
P (and no carol, those last few messages were not me...)BTW, I'd love to have a cup of joe with you and greg sometime...
Maybe we could tag along with Virginia and David Cobb ;)
The office number's in the phone book. I try to be more logical over on Greg's List - the idea was to get away from anonymous posts and now we are talking about having coffee. That's probably good.
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