The day the strength of men failed
This was spelled out to me during my last year working at a fairly big newspaper. I was writing mostly soft news items, as well as tech and entertainment features… and their comments sections were out of control. There was no reason to sling mud between political parties under an article about cute pandas.
I opposed vehemently to my supervisor’s logic and was very vigilant of the comment sections under my articles: they were intended to be feel-good pieces, and I felt that they attracted enough readers on their own. To me, all that conflict scared more readers than engaged them, which resulted in just a small but very vocal band of troublemakers hanging around the site all day, trolling under every article.
I haven’t always been the best at moderating social media discussion, but I do have little tolerance for people trying to pick a fight. Social media in itself was not a mistake, but the direction in which some corporations ended up taking it, for which there was already this precedent, has certainly been for the worse.
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I agree it’s gotten pretty nut’s, I was never all that interested in politics and even now I’m staying well away from anything that get’s that heated and toxic.
It’s tough. There are important discussions and conversations to be had, but it’s nearly impossible to get through the heavy vitriol.
I hope we don’t make it to much trouble to moderate these comments!😅 Very cool comic!
Hard to stay on top of you hooligans!
Seriously though, I have the most respectful and polite readers. Not only I try to nip it in the bud when someone is trying to pick a fight, most commenters know to ignore them and not engage with them if I happen to miss their comments.