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I've had enough of Kotaku.
Have a look at this page before you start reading ahead:
http://kotaku.com/5348960/mario-goes-...
At the time I'm writing this, there were three "disemvowelments" within half an hour of this "news" being posted. All the censored comments, including mine, implied that the post was poor quality journalism. None used offensive language.
One commenter posted a sycophantic response to my comment, sucking up to the staff, and was starred by Owen Good himself as a reward. This was followed by a load of others jumping on the bandwagon to crucify me for an innocent enough criticism. This was the comment in question:
"Lame. Perhaps you should've been a little more selective."
Kotaku is a dictatorship. You have to audition to even post, and the editors handpick the "star" commenters. Anything even slightly critical is censored, sycophants are rewarded, comments are segregated, and journalistic standards just keep sliding. The majority of posts aren't even real news. They even have barbaric "Ban Mondays", where they ban people for fun. The end result is a blog where nothing of value is ever posted and you have a horde of lobotomised brown-nosing commenters. Is this what Gawker wants? I'm not the first to complain, and nor will I be the last. You'll have to address these issues sooner or later. Right now, Kotaku is the blogging equivalent of North Korea. I don't plan on using the site again, and just wanted to let Gawker know of my acute dissatisfaction.
http://kotaku.com/5348960/mario-goes-...
At the time I'm writing this, there were three "disemvowelments" within half an hour of this "news" being posted. All the censored comments, including mine, implied that the post was poor quality journalism. None used offensive language.
One commenter posted a sycophantic response to my comment, sucking up to the staff, and was starred by Owen Good himself as a reward. This was followed by a load of others jumping on the bandwagon to crucify me for an innocent enough criticism. This was the comment in question:
"Lame. Perhaps you should've been a little more selective."
Kotaku is a dictatorship. You have to audition to even post, and the editors handpick the "star" commenters. Anything even slightly critical is censored, sycophants are rewarded, comments are segregated, and journalistic standards just keep sliding. The majority of posts aren't even real news. They even have barbaric "Ban Mondays", where they ban people for fun. The end result is a blog where nothing of value is ever posted and you have a horde of lobotomised brown-nosing commenters. Is this what Gawker wants? I'm not the first to complain, and nor will I be the last. You'll have to address these issues sooner or later. Right now, Kotaku is the blogging equivalent of North Korea. I don't plan on using the site again, and just wanted to let Gawker know of my acute dissatisfaction.
I’m frustrated
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Inappropriate?The purpose of the moderation of comments on any Gawker site is to enhance the experience of the greatest number of readers. After all, readers visiting the site feeds ad revenue without which there would be no site. To that end, the moderators and editors will actively discourage the kind of posts that detract from the experience of other readers. Disemvoweling and banning are the tools moderators and editors use to suggest better judgment in the decision that a commenter might make to post derisive comments.
It is unfortunate that you did not enjoy the particular post on which you commented and that you disagreed with the decision of the editor to post it. You have the freedom to disagree with editor's choices as much as you like. You can, in fact, feel free to email the editor who posted the content and encourage them to make different decisions in the future. Editor email addresses are listed on the left side panel on the site. The decision to share your disagreement in a public manner, however, is a decision with which the moderators disagreed.
The perspective of moderators and editors in general is that comments that only serve to deride the content of the post are not contributing to the discussion. They do not enhance the experience of other readers. I personally don't enjoy having to spend time reading through a bunch of negative comments just to find the comments that are relevant to the topic of the post. I'm sure other readers feel the same way. If moderators and editors feel that a comment might negatively influence the experience of readers of the site, much less influence them to leave the site, then they will act on it.
The beauty of the internet is the wide variety of choices that are available. If there is nothing that interests you on one site, you can just go to another one. You can google the keywords that match your interests and find a practically infinite supply of sites relating to your interests. If there's nothing that interests you on Kotaku, maybe another Gawker site has content you're interested in reading. If not, there are other alternatives. What's even more beautiful about the internet is the ability of users to provide content. If you can't find anything you want to read, look at, or interact with on the internet, you can build your own site, write your own blog, post your own content.2 Comments
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This is one of the best points
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Thanks for the cookie-cutter response, Michael. Why am I not surprised? -
I'm sorry if you're displeased with the amount of time and thought I put into responding to your concerns. You'll have to excuse me for not spending the same amount of time responding to this one. You can choose to believe me if you like when I say that I didn't copy and paste that response from a script. It's unfortunate that the efforts I put into explaining the reasoning behind your disemvowelment were not acceptable to you.
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This reply was removed on 11/02/09.
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