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Working With TPM Bugs, or, How To Avoid Being Gamed
Please look carefully at the screen when trying to comment on certain posts. At least one poster is scamming you, avoiding comments, but mainly taking advantage of the re-locating of the "recommend" link, when s/he un-checks the "feedback" boxes.
Is there another blog where trolls can post without receiving comments? Said poster here, who I would not have called a troll before, has been using this choice.
Is there another blog where trolls can post without receiving comments? Said poster here, who I would not have called a troll before, has been using this choice.
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Of course, that problem could be easily fixed if instead of the comment link disappearing, it is flipped to "Comments Disabled" and remained in the same location under the post.
Many other blog sites do give posters the right to disable comments. But they also give you a heads up.
In the interim, start a new post that references the other, and comment away!
October 28, 2008 12:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
And then link it on the community post so it stays up for a long time!
My new policy? In the reader post section, I will not read any post that has comments disabled.
October 28, 2008 12:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
My new policy as well. If comments are disabled the post amounts to little more than an infomercial/diatribe in the context of a blog such as TPM.
October 28, 2008 1:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
No music video link? Not gonna bother.
I. NEED. TUNES. ;-)
October 28, 2008 6:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
You need PIE
October 28, 2008 8:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
In the spirit of tightening up the blog protocols try this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0n7C1AyU-9Q
October 28, 2008 9:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh doooood. Lifesaver.
Owe ya one. ;-)
October 28, 2008 9:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
And take advantage of the "undocumented feature" to forward date the day and time of publication so it stays at the top of the reader posts for days!
October 28, 2008 1:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wait - if you postdate a post on this system, it appears right away and lingers at the top of the displayed posts until the date arrives?
Good grief, I hope I didn't do that by accident - I occasionally postdate content just so things don't publish in clusters. On Wordpress, a future-dated post stays hidden in a "scheduled" queue until it's time for it to appear....
October 28, 2008 1:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your description is how a similar feature works on every other system known to man - but this is TPM. They do it special around here ... In a fit of political correctness, they have chosen to provide a home for lost and dysfunctional software systems.
It's not been proved, but there is evidence they measure their systems' success in the tears of their posters.
October 28, 2008 3:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOL. I wouldn't mind them giving lost software a home, as long as they eventually took them out back & put them down.
October 28, 2008 6:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have announced the same policy.
October 28, 2008 8:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
How can you tell if comments are disabled by looking at the list of reader posts?
October 28, 2008 3:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
If the post's title is a seeming instigation and the poster is Truthseeker77, the comments are disabled.
Other detection methods may vary.
October 28, 2008 3:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's no "comment" button at the end of the post.
What I don't understand is why TS's no comment posts get so many recs. There are a lot of smart people on TPM. Can't they see the difference between Comment and Recommend?
October 28, 2008 4:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
but can you tell if comments for a particular post have been disabled just by looking at the list of reader posts?
If not, why not?
October 28, 2008 7:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sometimes truthseeker says reasonable things.
I won't rec a post where I can't comment, but his recent point about Krugman being the enemy until he won the Nobel Prize is dead on. In fact, I reminded people of that. Krugman was definitely playing sub-partisan politics (e.g. pro-Hillary) during the election -- and this was pointed out time and again here.
It's quite possible that a lot of people are fed up with some of the short-term memory issue and this is truthseeker's most recent post.
I'm not sure why 1/2 the recommended posts get recommended -- and I can't blame "hitting the wrong button" on those.
October 28, 2008 7:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
What I find fascinating is this notion that journalists are to be liked or disliked/friend or enemy. They're journalists for crying out loud!
I don't love Krugman or hate him. I like some of his pieces, others, not so much. And the same goes for just about every journalist out there.
And Drudge shouldn't even come up in this conversation. He's not a journalist. All he does is link people. The only reason he drives the news cycle, in any way at all, is because people think he drives the news cycle.
October 28, 2008 7:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Of course TS' point about Krugman has a trace of merit, but not from his point of view. He's not interested in perfect rationality or fairness, just scoring points. Here's hoping he needs dental care after gnashing his teeth nightly for the next four+ years.
October 28, 2008 9:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think this last post has over 80 rec's because people are pushing it to the top to say something like, this is the idiot who has decided to disable comments.
October 28, 2008 8:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
The no comment enable post receive so many recommendations because people who are not paying attention click the recommend button, thinking they are clicking on the comment button.
All of these posts, mine included, ironically have given TS77 what he really seeks - attention.
October 28, 2008 8:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
As Prophet Paul, yet not Ron of the 'Tards once said:
October 28, 2008 8:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Defense Mechanistics manifest in wired surreality. As the Great Duo Masters of Illusory Subliminal Performance, Sigfried&Freud once said, "Projection can be an effective misdirection methodology; who's your dada now?"
There is more motivating this behaviour than innate biorobotic reflexive response though. It's a new media dawning, and there's a new Marshall in town; Post-McLuhan. Web 2.0's never-ending datastreaming has a tendency to foment users' frenetic fingering. People push to make their opinion seen/known before it falls off the end of the home page spool. An unremitting preponderance of the yang, breaks the Tao of web consciousness.
October 28, 2008 8:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
the Tao of web consciousness
likely includes Karma
October 28, 2008 9:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
and I believe that truthseeker has gained a modicum of enlightenment now possessing the knowledge of what one hand clapping upside of his head sounds like. If not, the sun will rise tomorrow morning, dawning a whole new day.
October 28, 2008 9:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't DO that!
Now I have to wipe my drink off the keyboard
October 28, 2008 9:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tom, thanks so much for posting this. Of course, unless it's nearly done on a daily basis, there will inevitably be problems with this "feature" till it's fixed.
Good going!
October 28, 2008 6:17 PM | Reply | Permalink