If You’re Not Part of the Solution …
For the better part of the past decade, we’ve heard a number of cries for attention throughout the various forms of media. If it wasn’t Iraq and WMDs it was Iran or North Korea. If the annual summer temperatures melted more than 5% of any particular ice sheet, environmentalists would scream about Global Warming. If companies were shutting down, we would hear endless shouts against globalism, outsourcing, and otherwise capitalizing on the poorest humans on the Earth in the name of unheard of profits … which was demanded by other loud-mouthed dolts who just happened to own stock in the companies who were forced to find ways to cut costs while simultaneously improving productivity. The list goes on and on, and the various soap boxes that have been employed by both the mainstream media and general public has been both incredibly varied and incredibly effective.
There is one particular soap box that I would like to examine, and it’s the ever-popular internet.
Never before has it been so easy to discover information and connect with people we might never have met otherwise. One of my favorite hobbies involves reading newspapers from around the world online. Not only does this give me a few perspectives on a particular topic, but it affords the luxury of seeing what topics are considered burning for a particular week. Depending on the subject, and how well I understand it, I might even write a post about the matter to get some more ideas flushed out while sharing the info with others. But there is one aspect to online papers that grinds my gears to no end: Reader Comments.
The Winter of Our Discontent
Perhaps 7 years of poor leadership from what used to be the Earth’s only Super Power has jaded the general public’s outlook on everything, but it seems that the number of trolls that are out and about online has quadrupled in the last few months, and nowhere is this more evident than on the TimeOnline’s news site.
DannyChoo recently posted a link via Twitter on a controversial article regarding the “Environmental Impact of Google Searches.” All in all, I thought the article was not too horrible a read for a one-sided argument. That said, the argument did not contain enough fact to sway my current habits. According to the article, for every two searches we perform on Google, CO2 the equivalent to what is created to boil a pot of water is released into the atmosphere. This would be interesting if accurate, but will undoubtedly have little impact on how the most complete data catalogue goes about its business.
To add a little humor to the situation, I estimated that the article took about a minute to read, which included a little time to reflect on the vague numbers cited within. I then calculated the amount of CO2 I had created just by breathing while reading the article and found that, in the minute spent reading the article, I could have completed between 27 and 33 Google searches! (Source Links Below)
But all kidding aside, what really pissed me off about this article wasn’t the article itself … it was the useless comments that had cluttered up the space beneath Jonathan Leake and Richard Woods’ questionable article. Despite the high number of people who complained about the quality or factual relevance of the data, not one of them provided any factual information of their own. Heck, most of the people didn’t provide any value to the conversation at all.
Here are just a few of them:
I googled this article. Now I see I am going to have to up my googling. Maybe that will warm things up a bit.
Michael W, Fairbanks, AL
I totally agree, we must revert to earlier times every one heated with wood and used whale oil for their lamps. over 4 billion people cutting wood for fuel and killing the last whale herds how long before the Greenies cry we must stop living period. If that is their goal let them show the way.
joe, Farmington, USA
It has nothing to do about anything other than another way to tax us. People had better wake up.
Arnie Petralia, rochester, ny, usa
Very Soon the environmentalists will realize we exhale Co2 when we breathe and methane when we pass gas. maybe they’ll try to tax that too.
Chris, Levittown, USA
Since Al Gore invented the internet, I blame him.
Robert, Brampton, Canada
What value did any of these comments serve? Did they provide any factual information or corrections to the article that was posted? Heck, considering the number of honestly useful comments that the TimesOnline actually receives on their articles, I’m surprised that they waste valuable server space by offering and recording comments. It would be far more beneficial to allocate that precious data capacity to something with a little more ROI … like another series of intrusive advertisements.
Should They Allow Comments?
A few months ago there was an argument on a forum regarding the importance of news sites allowing comments, and 8% said that news sites shouldn’t allow them. The other 92% who felt otherwise wouldn’t shut the hell up about their opinion and continued to hammer the database with poorly rationalized phrases replete with spelling errors and way too much ego. If I didn’t know better, I would think the real reason these people were upset wasn’t because they couldn’t fill up yet another online database with unjustified tripe, but because these news sites don’t offer a back link to personal websites.
Comments are intended to add to a conversation, or point out corrections with decent language and a respectful atmosphere. Nobody forces us to read any of the articles online. If a person wants to bitch and moan about how a post goes against their personal beliefs, that’s fine, but that’s what a blog is for
… which is why I put my rants on here rather than waste other people’s time.
Sources for CO2 Calculation: CO2 and Human Physiology | The Respiratory System
Comments (4)
Every time I search for the ultimate, full length, Kim Kardashian movie via google, I now envision a polar bear cub stranded alone on a shrinking ice floe in the ever-warming North Atlantic. . .
I have noticed that trolls are on the increase as of late.
Is it that people in the Northern Hemisphere are just more surly than those in the south? It’s like this every winter, it seems.
I agree with the uselessness of many comments found on news sites, however, at the same time I can see how some of them are attempts at making a joke or some other sort of interaction that would be similar to what we often see in the comments of a blog post. In my opinion, part of the problem is the vast reach of these sites. Another thing is that many of these people may not realize that unlike with a blog, commenting on a news article is not likely to get you in touch with the author.