This topic was created by Joseph Lord .
25 comments have been deleted in this single thread leaving 26 comments. Can I ask what happened and if it was really intentional? I've not seen anything like it on El reg before.
http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2012/12/07/tvshack_fine/
I don't recall that thread being overrun with spam.
@diodesign
Thanks for the feedback. One of my posts was removed. I don't suppose you could indicate where I went wrong especially if you consider it legally unsafe. Not trying to have a go but if you really think there was a potential issue with it I would like to know in case I post something similar where it isn't removed.
I challenged Andrew O's view that "linking" constitutes criminal copyright infringement in the UK and commented that I thought Dwyer's decision to accept the fine in the US was a good one. I would normally paste or quote the post but repeating it doesn't seem like a good idea in this case.
Merry Christmas,
J
Missed this one a couple days ago, sorry.
The thread in question might have been "http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2012/12/17/competition_viewsonic_pro9000_hd_projector/"
Probably my fault ... not that I can see how voicing my personal opinion could be legal trouble. The "insular" comment was also personal opinion (based on actual observation in the wild), but probably started generating a bunch of flames. ANYwho, I promise not to troll in the "game" and "toy" arena anymore :-)
Homebrews all around, on me.
Ah, I now see the one in the OP was closed for legal reasons. Might be the same here. It was a lot of unneeded backlash from the commenting/reading community on a published article/opinion piece. So not to worry anyhow.
Must be hard holding the fort, so I don't expect perfection, seems things are ok now.
"Ten... tech stocking fillers" - which was one of the most blatant, pathetic and utterly, irremediably worthless pieces of click-bait to ever sully the monitor of a Reg Reader. The rapidity with which its thread was closed may or may not have anything to do with the overwhelming preponderance of commenters pointing out what an egregiously worthless piece of crap it was.
I, too, would be interested to know "what happened".
They produced an article / review entitled "stocking fillers" and filled it with reviews of items costing more than a lot of people are likely to spend on their main presents (£250 headphones, etc)
I, actually, don't have a problem with that. If that's what they want to publish then its up to them. But closing the forum because they get some flack about it is out of order.
This article now appears to have been removed from the hardware page and search index.
Searching for stocking in El Reg doesn't find it. Google however has lots of results, and you can have a very productive afternoon reviewing them.
BTW, apropos of nothing, didn't this august organ's strap line used to be "integrity, we've heard of it"?
"integrity, we've heard of it"
Haha. You're thinking of this Reg classic? Seriously, though, all changes were made to the article before the Xmas break; I can't offer any info until after the hols.
Merry Christmas,
C.
RegHardware has always has always had a thin skin. Toys & games folks tend towards not being exactly comfy with the RealWorld[tm].
Suggestion: Have someone other than the author moderating toys & games commentardary. Proper moderation requires moderation on the part of the moderator.
diodesign,
Happy New Year!
I'd be interested if you had an update on this article. I was either in a hurry when I read it, or on the iPad (where typing on crap onscreen keyboard often deters me from posting).
I wouldn't go so far as to say I was furious about the article, but I did consider starting a thread here about it, to have a bit of a whinge (so must have been at least irked). There'd been plenty of flaming in the comments already, so there didn't seem much point in joining in.
Firstly the article was a bit crap. It was called stocking fillers, and from memory the cheapest thing there was £50 - mostly over £100. And a lot of it didn't look all that good anyway. I've seen articles like that in Hardware before, often round Father's Day or Chrimbo. My working theory is you've got kit lying round in the office that hasn't been reviewed, or is too dull to merit it's own review, so it gets bunged in a Christmas hamper. Either that or the sponsors want the stuff covered. I've no problem with either (you've got to eat). Though the 'stocking-filler' bit was badly judged, and I've seen the commentards flame that before. I hope you're well paid enough that you regard over £100 as a stocking filler, but given you make Andrew O use Windows Phone 7, I doubt it...
However item 2 was some sort of 'anti-radiation' cover for a mobile phone. Which is an enormous pile of steaming excrement. And this is a techy audience. If you'd taken the piss out of it, you might have got away with it. But the article spouted the marketing BS, and then had a little aside at the end saying, 'if you believe in that stuff - otherwise it's a nice mobile case.' Which it bloody well ought to be at £50!
Anyway, I strongly suspect it's that which stirred your dear readers into a frothy commentard-y rage. Which El Reg deserved, in my not so humble opinion. At which point, I'm not sure closing the comments section helps, as people do like to have a good vent. Although, as your guidelines say, 'it's your house - your rules'.
I generally like Hardware's output, as they have some nice round-ups that I can forward on to non-techies without them drowning in spec lists. And when I need to actually buy, I can do the proper research on specs, while not bothering when I'm just keeping vaguely current. For example, I liked the monitors article today, I hadn't realised IPS monitors had got so cheap, and it might be time to dust off my credit card... But I do think Hardware often forgets about the lower price end of the market. I remember an article on iPod docks where the cheapest mentioned was over £150.
An update would be interesting. Otherwise I thought I'd communicate my thoughts. You are of course free to ignore them. Keep up the good work.
"I'd be interested if you had an update on this article"
I'm not sure there's much more to add, honestly. As much as I love a media conspiracy theory, sadly there's no great collusion here. An article, one of the hundreds we publish a month, riled some readers. It happens.
"Item 2 was some sort of 'anti-radiation' cover for a mobile phone ... If you'd taken the piss out of it, you might have got away with it. "
Er, we did: we wrote 'Weird science? Snake oil modelling? Take your pick as it’s going to be hard for a user to determine...'
"The 'stocking-filler' bit was badly judged"
I'm assured it was tongue-in-cheek. I certainly read it that way after publication.
"Keep up the good work."
Thanks.
C.
New commentards, repeat offenders, people who have had comments rejected, and people commenting on stories that are not auto-moderated will sit in a queue awaiting moderation.
That may take time to clear, especially over a weekend. Trust me, we try to barrel through comments as quickly as possible. If a comment is lingering then it's probably been passed into a second queue for bosses to approve or most likely reject for being too bonkers, libelly or otherwise unsafe.
Myself and my colleague Jude have hand moderated nearly 230,000 messages in the past couple of years.
If you're noticing your comments take time to appear, you're in one of the above four categories.
C.
Myself and my colleague Jude have hand moderated nearly 230,000 messages in the past couple of years.
diodesign,
Bugger me! That's a lot of commentardery you've had to wade through! You do know that reading this amount of nerdery, snidery and stupidity almost certainly causes brain damage don't you?
I should sue El Reg for the workplace injury. Or are you now too brain damaged to do anything but hit the 'approve', 'reject' and 'more beer' buttons?
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"How long, or how many accepted posts, does it take to get back off the naughty step after some rejections?"
Didn't you "give up" on Thursday at 22:55?
http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/containing/1768899
ANYway, the answer to your question seems to be "as long as it takes, longer on weekends & holidays". I speak as a dude who has been on the "naughty step" more than once. It's ElReg's forum, they set the rules. I have no problem with that. Neither should you. Unless you are paying the bills, of course.
Andrew Orlowski's articles are usually delay moderated. I assume they mod the comments in order, but it will still seem like others are being approved ahead of you (filling up the thread), as they'll have posted first but also been awaiting the mod's nod.
Yup, like you I think there's a "naughty step" function in here somewhere. I got mine all spending a while in the electronic purgatory of "Awaiting moderation" yesterday.
I'm wondering if it has anything to do with the fact that an (instantly published) earlier post included the word "fuck"[1].
[1] If I'm right, that's fucked it for today too.
I didn't think El Reg moderated for swearing. Something I've done on here a few times. Perhaps I should do a test. A different swearword each day, to see what effect it has...
I remember being a moderator on a large site that didn't allow swearing. We were even supposed to stop the fcuk's of this world. Which was particularly difficult on the Irish forum. You seemingly can't tell an Irishman not to say feck. You certainly can't stop them doing it...
My reply to JaitcH's post http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/containing/1707215 was nixed about 26 hours after I posted it. Many, many people had obviously read it. The replies to mine, re-posting my words (sometimes paraphrasing) were not rejected. Seems kind of senseless, at least to me. It's ElReg's forum, so ElReg's rules apply, I'm not complaining ... but do I have a couple questions:
1) Why the nix? What was wrong with that post? Seriously ... A lot of loyal commantards are on the edge of their seats over what is and isn't allowed.
2) I had many "thumbs", about 2/3s up and 1/3 down. Were those removed from my existing totals? Why? Why not? (I honestly don't know, because I rarely even notice my totals).
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"nixed about 26 hours after I posted it"
The time is irrelevant - live comments can be moderated as soon as they are reported or as soon as we spot something wrong ourselves.
"Why the nix? What was wrong with that post?"
Someone's been charged with a crime rather than found guilty; your comment set off alarm bells that it was presuming the accused was guilty. The comment has been restored in a safe state after it was pulled for review. See below for more by moderator Jude.
C.
"The comment has been restored in a safe state"
Making it no longer my comment. So kindly take my name off it, and put ElReg's name on it. And while you are at it, kindly place the actual date/time that ElReg posted it on it. Ta.
There is nothing wrong with using the word "perp" in that manner. Cops on both sides of the Pond use it when talking to the press, along the lines of "we took the perp into custody".
And as a side-note, many of ElReg's strap lines have been far worse.
"kindly place the actual date/time that ElReg posted it on it"
Sure, we normally would (comments are so rarely edited; they're normally just rejected if bad) but there are only so many seconds in a minute.
"many of ElReg's strap lines have been far worse"
Perhaps, but that's our call. Besides, the production desk moderates thousands of comments a month, and edits scores of articles a week; not every decision is going to please everyone, but in this case it was made with all the right intentions.
Thank you for your patience.
C.
The problem with editing posts rather than nixing them is that all of a sudden ElReg is totally, completely, and utterly legally responsible for all user generated content in the entire forum, including the whole of the backlog in many jurisdictions. Better to nix it than to edit it.
Note that I don't really mind what y'all do, nix away. I'm not irritated. Your barn, your rules. But editing posts is just asking for trouble.
My point was asking "why something so innocuous was nixed" and "but what about the thumbs?" (The last in a kind of "but where do all the calculators go?" tone.)
My later posts were complaining about MY name/handle being attached to something I didn't actually post. There is a word for that ...
I type as a long-time (30-ish years, on and off) Usenet and email-LIST moderator.
Beer. Not always the answer, but it helps occasionally ;-)
"legally responsible for all user generated content in the entire forum"
(Emphasis is mine) Not according to m'learned friends - we're responsible for the comments we've hand-moderated prior to going live, edited after they've gone live or had reported.
There may be an argument that once we dip into a thread then we should be aware of the contents of that discussion. But I'm not aware of any precedent, and in any case people appear well behaved.
C.
I was under the impression that editing a single post implied you maintained Puplisher status over the entire site's content and were thefore responsible for same, whereas if you do not edit user generated content, your site acts more like a common carrier.
Nixing, on the other hand is along the lines of "forum rules" ... Kind of a "no shirt, no shoes, no service". I'll see if I can't dig up the case law when I get a minute ... Gotta get back to digging the garden for spring veg.
Typo, obviously ... We're kenneling[1] Mum & her five 8-week-old Bedlington terrier pups while the owners are in New Orleans for a couple weeks. Lucky bastards guessed right & got flights & hotel rooms about a year ago, long before the litter was decided on.
[1] For small values of kenneling ... They've had the same free-run of the place as our own pups do at the same age since they got here, at least during the day ;-)
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Something for everyone to keep in mind when posting a comment: ALL suspects are innocent until proven guilty. Imagine if you were to be accused of a crime. It would be your right to present your case before the adjudicator (according to the law of the land) makes its decision and you are set free or convicted.
That said, gun control is clearly an emotive issue for a lot of people ... although, to be fair, not on the level of, say, the frothing fury that pours out whenever there's coverage of Apple or Microsoft. We do try to be fair when moderating these comments.
El Mod
There's a disturbing trend I've noticed amongst UK news organisations recently. To be fair they may always have done it, but I've been too dim to notice... While being scrupulous with sub judice and innocent until proven guilty in British cases, as soon as something happens abroad the headlines and copy get an awful lot less careful. So I applaud El Reg for remembering that people are innocent until proven guilty, and long may it continue.
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Larry F54,
Despite what you may think, it is not actually polite to accuse a journalist of being biased. So if you've done so in a comment, that comment was not polite, by any reasonable definition. Just saying things without swearing does not politeness make...
Of course there's nothing stopping you commenting on why you think an article was wrong. Also, I'm not accusing you of this as I've not seen your posts, but just because a commentator disagrees with someone, that doesn't necessarily make them a shill, or biased, or an idiot. Too many commentards seem to find it impossible to comprehend the idea that other people have different opinions.
The El Reg House Rules are here. In them they state something like, please don't insult our writers or accuse them of being shills. Then go on to say, it's our house so our rules - in the same context. So if they see something as an attack on the writer, rather than the article, their mods can delete it. That's reasonable, as they say, it's their forum.
Finally, expect inconsistency. Mods are human (despite what users say), and see lots of posts. I think the Reg ones are also their sub-editors, so they've got a real job to do first, modding second. They'll make mistakes. They don't have a 'punitive' modding system, so I guess it's a pretty quick decision to just hit delete on a post, rather than spending too much time with a process. Having done it myself, on a million user forum, I can tell you that modding can be incredibly time-consuming.
However if you accuse their writers of bias on their site, you've no right to complain if they don't let you. Especially as the Reg are very tolerant of criticism on here, I've done it plenty of times and never had a post nixed.
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Larry 54,
Thanks for the response. I guess if you can be bothered to go back through a bunch of their articles and say they were wrong here, here and here all about the same company, then you can make a polite accusation of bias with evidence. Obviously, everyone's got their biases anyway, it's just a matter of how successful they are at keeping it out of what they write. I've seen plenty of other posters say it about Reg writers, so I've no idea why you got your posts nixed though...
Also, a quick scan through your posting history doesn't show any deleted comments. Are you sure you weren't posting on Andrew Orlowski's articles, where all posts are usually delayed for moderator approval - and they're now up there? Or have you changed username?
I guess it's also hard to say what's bias, and what's a legitimate opinion. For example Andrew O gets accused of anti-Google bias, but then he's got a valid (even if it's not correct it's defensible) criticism of the big G. So just because he mentions that in relevant articles, does that make him biased against them, or is he just doing his job? I happen to agree with quite a lot of what he says about them, so it may be he's the most biased anti-Googler in the world except for me...
If you'd had a post modded for it once, then I can imagine all the next ones getting the same treatment, if they're close together in time. But they normally let that sort of thing go, if polite, so I've no idea what the problem was.
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"I've had about 5 posts, generally polite & civil ones, rejected merely for saying things like 'Could El Reg please find someone without an anti-$X bias to cover $X?' Are we not allowed to criticize the authors, even politely?"
I'm sure you were polite and civil, and that's appreciated, but I'm minded to reject comments that, to be blunt, just don't add anything to the conversation. It's not policy to take a writer off a beat just because they upset a few readers; thus, your post is as effective as hanging around outside our office shouting at the tourists.
Please, challenge our articles all you like. Just play the ball, not the man. I don't see the point in turning the comments section into a boring complain-a-thon about certain writers.
C.
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"aren't we allowed to ask for some balance?"
Drop us an email or post here. Don't ruin threads by tossing in baseless accusations of bias (or worse). I wouldn't turn up at your place of work and wildly accuse you of incompetence to your boss; try not to do it at ours. Please.
C.
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"Why is it that commentards are allowed to be fairly nasty and impolite to each other, but professional journalists, whom one can reasonably expect to be a bit more thick-skinned than the average person, are beyond politely phrased criticism?"
You guys can do what you like to each other, within the rules. We try to keep discussions civil but that's not always possible when comments are auto-moderated an d thousands are flooding every month. The report button is there if things get out of hand.
As for criticising staff, again: attack the points raised, not the person. There is no point in allowing a thread to descend into baseless personal attacks. That applies to everyone. There's some leeway, I admit; for instance, if a writer has a pop at someone's dress sense then I don't mind a bit of backchat in the comments. It's only fair.
But mouthing off about bias with nothing to back it up just because the writer wrote something you don't like is pointless. Calling for a writer to stop writing about a topic is tantamount to supporting censorship. It won't happen.
In the example of Andrew, you cannot, for instance, accuse him of bias against the BBC when he's heaped praise on its output, investigated how the BBC news website was built into a success story, worked as a producer for the broadcaster, and so on. Criticising certain parts of the gigantic public-funded organisation isn't bias, it's journalism.
I can't enter into any more correspondance about this because a) I'm just repeating myself, b) moderating comments is perhaps 10% of job as a sub-editor, and these headlines won't write themselves.
So to sum up, once again: play the ball - not the man. If you can't grasp that, mate, then I'm not surprised you're getting rejected.
C.
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"I'd be allowed to post about suspicion of bias here?"
As long as you can back it up, fine.
I just don't like meta-discussions getting in the way of on-topic discussions. You may argue that bringing up accusations of bias is on-topic, but these accusations are so wrong the vast majority of the time that I just bin them.
C.
I had two comments critical of an article rejected. One was completely "playing the ball, not the man", and didn't mention the author specifically at all. It was a critique of the journalistic approach to the article (the author's presenting his own conclusions as facts rather than interviewing sources, and using a glaring logical fallacy in the process). It was a quite reasonable and well-written comment.
The other comment was a reply to a comment by the author and did address them specifically, but had a much more moderated tone than the author's comment. If the author themselves is posting to the forums in an uncivilized way (multiple times on the same article, I might add), it seems completely reasonable that we should be able to point that out.
Anyway, I'm not a regular Reg reader and this being my first commenting experience on the site leads me to avoid the site going forward whenever there is another source covering the same topic (which there always is).
Having looked at your comment history, both of your rejected comments were criticising Reg authors. Most of the articles on the site are by our staff writers. Some of them, however, are written by current and former people from industry, and while you might not like what they have to say, criticising their "journalistic credentials" doesn't serve any useful purpose.
Complaining about the "shoddy" quality of articles doesn't cut any ice here. If you disagree with an article's content, it doesn't take long to put your comments across politely and civilly. Ad hominem attacks against our authors, be they staff or freelance, ain't getting published on my watch. You may well have seen ad homs in other comments; this is because the vast majority of comments are automatically approved by the system and not a human mod. Whenever we get a spare moment to read the forums, we do trim out comments that break the house rules.
For more info, have a read of the Comments Guidelines. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/02/comment_guidelines_2012/
The "Awaiting moderation" response to posting a comment appears to be a random (and not infrequent) occurrence. Is there any way to determine the trigger, if there is one?
If I am doing something wrong/disapproved of, then knowing what it is would help me modify my behaviour.
Anything public that involves changing state, aka, making a change to the "db" ... posting, voting, withdrawing ... on forums ... incurs a short delay.
Typically (in 99%+) it's under a second lag. Three-four times a year, it could be up to 5 minutes.
Very occasionally, when we have major problems, it could be an hour or two. Last example was a server migration - there were periods when the updates
were stalled.
It's your classic "distributed write db" problem. No single point of failure, used in many locations/servers.
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