To Hell With Comments

[marurder]

Isn't the post a glorified comment that is essentially paid for to generate traffic?

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

The worst part about the internet is the removal of most obstacles/barriers for publishing. Yes, previous obstacles and barriers were sometimes corrupt or faulty, and they managed to hold back a few innovative/creative types we would have enjoyed, but I greatly prefer a flawed filter to none at all. Now everyone on the planet self-publishes practically everything, and 95% of it is fucking retarded.

I guess I'm saying we've gained a few new voices that might have been stymied back in the day, but those fresh, intelligent producers are pretty well drown out by the vast surrounding oceans of mediocrity and idiocy.

...I like you, Yahtzee, you're a quality funnyman. But what could possibly make you think that your opinion is more valid than anyone else's?

The notion that all opinions are equally valid might be the root of some of the world's greatest ongoing problems. Maybe it's just a far-reaching unconscious conspiracy on the part of those who are attractive and/or wealthy to undermine those pillars of influence that rely on intelligence, reasoning, and merit.

 

[JimB]

I don't play such games online, so I have to ask all the people declaring this thread to be ironic, how similar is the comment system in Super Mario World 3D Wii U (or whatever the Christing thing is actually named) to a discussion forum like this one? Is it possible for users to have a meaningful conversation through the comment section, such as by quoting one another or replying directly to one another?

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Everyone is entitled to rant, to vent. I don't believe Yahtzee is an exception, and thus his rant is also valid. I don't know if he actually was specifically targeting Escapist commenters (though some of them I'd heartily agree don't contribute anything but wastes of digital ink) but rather how some sites and now games more or less toss comments up in your face when you don't want them, or don't care enough about them. I've always found the Escapist comments section (aside from the stupid ass Facebook comments) to be just off the street so-to-speak so you actively have to look for them. Thus balance is achieved without having to read the crap some users spew.
Myself included.
That being said, I agree with most of it, some of it I haven't experienced and the rest somehow I ignored til he brought it up.

 

[Yopaz]

I am in complete agreement with everything you said. You shouldn't dismiss EVERYONE just because a good deal of comments are stupid. It would be arrogant to do so and he does come off as VERY self centred in this article.

I don't consider your comment stupid and I would in fact say that you make a very valid point when you discuss censorship. There are plenty of reasons why comments are good and lots of comments are good. I just don't think you should take everything he says at face value. It's a rant and he generalises a lot, he even made a point of saying that he enabled comments for the sake of having something to complain about in Super Mario 3D World. He does come across as a bitter, self centred person who hates all of us in this article, but I disagree with your opinion that we should take it at face value. It's clearly something he feels strongly enough to voice it in this article, but your statement that this is about 99% of all of us isn't all that different from claiming that we're all twats surrounded by bigger twats.

Well that's nice of you to say. And yes, in this one article he does sound like he's generalizing and going on just this one article, you certainly have a valid point as well, that this one article isn't enough to say Yahtzee's always like this and means every word of what he's saying here about every person out there.

The thing is, I'm not going by just this one article. I'm also looking at a number of his previous works, both EP and ZP, where he's displayed an embittered, cynical, and sullenly hateful attitude. Granted, sometimes he's played it for laughs, but the consistency of it makes me seriously question how much is honestly for laughs and how much is just him being honestly venomous because that's his customary outlook on life and people in general.

Even if he's consistent in this kind of behaviour that doesn't really mean much. I've followed his work for a long time and I'm not really able to make out much about what's real and what's an act. What I do know is that his internet personality is very different from his normal personality. He has complained so much about Nintendo churning out the same worn out franchises again and again yet he has praised both Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2, there's even an Extra Punctuation dedicated to defending the Super Mario franchise in terms of innovation. He has complained about Super Mario Galaxy 2 being a lazy sequel and praising its level design. Its easy to say he's contradicting himself just to argue with whoever dares to comment and to troll with those who have the gall to comment, but it might be simply exaggerations and focus.

I'm not saying I know him or that you're wrong saying he's a bitter person who hates us all, but if you were to read this article again you might see that he is targeting a very specific kind of comments. Maybe he's ignoring the better ones, maybe he's ignoring the good due to some kind of superiority complex. As I said I don't know and it would be silly to claim I know him just because I've been reading his stuff since before he came to The Escapist. However the fact that he is known for comedy books, videos and articles should be a hint that not everything he says is to be taken seriously.

My biggest issue with him is that people tend to take him too seriously. PC master race was an ironic statement that PC gamers accepted unironically which recently flared up again when he got a new gaming PC. It often sounds like he's a bit full of himself and I agree that I don't like those articles and videos which demonstrates this.

Do you honestly think we should take he says at face value? Does Jim Sterling really want us all to thank god for him? Did Stephen Lynch really have a desperate wish for his grandpa to die? Does Brian Regan really not know the plural of box or how to spell cat? Comedians aren't known for being consistently serious, but they often do have a consistent persona.

 

[Dragonbums]

Your entire article basically says- My words are more important than yours because I get paid to do it. Yours means nothing therefore I don't want to see it.

Thing is though, that view is basically correct. Journalism and criticism in general require a fair amount of qualification in order for it to have any weight or value.

What Yahtzee has to say automatically has more weight than any opinion of yours or mine simply because he has both a face and a name. By having both of those things he is made to be accountable for things that says, and he develops a backlog of opinions that qualify all his future opinions. So he has reason to avoid saying things that are tremendously biased or false, and we have a sizable backlog of information to go back to that might help us interpret his opinion and weight it appropriately in context to his preferences vs ours.

Earlier in the thread you mentioned that comments can be good because they can call the author out on a falsehood or bias, but the problem is that is you are choosing to question an author with a face, a name, and potentially something to lose based on the opinion of a person with no face, no name, and nothing to lose. Yes its good to question and confirm information for yourself, but you should be doing that with or without the input of some random who may or may not have any clue about what they're saying.

Hell take our own comments as an example, yours and mine. From the second half of your post I can see pretty clearly that you like Nint quite a bit, so I'm not really going to give much weight to your opinion on that particular company. Likewise when you read my comment you have to question the validity of the conclusions I'm drawing because I'm some faceless jackass with zero attachment to this account or place. I could be talking out of my ass for no reason better than "I'm bored" and you would never know.

I'm not really going to dispute that what your saying doesn't make sense. It's just that ranting that comments should be obliterated because one or the other deems them unworthy is total ass.

What I say may have no value to you due to affiliation, but perhaps it may to someone else.

There are plenty of comments that I don't agree with. That doesn't mean I'm going to go out of my way to say "the only thing that matters on the internet are paid people to make comments on the internet". It just feels highly self centered, and egotistical. Especially when implied that his own stuff actually has weight in this industry at all.

I like Jim's stuff for instance. I tend to agree on most of what he says. But I'm not going to believe for a second that what he says will have that much of a sway in the grand scheme of things. Or whether his opinions matter outside of Destructoid and Escapist. To places like IGN, he's a fucking nobody.

 

[themilo504]

This was true until those fucking Facebook comments were enabled. It undermines the accounts and community system. They were a horrible idea and they need to go.

This place is infected with facebook? really? I didn't think Escapist could stoop that low, I really didn't, and now I feel betrayed! Then again... I suppose it doesn't actually affect me since I have a plugin in my browser which forcibly removes all social media plugins from all websites, which is why I didn't know this place had succumbed.

Facebook comments on videos and articles have been around here for a while. Like, possibly since I joined or even earlier.

When it comes to videos I think that comments are great for feedback and I find It funny that a reviewer can?t see that.

The thing is, take a gander at the comments sections of most of the reviews. Any review, really, but particularly good ones are "controversial" ones like Tito's Dragon Age II/Grand Theft Auto V or Yahtzee's Super Smash Bros. Brawl, or Jim Sterling's Vanquish/The Witcher 2.

Normal reviews become filled with comments to the effect of "I agree/disagree" and occasionally get expounded upon with "And here's why". On a good day, it pretty much ends with that, maybe a bit of light-hearted joking between members.

"Controversial" reviews get blasted down with so much useless bile of "HOW COULD YOU NOT LIKE [Game]!?!?!?! RABBLERABBLERABBLE!" (or of course, "HOW COULD YOU LIKE [Game]?!!?!? RABBLERABBLERABBLE!!!") that it becomes pointless to even read them, because all you're going to see is that and the inevitable arguing between those people and the people who think the reviewer is correct and/or think they should all just calm down.

They're just echo chambers for users, and very rarely contain anything constructive for the person who created the content in question. A notable exception to this is our very own Jim Sterling, if we all recall the beginning of The Jimquisition on this website. But even then, he had to sift through hundreds of angry comments saying "Who is this arrogant fat fuck?!!?!" (many even being worded that harshly) to find the actual constructive responses because that's the reaction people immediately jumped to upon seeing something they didn't like.

Yes but that?s the fault of the commenters, even if you disable comments people are still going to find ways to be a jerk.

 

[Dark Knifer]

snip

Pretty much this. Comments by default are less valid as their skill set is not known but the authors skill set is. It's the difference between content and comments. Not that I mind comments though, hell I'm posting here but yeah, they can be kinda crap but an inevitable feature and most people will say comments are usually shit.

 

[Vale]

"To hell with the reviews. This time I give myself five stars."

Reminds me of Beautiful Escape alright.
YAHTZEE IS A SERIEAL KILLER not really no.

I would tend to agree, but that would mean voicing my opinion and OH BOY. SUCH DISCUSSION now I'm even doing the memes just kill me already.

I think I made myself pretty fucking clear.

 

[Crazie_Guy]

Clearly, the only way to win this time is to not leave a comment at all.



FUCK

 

[Two-A]

Wait, the ratings system in ACIV was real? I was convinced it was a joke. Like, since you're playing a code tester for AE, of course they'd ask focus questions of you. But you're telling me those ratings are actually going back to Ubisoft?

Wait, are you serious? What are they going to do with that feedback?

OT: I think it depends on the site, some comment sections are great (the Cracked comment section, for example). From what I've seen, the reputation and popularity of the site (or the article, or the subject of the article) affects the quality of the comments. Having a voting system helps (specially if you can sort by votes) but it won't solve the problem

 

[vasudean]

In some ways I can understand where Benjamin Croshaw is coming from. If one were to take just one glance at a random comment on something like a Youtube video, then yes odds are you'll find a comment from someone that by all rights shouldn't even be near a keyboard. However, sometimes you'll come across a comment that is thoughtful and adds to the conversation made. How I see it, a comment section is like having young children. They're loud and obnoxious and sometimes even rude. However, there are times when that child will do something that makes all the bad things completely worthwhile. At least in my mind it's that way. It's a complicated sort of love. So in that regards I disagree with him saying that comments don't have a place.

 

[IceForce]

This website has an interesting rule: You're not allowed to insult the content creators. If you do, you get warned/banned. If the content creators insult you however, as is the case here, your only real option is to shut the fuck up and stop watching.

I don't like that rule, personally.

If someone insults you, there should always be an option to insult them back.

Well at least the Facebook comments don't suffer from the ridiculous and strictly enforced rules these forums have.

Which is funny, when you think about it.

The mods and people who own this site don't want certain things posted on it, so they made rules against posting that stuff.
But the Facebook comments contain all manner of insults and whatever else, and they appear at the bottom of every piece of Escapist content.

So, insults and other things that are against the rules, DO actually appear on this site after all, inside a Facebook comment box.

 

[Thanatos2k]

Eh, comments can be useful. Constructive feedback is a very good thing, and even relevant questions are appropriate for a comments section. The fact that most comments suck isn't an inherent problem with comments, but an inherent problem with people.

For an example of Miiverse done correctly, look at Super Metroid.

P.S. Thanks

Yeah....about that....

http://www.destructoid.com/wii-u-owners-don-t-know-how-to-play-super-metroid-253895.phtml

 

[IrisNetwork]

And one of the most valid complaints about the game is that all the awesome swashbuckling pirate fun gets interrupted now and then so you can hover around an office ruminating over all the fun you just had

That's my biggest complaint about that game. I think it would've been better if it were a new IP and not an AC game.
It always feels like being called by my mom to do some house chores before getting back to video games.

 

[VoidWanderer]

What an awful artical from someone. I think that commenters are great, because at times, they will show where people did wrong and misinformed.

Forums are good for that because they tend to be moderated. Comment sections however can be a real mess with people whose opinions differ from the poster of the video and the sheer bile that gets thrown at them for 'doing it wrong' aka 'Not doing how I would've done it' is impressive and daunting at the same time.

Most comments would reference someone's bad spelling as a way to point out 'you are wrong', but in forums the person posting has to think about it a little more.

Forums are fine as they more emulate a discussion, but comments are more like two groups of opposing English soccer fans deliberately look to 'prove their superiority'. But forums can slip into this. I have felt attacked by posting about the 19 year old who got 'screwed' getting and XB1 and while I did point out that this was based on my opinion, I got a huge post from another Escapist telling me I was wrong, not that my opinion is different, but wrong.

So I'm with Yahtzee on this, comments are a terrible idea, but forums are fine.

I would also like to point out that I am not defending Yahtzee or his article, but this too is an opinion based on what I have seen.

 

[Mr. Q]

Guess Yahtzee needed to dump some excess bile onto the masses before the new year. Kinda figured he was saving it for his Best/Worst list of 2013.

Joking aside, I'm not supportive of what he had to say but there is a sliver of truth in the article. Go on any YouTube post like Dragonball Z: Abridged and you're bound to find most of the jokes and one-liners like the roaches coming out after someone turns off the lights. And that is not including the racist, sexist, mean-spirited bullshit being puked up by these fuckwits. I may go off the handle on my posts occasionally but I tend to target people who act like assholes who think their shit doesn't stink. Those are the people that need their jaws, tongues, voice boxes, and hands surgically removed. But those are vocal minorities. There are decent people online but there has to be a set of rules made to keep the worst among us out of the conversation. Just don't lump us all into the same pot as those who make the Internet a lousy place.