Saturday, March 30, 2013

Commenting...5% Intelligent...95% Foolishness

After reading an article over life in North Korea, I browsed the comments. The columnist, Olaf Schuelke, explains that the people of North Korea live joyful lives just like us. Even though they're under a different kind of leadership and even though it may seem immoral to us, they eat at restaurants, go to parks, spend time with their families, and are perfectly happy under the standards they're given...so what's there to judge? Well, let's see...

"It makes me wonder what their crime rate is and whether there are gangs, mafia, triads, etc."
"I have no doubt there are good people in North Korea, but they obviously have bad leaders and bad government all the same."

These are two of the comments I found that actually contributed to the article and spiked intellectual conversation. What I find sad is that it took me about 10 minutes to find these and about 5 other decent comments. These quotes are thought out, and for the most part, grammatically accurate! They show interest and polite opinion, no insults were thrown and their language isn't flooding with swear words. The people who wrote comments like these often went by their first name or their full name. I'd imagine that they're very rational people and like to debate rather than argue.

"Ever wondered why the Kim Jong family is getting uglier across the years. Grand-dad was not too bad looking, son became uglier, grand-son the worst looking. Fearful to imagine how Kim Jong-Un's son will look like ! Must be some sort of degenerative mutation due to radiation from nuclear activities!"
"You're an ign0rant fo0l."
"Any civilization that eats dogs is doomed."

And then there are these people...*sigh*...where to begin? Well, they're rude and have bad grammar, but that's a given. These comments are often found in replies to the intellectual ones, which is a shame because it just throws everyone off topic. The people that make these comments often use fake screen names and have discriminating icons (one had the Iluminati sign, what the heck!?) These comments just FLOOD the article and strains it of it's worth.

Overall, if you hunt down the good comments, you'll gain some food for thought, but if you don't want to hunt for 10 minutes...well, then just skedaddle from the comment box all together. The articles are great, but the people taking the time to comment...not so much...

4 comments:

  1. Probably the most unique entry I've read. The column of your choice faces a topic of definite controversy, but, by your commentary, I imagine the comments you found probably were even more controversial. Nice voice throughout the whole piece(:

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  2. Trolls, they're everywhere! They take away so much value from the internet just for their own pleasure. I found one and what you said is true. Dumb, nonsense username: yes. Weird, questionable picture: yup. Off-topic, offensive comments: definitely.

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  3. Great topic. I found this interesting. Very nice job (:

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  4. i liked the examples to give a clear demonstration of what we all found. Your commentary rings true and "those" people really do take away from the whole point. Nice(:

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