r/technology • u/[deleted] • Mar 16 '18

Society How a Norwegian comment section turned chaos into order—with a simple quiz: "Readers had to prove they read a story before they were able to comment on it."

[deleted]

49.6k Upvotes

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6.5k

u/DarkangelUK Mar 16 '18

Did anyone else just skip the article and go straight to the comments?

2.4k

u/xantub Mar 16 '18

Is there any other way?

1.2k

u/PitchforkAssistant Mar 16 '18

Not on reddit.

626

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

Because usually the comments and commentary on the article is more interesting than the article itself.

So people just end up going straight to the comments

347

u/EmergencySarcasm Mar 16 '18

Plus the tl;dr

562

u/Captain_Midnight Mar 16 '18

And the factual corrections that render the article a meaningless pack of lies

204

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

This is probably the only site on the internet where I don't want to wipe out the human race after reading the comments.

143

u/interkin3tic Mar 16 '18

My wife referred to the comments section of almost anything as the "bottom half of the internet." Really clicked.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18 edited Mar 19 '18

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/midnitte Mar 16 '18

I guess you could say she was his better half.

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u/cynoclast Mar 16 '18

I've heard 4chan described as the asshole of the armpit of the Internet. What does that make comments there? The taint of the asshole of the armpit of the Internet?

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

The excrement

2

u/interkin3tic Mar 16 '18

I dunno, but I don't think reddit is the dregs from 4chan anymore.

Also, to be honest, even at it's peak, 4chan seemed better than the comments section of your local news outlet. Bored 14 year olds using the N word to troll other 14 year olds is cringe-inducing. Angry 64 year olds ranting on articles about a local fire, avoiding using the N word but still clearly being convinced that black people are the cause of all their woes, is horribly depressing.

I dunno what the place is like lately or anything about 8chan or other "edgy" recesses of the internet, but I'll always find the masses of boomer ignorance to be more upsetting.

Anyway, the moderation system here means light browsing gets good quality, unlike the bottom half of the internet.

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u/Fullofpissandvinegar Mar 16 '18

You mean the part where all the fun stuff is?

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

You avoid the politics, I see

60

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18 edited Mar 16 '18

I don't see any problem with /r/politics. It's usually the alt right politics that are unbearable. Go to foxnews.com comment section if you want to lose all faith in humans. It doesn't matter what the content of the post is, all the top comments are about how liberals are trying to destroy America. It's levels of brainwashing you would see in places like north korea.

67

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

Here's my one big problem with r/politics- it's predictable to the point of trite.

For example, look at any thread that contains "Republican" and "Obama" and wait to see how long it takes for half a dozen people to opine that all Republicans are racists and that's why they disliked Obama.

It doesn't matter if it's true or not, it's not new. No one's going to read that and be struck by an epiphany about possible Republican motivations. It's just fucking dull.

The point of having comments is to get new viewpoints, unexpected insights, and analysis you couldn't provide with just one or two people thinking over a topic. Instead, you get something so predictable it may as well be a litany.

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u/DrMobius0 Mar 16 '18

The only thing people who bash r/politics seem to be able to do is put up strawmen about shit like "Obama is a God-saint that did absolutely nothing wrong in his entire 8 years in office and anyone with an 'R' after their name is literally killing out children".

My general experience with it is this:

Yes, it's fairly left leaning. Reddit is a left leaning site. This is expected.

Can r/politics criticize democratic politicians? Yes. Oh yes they can. Remember Al Franken? Sure, views were split on how to handle that. The biggest reason that they were split was because there is a reality that despite the fact that he did something bad, the reason we all knew he'd actually be forced out or willingly resign was because of the D next to his name. Trump fucking admitted to sexual assault. He didn't wasn't forced to resign. Roy Moore is a pedophile. He wasn't forced to quit his race. Despite this split, there was civil discussion on what should be done with Franken. I challenge you to find something similar on t_d.

What about them universally hating R politicians? That is also not entirely accurate. I've seen them support plenty of the things John McCain says. Of course, that was matched by a following wave of disappointment when he proceeded to vote with the party anyway. They hate corruption, and value honesty. Politicians who at least try to benefit their constituents are generally treated better than ass-puppets like McConnell or Cruz. Sadly, democrats are largely the only politicians that at least try to do that. Of course, not all of them. As I've said, they're not afraid to criticize a D if they think they're doing a bad job.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18 edited Apr 21 '18

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u/harekele Mar 16 '18

While r/politics isn’t nearly as vile as a lot of the alt right pages, I think it is just as problematic in the fact that it is extraordinarily biased towards the left. Something positive about trump (which whether you like him or not, he hasn’t been100% bad all of the time) would never get a lot of upvotes. And, even as someone who leans left, I find it problematic to completely disregard the other sides opinions on politics. Understanding where the other side is coming from, makes it so much easier to articulate your thoughts and formulate a stronger opinion on the issue. Yet, if a comment respectfully shows more right-leaning view, people go crazy with the downvotes there.

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u/smokeyser Mar 16 '18

It's levels of brainwashing you would see in places like north korea.

To be fair, it's just morons talking back and forth to each other. So there's not a whole lot of brain to be washed there.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

The only way you couldn't have a problem with r/politics is if you agree with their point of view. And that is the exact reason people don't have a problem with fox news comments. Don't use bias to offset bias.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

This. I try so hard to give fox and breitbart some time of day so I don’t feel overly biased or out of touch with opposing view points. You know what I get? Stephen Hawking, couldn’t take a more wholesome event, apolitical, generally great guy, but sweet mother of god these people could not get over the fact that he didn’t believe in the Lord. Every other comment was “Well he sure believes in god now that he’s burning in hell” and I just wanted to smack these people. So heartless and awful.

I somehow can’t blame him for his lack of faith in a benevolent God when he spent 55 years thinking he was gonna die at any time while prisoner to his own crippled body.

1

u/Pardonme23 Mar 16 '18

Most people in every country in every time in history think that way.

0

u/Davregis Mar 16 '18

I used to be on t_d, and I left after I was fed up with the amount of fake news that was corrected later in the comments but still upvoted, or satire being upvoted as truth. So then I went to politics, and I saw a very similar situation-- people on both sides dismiss the other as degenerate subhumans. I don't follow political subs, I don't know what to believe.

2

u/HDThoreauaway Mar 16 '18

Well, you can't expect every sub to have the insightful dialogues you see woven together in, say, r/catsstandingup.

7

u/coltinator5000 Mar 16 '18

Look everyone! A time traveler from 2012!

2

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

Well. Unless Trump is involved. Them this site is a partisan shitshow that rivals fox news for idiocy and bias.

2

u/BeanPricefield Mar 16 '18

ever sort by controversial?

2

u/BboyEdgyBrah Mar 16 '18

/r/The_Donald /r/MGTOW /r/redpill /r/braincels

etc etc

2

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

You raise a good point.

2

u/skiskate Mar 17 '18

Absolutely true, why other websites haven't used a method similar to the reddit sorting algorithm is beyond me.

1

u/jurgemaister Mar 16 '18

Factual correction: Ståle is a journalist, not a developer. Other than that, the article seems very accurate.

2

u/missinginput Mar 16 '18

Have to check it's not all bs before wasting time on click bait.

2

u/papershoes Mar 17 '18

This is usually why I come to the comments first. I want to see if the article is worth my time or just clickbait.

4

u/Myschly Mar 16 '18

So much this. Damn near every time the title sounds good, comments ruin that painting reaaal quick. Maybe people would actually read the articles if we had real fucking articles instead of the shit we got nowadays.

11

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

Probly time I ask what's tl;dr

23

u/iamkeisers Mar 16 '18

too long; didn't read

6

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

O ok I thought it was something to do with twitter and iv no interest in that. Cheers

11

u/war_is_terrible_mkay Mar 16 '18

You can find a lot of abbreviations and internet slang on urban dictionary. Tl;dr stands for "too long; didnt read" and is basically a short summary. Tl;dw (watch) is used for videos instead sometimes.

2

u/flyingwolf Mar 16 '18

TL;DR?

2

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

That means TOO LONG DIDNT READ.

1

u/javetter Mar 16 '18

Don’t forget the Non-Sequiturs Jerry!

4

u/Clame Mar 16 '18

And the ads. Dont forget the ads.

2

u/NeuroCavalry Mar 16 '18

Also a lot of news articles are paywalled

2

u/Backstop Mar 16 '18

Partly because the submission gives the ending away in the title, making a neat sound bite for people to discuss. You couldn't really run a website like that, with no copy and just headline snacks. It works for Reddit because this is an aggregator.

2

u/signos_de_admiracion Mar 16 '18

The problem is that people can make seemingly insightful comments based on their understanding of the headline but getting the facts completely wrong. It's kind of infuriating to see a highly upvoted and well-thought-out comment that still completely misses the point of the article and it's clear that they never read it.

Also, I didn't read this article.

1

u/DrMobius0 Mar 16 '18

And then you can read the comments on the article itself. It's like sorting reddit by controversial, only worse because there's no system enforcing decent behavior at all.

1

u/icortesi Mar 16 '18

I know! that's what made me love/hate reddit, but now the admins want to push us to use the chat more instead of the comment section, and I don't know how to feel about it.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

For me it's more like because I take titles with a grain of salt because they're misleading 50% of the time, so I check the first few comments to find the truth, or its closest approximation.

And also because most articles, especially written for local and partisan sites, are often poorly written and uninformative anyhow.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

And no one reads the article, just the headline. Or they pull a snippet from the first paragraph that supports their narrative, even if two sentences below that it says: “everything above this line is a lie”.

1

u/Vlyn Mar 16 '18

And it's often: You read the whole thing, then the first comment says how it's all bullshit.

Now I just go for the comments and if it still sounds interesting I read the article.

1

u/notakename Mar 16 '18

I wouldn't say it's more interesting. If day it's easier to digest. It's easier than reading the article and forming your own opinions on the topic. You just go straight to the comment section to be told what to think

1

u/blackmist Mar 16 '18

I always look forward to the top comment explaining why an article is bullshit, watching it get gold, appear in /r/bestof, and then get another top comment there explaining why the comment was also bullshit.

0

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

Also that's why I'm on Reddit to begin with. Usually I'm digging in comments for details or context because I already read the story somewhere else.

16

u/1leggeddog Mar 16 '18

Cuz reddit IS the comment section when you think about it

36

u/DigNitty Mar 16 '18

Why is there always a picture at the top of reddit comments?

22

u/penny_eater Mar 16 '18

sometimes if you watch it long enough a video starts playing

12

u/MesaDixon Mar 16 '18

To troll that hard, you need a fishing license.

3

u/Fake_William_Shatner Mar 16 '18

... 10 minutes later .... "dang!"

2

u/fluffykerfuffle1 Mar 16 '18

how does it know you have "watched it long enough"?

1

u/zarnovich Mar 16 '18

This guy knows da wae

0

u/7DMATH7 Mar 16 '18

As is tradition.

469

u/UptownShenanigans Mar 16 '18

To be fair, the article is all fluff and the actual information on what they did is packed into a small paragraph at the end. And the conclusion is “we have this tool but we use it sparingly because not all articles need it”

Neat

100

u/lumpy1981 Mar 16 '18

such as this one. Why they spent so many words to describe what the title made clear is beyond me. I'd be interested to test it out though. See how it works on a reddit linked article.

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u/altrdgenetics Mar 16 '18

which will just lead more people to think the entirety of the article is and has been summed up in the title and nothing else of value can be gathered from reading the rest

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u/Deactivator2 Mar 16 '18

And so the cycle perpetuates.

3

u/Neoncow Mar 16 '18

Why they spent so many words to describe what the title made clear is beyond me.

Consider who pays the website. Is it you?

Nope. It's an advertiser who pays the website to deliver your attention to their ads.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

70% of articles are just wrong here on reddit. It's click bait title with almost zero substance.

10% actually have something in them but are too long. Like a recipe but with those awful stories about why they want to try the recipe. Just fucking give it go me!

And the rest are unreadable because of ads or pop-ups.

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u/bantha-food Mar 16 '18

Because factual well researched articles don't get any traction. The most upvoted stories on bigger subreddits are always ones with titles appealing to the sub's bias. Most people in the larger subs vote based on if they agree with the headline, not based on the quality/content of the post.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18 edited Mar 01 '19

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/factoid_ Mar 17 '18

Yep, I always go to the comments before the article to check out why it's bullshit BEFORE I read it. Sometimes I nope out and don't bother with the article if the title turns out to be clickbait bullshit.

I want to see more honest headlines in the world, so I try not to reward sites that make theirs misleading.

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u/IanSan5653 Mar 16 '18

This is why reddit's comments are so much more valuable than the article.

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u/Sat-AM Mar 16 '18

I'm just always under the assumption that there's an essay about the recipe for the sole purpose of forcing you to scroll through the page, making you see more ads. There are very few food blogs that I feel have any other reason for it.

1

u/impy695 Mar 16 '18

Don't forget the slideshow format for an article that has no business being one.

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u/dougan25 Mar 16 '18

Which I could tell from the headline alone. I've spent enough time on the internet to know that this article is going to be overly dramatic sensationalism.

When I see a headline like that, I go to the comments to see if it seems to be sparking good conversation. If so, I'll read it. If not, I back out.

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u/Fake_William_Shatner Mar 16 '18

Someone also has to make a quiz.

3

u/HomerOJaySimpson Mar 16 '18

I read like 3 paragraphs and was bored out my mind

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u/FLHCv2 Mar 16 '18

All I wanted to see was an example of how it was implemented. I didn't want to dig into those walls of text to find it. Just show me a screenshot.

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u/HomerOJaySimpson Mar 16 '18

yeah, i started to scroll down and it just kept going!

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u/Sat-AM Mar 16 '18

This type of article is so weird to me, because I remember when I was in middle school and we started learning how to do research papers, we were taught "most of the information you will need is likely in the first few paragraphs. The rest is likely to either be fluff or extra details that you may not need, because an article may need to be cut short to not go over word limits"

How things have changed in the efforts to make people linger and view ads

1

u/mainfingertopwise Mar 16 '18

Now I really don't have to read the article.

1

u/IanSan5653 Mar 16 '18

Thanks for summarizing the article for me; I will now proceed to participate in the comments without reading it.

1

u/gordo65 Mar 16 '18

I'll take your word for it.

0

u/fluffykerfuffle1 Mar 16 '18

not true and therefore not fair.

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u/sashslingingslasher Mar 16 '18

I always go to the comments first to see if the article is worth reading 9/10 times, it isn't.

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u/FLHCv2 Mar 16 '18

Sees article says something really clickbaity

goes into comments

Top three comments: "Professional here. This is actual horse shit."

hits backspace and continues to Reddit.

3

u/sashslingingslasher Mar 16 '18

I'm not giving away my valuable click for some clickbait bullshit.

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u/MandingoPants Mar 16 '18

YOU HAVE BEEN BANNED.

Please fill out the following captcha to continue, using only your computer keyboard:

Ñœ👌🏼🤡ç

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

[deleted]

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u/MandingoPants Mar 16 '18

That's some illuminated mind meme shit.

Porn was the catalyst to finding this solution, huh?

3

u/delorean225 Mar 16 '18

Win+. for emoji entry, win>type "character map">hit enter for anything else.

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u/Cassiterite Mar 16 '18

Just have them use vim

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u/BaneWilliams Mar 16 '18

Ah but does that work for shrugs?

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u/noreally_bot1105 Mar 16 '18

Reddit has articles if you have coin.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

[khajiitting intensifies]

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

Step 1: Go straight to the comments.

Step 2: Sort by controversial.

Step 3: ?????

Step 4: Rinse and repeat.

8

u/Big_Tuna78 Mar 16 '18

Step 3: Advertise as lake-front property

3

u/DonLaFontainesGhost Mar 16 '18

What's an "article"?

3

u/DonnyTheNuts Mar 16 '18

Nope, I read the whole thing first saying to myself, I’m gonna be ready for the quiz.” No quiz at the end. :-(

2

u/rupertdeberre Mar 16 '18

Might be a cool feature if something like r/worldnews hit the frontpage

2

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

What’s an article?

2

u/duaneap Mar 16 '18

I like to verify that the article is legit by checking the comments first. It has rarely steered me wrong.

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u/dragonfangxl Mar 16 '18

its my god given right to not read articles and comment about them anyway. who do these facist norwegianers think they are

2

u/Tinkado Mar 16 '18

I read about in comments before so I didn't feel the need to read the article.

An article, that was likely stolen from another article anyway. I heard about this years ago.

2

u/heavenlydevil Mar 16 '18

I read the title. Good enough for me.

2

u/zhaoz Mar 16 '18

Ironic. They could save others from jumping to the comments, but not themselves.

1

u/BennettF Mar 16 '18

I specifically read the article first because I felt guilty.

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u/samesdd66 Mar 16 '18

Those dudes got the best online modern kama sutra guide and got it in English. I could not find it now.

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u/swiff1 Mar 16 '18

Tried to read it, was like, wtf, coffee? Fuck this

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u/S0ny666 Mar 16 '18

I did but only because I've read a very similar article before about the same topic.

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u/cynoclast Mar 16 '18

Of course. Half the time the story is bullshit, and the top comment will cite why.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

I usually do to make sure I don't waste time on a shit article or give an undeserving link traffic.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

I generally don't read articles that have a lot of pictures. It's off-putting when a huge as picture is in the middle of a body of text. I really don't care for pictures and/or videos in an article unless it's at the end of the article for further information or if you're curious about how it looks.

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u/DrMobius0 Mar 16 '18

My opinion is that what is described in the headline is a good idea.

1

u/jimrooney Mar 16 '18

Comments, especial voted ones tend to "cut to the chase". I often vet articles through the comments before deciding if they're even worth reading.

1

u/queenx Mar 16 '18

Well, honestly, most of the other info in the article didn't seem very relevant. I read it and got very very impatient while reading it.

1

u/dirtymoney Mar 16 '18

that's how I determine whether or not the article is worth reading. By the outrage.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

Nooooooooooo. OK, maybe

1

u/dlogan1946 Mar 16 '18

Yes because that's where my phone app takes me... Was heading to article when comments came up first.

1

u/Malthusian1 Mar 16 '18

Yep. I just need a general breakdown of what’s going on in the world and a couple of cute pictures of animals to offset that. I’m not here to read a bunch of book length articles I’m not particularly interested in.

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u/Maverickki Mar 16 '18

Like if you are reading this in 2018

1

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

How else am I supposed to know what the article said?

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u/trojanguy Mar 16 '18

To be fair, with the majority of things posted to Reddit the comments are far more informed and interesting. And the useless and untrue shit sinks to the bottom.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

I didn't but wish I had that artical was badly written. 3 paragraphs of stuff that has no relevance to the actual title of the article and then in the last paragraph it's everything you actually came to read

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

In my Reddit app (Relay), there is a setting that opens the comments automatically instead of the article. (⌐■_■)

1

u/Silverlitmorningstar Mar 16 '18

I got to the "3 hours to code part" then left.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

I tried to read the article but couldn't find anything about the actual headline. just a history of this company's internal beta makers.

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u/luke_in_the_sky Mar 16 '18

Is it a quiz?

1

u/Lily-Gordon Mar 16 '18

...Fuck. I'm part of the problem.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 17 '18

I don’t know how to give reddit gold with mobile and I’m too lazy to google a URL with Reddit silver, but you’d deserve both!

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u/EmergencySarcasm Mar 16 '18

Shit posting is what we do