tagged w/ Comments
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Lawrence O'Donnell ignited a controversy on Friday after his contentious interview with GOP presidential contender Herman Cain. Several portions of the lengthy conversation aroused anger, but the one that drew the most fire was the section in which O'Donnell questioned Cain about his participation in the Civil Rights movement. O'Donnell asked Cain if he regretted "sitting on the sidelines" while other black Americans were protesting in the movement -- a notion that Cain heatedly rejected.
After the interview, O'Donnell was castigated from many corners. The Atlantic called his questions "offensive," the Washington Post mocked him, and Rush Limbaugh devoted a lengthy monologue to him, calling him a liberal "plantation master."
Cain himself spoke about the interview on Friday, calling O'Donnell's questions "absurd."
On Friday, O'Donnell did not back down from his aggressive questioning. He hosted MSNBC's Al Sharpton and Melissa Harris-Perry and Goldie Taylor from TheGrio.com to discuss the interview.
Read more and view (if you must) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/08/lawrence-odonnell-defends-herman-cain_n_1001548.html#commentsLawrence O'Donnell ignited a controversy on Friday after his contentious... more
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Imzadi
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4 months ago
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February 24, 2011 |
Every month more evidence piles up, suggesting that online comment threads and forums are being hijacked by people who aren’t what they seem to be. The anonymity of the web gives companies and governments golden opportunities to run astroturf operations: fake grassroots campaigns, which create the impression that large numbers of people are demanding or opposing particular policies. This deception is most likely to occur where the interests of companies or governments come into conflict with the interests of the public. For example, there’s a long history of tobacco companies creating astroturf groups to fight attempts to regulate them.
After I last wrote about online astroturfing, in December, I was contacted by a whistleblower. He was part of a commercial team employed to infest internet forums and comment threads on behalf of corporate clients, promoting their causes and arguing with anyone who opposed them. Like the other members of the team, he posed as a disinterested member of the public. Or, to be more accurate, as a crowd of disinterested members of the public: he used 70 personas, both to avoid detection and to create the impression that there was widespread support for his pro-corporate arguments. I’ll reveal more about what he told me when I’ve finished the investigation I’m working on.
But it now seems that these operations are more widespread, more sophisticated and more automated than most of us had guessed. Emails obtained by political hackers from a US cyber-security firm called HB Gary Federal suggest that a remarkable technological armoury is being deployed to drown out the voices of real people.
As the Daily Kos has reported, the emails show that:
- companies now use “persona management software”, which multiplies the efforts of the astroturfers working for them, creating the impression that there’s major support for what a corporation or government is trying to do.
- this software creates all the online furniture a real person would possess: a name, email accounts, web pages and social media. In other words, it automatically generates what look like authentic profiles, making it hard to tell the difference between a virtual robot and a real commentator.
- fake accounts can be kept updated by automatically re-posting or linking to content generated elsewhere, reinforcing the impression that the account holders are real and active.
- human astroturfers can then be assigned these “pre-aged” accounts to create a back story, suggesting that they’ve been busy linking and re-tweeting for months. No one would suspect that they came onto the scene for the first time a moment ago, for the sole purpose of attacking an article on climate science or arguing against new controls on salt in junk food.
- with some clever use of social media, astroturfers can, in the security firm’s words, “make it appear as if a persona was actually at a conference and introduce himself/herself to key individuals as part of the exercise … There are a variety of social media tricks we can use to add a level of realness to all fictitious personas”
The article continues at the link: http://www.alternet.org/story/150049/corporate-funded_online_%27astroturfing%27_is_more_advanced_and_more_automated_than_you_might_think?akid=6571.101566.m0-hpq&rd=1&t=12February 24, 2011 |
Every month more evidence piles up, suggesting that online... more
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Blogging is a way of expressing oneself
That’s all. Do not take things seriously to heart.
There are always negative comments, sometimes very sensible, some times sheer non sense.
Apart from this, we have Anonymous comments, which I feel are being posted by people with no work to do,who can not put their points across and from people who are senseless.
Critical comments are worth hearing and replying to while anonymous comments may be considered as Spam and dealt with accordingly.
I do not think anonymous comments are killing blogs ,but rather educate Bloggers that they have stupid people around them .
In fact such comments drive me Blog more.
http://ramanan50.wordpress.com/2011/02/10/anonymous-comments-killing-blogs/Blogging is a way of expressing oneself
That’s all. Do not take things... more
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Found this in an old folder, figured needed to be posted here. Should be expanded, too.
What it says:
I don't care what your political, economic, or religious beliefs are... but you can safely disregard anyone who uses the following words and phrases in their rhetoric:
"Wake up!"
"Sheeple"
Any comparison to Hitler or the Nazis
"Cabal"
"The (blank) agenda"
"Simple logic suggests..."
And never, ever, EVER take anyone seriously if they describe themselves as a "social liberal, but economic conservative." That's a red flag that says "I only have a tenuous grasp on understanding how things work."Found this in an old folder, figured needed to be posted here. Should be expanded,... more
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MizPiz
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1 year ago
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Presenter Eamonn Holmes recently slammed the culture of reality TV, by concentrating his comments on The Apprentice, Strictly Come Dancing and The X Factor.
He stated shows like the Apprentice promote greed and he'd rather has his fingernails ripped out than watch Strictly.
"When I started I wanted to be Des Lynam," he said. "The trouble is there are no more Des Lynams. We don't hire presenters trained in journalism, as I was, because we want X Factor reality TV people."-DSPresenter Eamonn Holmes recently slammed the culture of reality TV, by concentrating... more
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Michael Bolton voted off Dancing with the Stars. Michael Bolton is the second member eliminated from the Dancing with the Stars; David Hasslehof was the first senior memberMichael Bolton voted off Dancing with the Stars. Michael Bolton is the second member... more
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mky786
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1 year ago
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A senior Papal adviser has pulled out of the Pope's UK visit after saying arriving at Heathrow airport was like landing in a "Third World" country.
Cardinal Walter Kasper reportedly told a German magazine the UK was marked by "a new and aggressive atheism".
The Vatican said the cardinal had not intended "any kind of slight" and had simply pulled out due to illness.
The UK Cabinet Office said his views were personal and not representative of the Vatican or bishops in the UK.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
They are saying it is ill health, but I wonder if that is the fact. I wonder if he has been dropped because he is an embarrassment”
End Quote Clifford Longley The Tablet
The German-born cardinal was quoted as saying to the country's Focus magazine that "when you land at Heathrow you think at times you have landed in a Third World country".....
"They also said his "Third World" comment referred to the UK's multicultural society."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11317441A senior Papal adviser has pulled out of the Pope's UK visit after saying... more
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A young girl has recently gone viral overnight because of her behavior on the internet. This video tries to show young people what not to do to help keep this from happening to them.A young girl has recently gone viral overnight because of her behavior on the... more
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Social network sites (SNS) like MySpace seem to play a role in friendships and wider relationships for many people. Emotion expression can be important in relationship maintenance but little is known about the role of emotion in SNSs, other than positive comments being widespread in MySpace. Is emotion typically reciprocated, and do Friends express and/or receive similar levels of emotion expression to each other? http://www.makeahistory.com/index.php/recent-news/324-emotion-homophily-in-social-network-site-messagesSocial network sites (SNS) like MySpace seem to play a role in friendships and wider... more
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worrg
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1 year ago
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Saying you are the first person to accomplish something is exciting. On this day in 1492, Christopher Columbus got to the New World, and yelled "First!" Even though like, many the internet commenter, he wasn't actually the first.
There were already loads of people here. And if you need a qualifier, the Vikings were the first Europeans to yell "f1rst" long before Cristóvão Colombo. But he got his own holiday, and some people don't have to go to work today. Good work, sort of.
Unlike Cristóbal Colón, I am interested in actual firsts. I'm not an imperialist conquistador, instead I spend my time thinking of words that no other person in the history of information has ever thought of. Through the use of 'search engines' you are able to discover if you truly are the "FIRST!" to come up with certain ideas.
For example my apartment is haunted (it's not, but bear with me.) I could say that I have a "haunted apartment" and that'd be fine. There are plenty of other people who've had that thought before. Someone even had the foresight to purchase the domain: hauntedapartment.com.
But I want to pwn n00bs and be f1rst, so I searched for the terms "hauntpartment" and "apartmaunted." Nothing comes up.
When you reach the end of the internet, and can't find the word you searched for, this means that you are the first person in the history of information to publish these words. Congratulations.
I've done this a few other times. I coined the terms raunchmaninoff and durangotonik. It feels good to know that I truly am FIRST!
I want to know if you've ever had a similar experience. What ideas were you truly the first to have? Let me know in the comments.Saying you are the first person to accomplish something is exciting. On this day in... more
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Hello Currenteers!
In case you haven't noticed, today's feature release is serving up some major upgrades to our commenting system. Discussions on Current.com are extremely important to us, and we've come up with a few updates to existing functionality as well as some new enhancements that will help pave the way for the months to come.
Let's take a quick tour:
Comment Voting: That's right, comment voting is now officially implemented on Current.com.
Each comment will have an individual score based on the aggregate count of votes, so for example: If a comment has 51 votes up, and 52 votes down, a "-1" will display. So, what are you waiting for? Reward discussion-driving folks by giving them a coveted vote up. Find someone detracting from the discussion at hand? Give 'em a vote down.
Sorting Options: Why not offer some alternative ways to sort comments?
We're changing the default sort on all threads to "Newest" first, this way you'll always see the latest discussions on the main landing page. But, for those of you who prefer to read threads in the order in which they developed, you can always sort by "Oldest" as well. And since we implemented comment voting, it would be a travesty not to offer a sort by "Popular" option. We think this will be an interesting way to find new and insightful commentary on Current.com threads as our discussions develop. Try it out!
Replies and Pagination: We've made a couple important changes to the way replies and pagination work on Current.com.
All reply threads are now "open" as a default, you are no longer restricted to replying only to the original commenter, and we've changed some of the design aspects for replies as well. In our older system, any time you reply to someone on a thread you were automatically replying to the first comment on the thread. Now you can elect a person to reply to, and their name will appear at the beginning of your comment. You'll also notice that replies longer indent on discussion threads -- instead the avatars in reply comments are slightly smaller in size.
These decisions were largely made to help facilitate the ability to sort by popular. For example, a reply to a thread could be more popular than all of the comments on the entire thread. This allows us to display each comment ranked on popularity, while still retaining it's reply status.
Additionally, we've done away with pagination. That's right, each comment now loads by default, which means your scrolling finger will now be ready for a workout.
Like the changes? Have some feedback? Please be sure to share your reactions in the comments below, and if you notice any bugs or have any recommendations visit our Get Satisfaction support page and leave us some feedback.
Thanks!
marioHello Currenteers!
In case you haven't noticed, today's feature release... more
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[UPDATE: Please note that when posting a story you should leave source links in your description text if you intend to include them or pull media from those links for your story. It does not matter where in the description they appear, just note that the link closest to the top of the description text will be your primary source, and you can pull media from up to five other sources. Thanks!]
While news of our new Fall episodes has been at the forefront these days, that doesn't mean that our dev team has been twiddling their thumbs. To the contrary, we're happy to announce that there is a new release hitting Current.com today, and we can't wait to hear what you think of it.
Let's face it, contributing to Current.com has never been the easiest thing to do -- a refresh of this workflow has been long overdue. With this new release, clicking the "Post a Story" button (located in the green navigation bar) will now produce a submission tool overlaid on whichever page you're on.
We've streamlined the process, here's a walkthrough:
Title and Description Please: We now offer only two initial fields to enter, one for Title and one for Description. The new tool will work with you to customize your post, while putting the focus where it counts: clearly titling your post and adding a description.
Link it up: Adding a link to your post is super simple -- merely copy the link into your description field. Once you paste a link, the submission tool will immediately process any and all available media (photos, video embeds, etc.) on the source page and offer them as selections for you to include in your post. Click on the one that makes the most sense, and you're one step closer to posting.
Place your post where it counts most: A story is only as good as its location, and we use groups and tags to help place stories in areas that make the most sense on Current.com. You'll find an easy groups dropdown menu pre-populated with all of the groups you belong to, along with an open field for tags. Tags are important. They help lost stories find groups to live in. If you don't belong to a group that you think the story might make sense in, use relevant tags to help it along its merry way. It's like Mom always said, "Don't forget your lunch tags!"
Tired of the minors? Time to go pro!: Anyone can submit links to Current.com, but it takes a true professional to raise the bar by posting alongside video, images, or webcams. Clicking the "add video/image/webcam" link, you'll open the secret door to file uploading, webcam recording, and embedding video. Are you up for the challenge?
Those of you who mastered our older submission workflow will recognize that all of the essential pieces are still here, just repositioned and streamlined.
Since we're never content leaving well enough alone, we've also taken an initial stab and refining our commenting workflow as well.
You'll notice that at the bottom of each post there is now an open comment box (regardless of login/logout status). This new comment flow acts similarly to the new submission tool. Clicking into the comment field allows you to type up a response, and you can add links and select media by following similar steps.
And as always, if you've connected your Current.com account to Facebook, you can publish your awesome stories and comments to your Facebook feed to share with your friends.
So what do you think? Does this make things easier? Is it simple enough? Shoot us some feedback on our Get Satisfaction page, and help us out with future product releases.[UPDATE: Please note that when posting a story you should leave source links in your... more
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After taking a look at Sergio Cilli's top 16, and The Rotten Tomatoes Show co-host Ellen Fox's top 14, it seems only fitting to pull a list of favorite stories from the one man who's worked with both Sergio AND Ellen -- Brett Erlich.
Make no mistake, Brett loves himself some Internet -- how else could he slog through videos for Viral Video Film School on infoMania? His list feels like a best hits of web culture, so take a quick peek, and be sure to tune into our weekly double feature of Brett every Thursday (hint: infoMania and The Rotten Tomatoes Show, back to back starting at 10pm E/P)
Brett's top favorite stories countdown is airing on Current TV RIGHT NOW, so if you're home you have no excuse...tune in. If you can't make it, Mr. Erlich's list will re-air on Wednesday 9/23 at 1pm E / 4pm P.
The Science of G Force
Well? What are you waiting for? Here's his list, study up!
The Science of G Force
Yoga for Singles
YouTube's Worst Parents -- Viral Video Film School on infoMania
Muslim Boarders
Gridless & Loving It
Action Jackson Bowls
R.I.P. T-Shirts
Light Graffiti
The Internet's Best Animal Sex -- Viral Video Film School on infoMania
LOLCat Art Fever!
Haters Anonymous
Internet Famous Class
Tron Guy
Cameron Hughes is The Superfan
After taking a look at Sergio Cilli's top 16, and The Rotten Tomatoes Show... more
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In part two of our series entitled, "Why did you build that feature?" I'm tackling our URL shortener and the Current Bar. We posted a quick run-through for these features last week, but considering the questions surrounding them it felt right to take a closer look.
"Why make a shortener that is 26 characters when others are much shorter?"
Great question. Our URL shortener is truly designed with one intent in mind: providing a better experience when viewing and sharing Current.com content. While it's not the shortest shortener around, at 26 characters this is a massive improvement -- shaving off 11 characters from the shortest Current.com URL previously available. But shortening is really just half of the feature here. Our shortened URLs combine with our new Current Bar to make browsing, sharing, and discussing content on Current much more enjoyable.
Take this story on Current.com for example, "Last of Africa's desert elephants ravaged by severe drought."
Comparison of Current.com shortener and Current Bar use on source stories from Current.com
Originally, when you would click on source URLs, a new window would pop open to load the source article. This still happens, however there are two distinct changes to this flow now -- when you click on the source URL (found below the title of the story) or the image of a story on Current.com it will open the original story in a new window/tab along with the Current Bar at the top of the page, and a shortened URL in your browser bar (see below).
That's right, the original source URL is automatically shortened for you when you click through from Current.com -- just in case you decide to share the story with someone else via Facebook or Twitter.
So, why the Current Bar at the top of the page? The Current Bar offers voting buttons, the title and full source link, and buttons to respond to the discussion back on Current.com and to share the story with others via your various social networks.
Note: We've received a lot of feedback from our community around the use of voting on Current.com, specifically around the fact that many people in our community tend to vote on items without reading the original source story, OR that they click through to read the full source and forget to vote on the story.
The Current Bar attempts to solve for this problem. Gone are the days of clicking through to read the source only to forget to vote or respond back on Current. Have faith, the Bar is there to help remind you. Plus, it gives you an easy way to jump back into the discussion on Current.com after reading the story for yourself.
As Steph pointed out last week, the shortener can also be used to shorten any URL for any story you happen to find around the web. So for example, if you are reading a great article about how the creators of Delgo are hinting at a lawsuit after watching the trailer for Avatar, you have a few options:
Take the original link:
http://www.movieline.com/2009/08/delgo-creators-hint-at-lawsuit-over-avatar-connection.php
Type in current.com/ between the // (doubleslash) and the www in the original URL, and you get this:
http://current.com/www.movieline.com/2009/08/delgo-creators-hint-at-lawsuit-over-avatar-connection.php
When you browse to this new link you will see our shortener in action, and you'll end up creating this URL:
http://current.com/1eg6m4c
At this point, the story still hasn't been submitted to Current.com, so the Current Bar looks a little different:
You can submit it easily by clicking the "Add to Current" button. If you don't want to add it yourself, you can still use the shortened Current.com URL to share the story with people on other social networks. Who knows, maybe one of your followers or friends will submit it to Current for you.
So what are you waiting for? Try it out for yourself, create and share some shortened Current URLs, and most importantly shoot us some feedback and let us know what you think!In part two of our series entitled, "Why did you build that feature?"... more
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Hey Currenteers,
Welcome to April! We have some new features to cover, but first I'd like to welcome you to our new digs...say hello to the brand new Current.com Blog! Each one of our new channels and our TV shows will be setting up blogs in the coming weeks. So far Current Music, Current Movies, and Current Comedy are all up and running, but keep an eye on our main Current blogs page for new additions.
Let's dive right in, shall we?
// Email verification //
In our never ending quest to thwart spam on Current, we've turned on email verification for newly registered members of the community. Until validated, these new members are not able to contribute items, comment, or vote. Requiring that new community members validate their email address is pretty standard for social sites, and we feel that although it isn't the sole answer to battling spam, it is certainly a step in the right direction.
Those of you who are already members of the Current community will not be required to validate your email to participate, but I still highly encourage it. We occasionally like to send out swag and inform our community about special ways to contribute to Current, and we can't do that without a valid email. So, take a minute to update your account preferences and request verification for your email address. Thanks!
// Channel Curators //
In one of our recent Town Hall chats I mentioned that the team is working on building group creation functionality into Current.com -- which we are calling channels. We're still a long way away from launching this new feature, but we are making some headway. In the next few weeks we'll be opening up a set of tools related to our channels project to a handful alpha testers, and we'd like to invite some of you to join in on the test. If you're interested in testing out our new tools head over to our alpha test page on Get Satisfaction page and put your username on the list. If you don't make it into the alpha this time around, don't fret. We will open this up to a wider group of testers in the near future, and we already have a target date for a full release. Stay tuned!
// Improvements to Search //
Our search functionality on Current.com has been improved in the last few releases. This time around, we've added a new "highlights section" at the top of the search results page. The "highlights section" is used to surface some of our TV show content for certain search queries. For example, someone searching for comedy will now find the latest clips from infoMania in the highlights section. Try it out and let us know what you think.
// Questions about Channel Staleness //
We've been receiving frequent questions about the staleness of content on the channels, and we totally agree. When we made the switch to our channel structure, we knew it was only a layout change for the time being, and we still have some heavy lifting to do with regards to channel specific algorithms, scoring, freshness, and decay. The good news is, we have a brand new addition to our team, and figuring this out just happens to be on his project to-do list! So, ladies and gentlemen of the Current.com community, I'd like you to meet Gary:
[current 89941974]
Thanks Gary! We're all looking forward to some of the coming improvements, but in the meantime if you have suggestions or wish to shoot us feedback, feel free to start a thread on our Get Satisfaction support page, or as always you can shoot us your thoughts at feedback@current.com.
// Increased File Size for Video Comments //
If you've ever tried uploading a video file as a comment, you've probably bumped your head on our 200mb file size limitation. NO MORE! We've upped the total file size for video uploads in our comments to a full 1GB. So what are you waiting for, fire up that camera and record some video comments. My suggestion? Upload video reviews for this week's movie releases for a chance to get on The Rotten Tomatoes Show. Check out Current Movies this Friday for the updated list of eligible films to review via video for the next episode of The Rotten Tomatoes Show!
(Note: this update to file size does not pertain to webcam comments.)
Well, that's it for this release. As always, let us know what you think!
MarioHey Currenteers,
Welcome to April! We have some new features to cover, but first... more
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Hello Currenteers!
In case you haven't noticed, today's feature release is serving up some major upgrades to our commenting system. Discussions on Current.com are extremely important to us, and we've come up with a few updates to existing functionality as well as some new enhancements that will help pave the way for the months to come.
Let's take a quick tour:
Comment Voting: That's right, comment voting is now officially implemented on Current.com.
Each comment will have an individual score based on the aggregate count of votes, so for example: If a comment has 51 votes up, and 52 votes down, a "-1" will display. So, what are you waiting for? Reward some discussion-driving folks by giving them a coveted vote up. Find someone detracting from the discussion at hand? Give 'em a vote down.
Sorting Options: Why not offer some alternative ways to sort comments?
We're changing the default sort on all threads to "Newest" first, this way you'll always see the latest discussions on the main landing page. But, for those of you who prefer to read threads in the order in which they developed, you can always sort by "Oldest" as well. And since we implemented comment voting, it would be a travesty not to offer a sort by "Popular" option. We think this will be an interesting way to find new and insightful commentary on Current.com threads as our discussions develop. Try it out!
[UPDATE] There has been some concerns about the switch from "Oldest" to "Newest" sorting, and I thought it would be best to clarify. For this iteration we are setting our sort to "Newest" for all threads, but we are investigating ways to store your preferred sort in a cookie. This means if you prefer one sort over the others, you will be able to make these stick across the site.
Replies and Pagination: We've made a couple important changes to the way that replies and pagination works on Current.com.
All reply threads are now "open" as a default, you are no longer restricted to replying only to the original commenter, and we've changed some of the design aspects for replies as well. In our older system, any time you reply to someone on a thread you were automatically replying to the first comment on the thread. Now you can elect a person to reply to, and their name will appear at the beginning of your comment. You'll also notice that replies longer indent on discussion threads -- instead, the avatars in reply comments are slightly smaller in size.
These decisions were largely made to help facilitate the ability to sort by popular. For example, a reply to a thread could be more popular than all of the comments on the entire thread. This allows us to display each comment ranked on popularity, while still retaining it's reply status.
Additionally, we've done away with pagination. That's right, each comment now loads by default, which means your scrolling finger will now be ready for a workout.
[UPDATE] How do I edit and reply to comments? Our admin controls for commenting are now hidden when reading through threads. When you mouse over a comment, you should see the vote buttons light up, as well as a "reply" button below the posted comment. If you happen to be the comment author, you should see both "edit" and "delete" functionality in this mouse over state.
[UPDATE] There seems to be some confusion around our decision to default to open threads without pagination, so let me clear a few things up. First, going this route actually fixes one of the bigger issues we've had since introducing threaded commenting -- broken email links. Now when you receive a comment notification email, the link you receive will actually direct you to the comment in line. Giving you the preference to hide replies on threads is something we are investigating, but there are some hurdles involved in accomplishing this without re-breaking our email notifications.
[UPDATE] Questions about the comments that have been removed from commenting threads have been popping up. We're now displaying wherever a comment is removed, and this includes comments removed as violations of community guidelines as well as comments removed by the original poster. Why? Well, whenever a comment needs to be removed, the replies to that comment often have to be pulled as well. By showing that a comment was removed, the replies can stay live as long as they meet our community guidelines. Eventually we would like to add additional clarification between removals for abuse purposes, and removals by the original comment author.
Like the changes? Have some feedback? Please be sure to share your reactions in the comments below, and if you notice any bugs or have any recommendations visit our Get Satisfaction support page and leave us some feedback.
Thanks!
mario
Hello Currenteers!
In case you haven't noticed, today's... more
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phxboy
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2 years ago
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One year after his election, Barack Obama's approval rating is lower at this stage than for any US president since Eisenhower. So why has the optimism surrounding his victory disappeared so suddenly?One year after his election, Barack Obama's approval rating is lower at this... more
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