Political websites are closing their forums and charging to comment.

[dagbay]

Not many open or free forums are left with pjmedia one of the last to lock up the comments section for pay. All have been monetizing their websites as are many of the cable channels. It is an interesting trend which essentially creates a closed echo chamber and can run quickly astray. In a small group of commenters single -mindedness can develop rapidly which in my view renders those forums useless to glean the mood of people and their obsessions.

[SteveFoerster]

Not many open or free forums are left with pjmedia one of the last to lock up the comments section for pay. All have been monetizing their websites as are many of the cable channels. It is an interesting trend which essentially creates a closed echo chamber and can run quickly astray. In a small group of commenters single -mindedness can develop rapidly which in my view renders those forums useless to glean the mood of people and their obsessions.

I enjoy reading Reason magazine, and find its coverage to be fairly sensible. But the comments sections on the online version of its articles, holy cow, they're just endlessly simple-minded and carcinogenic. I'm not surprised by any outlet moving away from reader comments, since active moderation is too costly and not active moderating leads to endless dumpster fires.

[Doc]

Not many open or free forums are left with pjmedia one of the last to lock up the comments section for pay. All have been monetizing their websites as are many of the cable channels. It is an interesting trend which essentially creates a closed echo chamber and can run quickly astray. In a small group of commenters single -mindedness can develop rapidly which in my view renders those forums useless to glean the mood of people and their obsessions.

I enjoy reading Reason magazine, and find its coverage to be fairly sensible. But the comments sections on the online version of its articles, holy cow, they're just endlessly simple-minded and carcinogenic. I'm not surprised by any outlet moving away from reader comments, since active moderation is too costly and not active moderating leads to endless dumpster fires.

Originally pretty much all news outlets had comments sections. Then Facebook Stepped in and you had to have a facebook account to comment. News outlet endless dumpster fire or not Comments sections tend to keep online publications honest in their reporting. Otherwise they are doing nothing than shouting from their citadels making their pronouncements from on high. Which makes things more like print publications where if you wanted to make feedback you had to send a letter to the editor who would censor your feed back if they even bothered to print it.

[Sertorio]

Not many open or free forums are left with pjmedia one of the last to lock up the comments section for pay. All have been monetizing their websites as are many of the cable channels. It is an interesting trend which essentially creates a closed echo chamber and can run quickly astray. In a small group of commenters single -mindedness can develop rapidly which in my view renders those forums useless to glean the mood of people and their obsessions.

Open forums became useless when editors realized that most people were not being fooled and kept refusing the media's messages. Forums were meant to reinforce the oligarchy's message and that was not happening, so they were closed. Which gives me some hope that in spite of the colossal propaganda campaign many people were still resisting. It may not seem so because they were silenced, but they are there and, sooner or later, they will show who the boss is. It may be done by the ballot box, or with pitches and forks, but it will be done.

[Milo]

Only old people like us use fora.

[lzzrdgrrl]

Not many open or free forums are left with pjmedia one of the last to lock up the comments section for pay. All have been monetizing their websites as are many of the cable channels. It is an interesting trend which essentially creates a closed echo chamber and can run quickly astray. In a small group of commenters single -mindedness can develop rapidly which in my view renders those forums useless to glean the mood of people and their obsessions.

I noticed this and I agree with you. I was active on the pjmedia disqus talkboard and I had a VIP membership for awhile. But I can't afford to subscribe to every interesting webzine and I wouldn't pay for the privilege of leaving a dried turd in somebody's hugbox.....'>.....

[Doc]

Not many open or free forums are left with pjmedia one of the last to lock up the comments section for pay. All have been monetizing their websites as are many of the cable channels. It is an interesting trend which essentially creates a closed echo chamber and can run quickly astray. In a small group of commenters single -mindedness can develop rapidly which in my view renders those forums useless to glean the mood of people and their obsessions.

I noticed this and I agree with you. I was active on the pjmedia disqus talkboard and I had a VIP membership for awhile. But I can't afford to subscribe to every interesting webzine and I wouldn't pay for the privilege of leaving a dried turd in somebody's hugbox.....'>.....

Nearly 25 years ago I was posting in a technical internet forum that was pretty lively. It had a section for politics where you had to watch out for the flying feces being flung around. The owner of the the forum got tired of it and gave those who wanted to talk about politics a month to set a new forum up. As he was using the other parts of the forum to promote his business he saw it as a big negative to his business. I understood his point. IT was like a big drunken party going on in his back yard at 3 in the morning and he did not even drink.

I was watching a Tim pool video the other day where he brought up the internet is dead theory. Which basically says there are more bots posting online than real people. And that may well be true. Which would explain the lack of substantive debate of issues on most of the internet.

But then Pool took it a step further and said that the bots were algorithms but real people that don't have an original thought in their heads. Just regurgitating talking points that are shared by friends. He said he thought this started about 2016. But in truth, as we have discussed here previously, is that it started in 1999 when AOL opened the gate of the internet to its users. Overnight the internet went mostly from friendly thoughtful intelligent people to a to a place(Here and a few other places not included) where the most important issues are sports, top forty music, and hollowood.

Small minds talk about people
Mediocre minds talk about events
Great minds talk about ideas.

Everyone else talks about cat pics. ;p

Anyway nearly everything that was really great about the internet back then does not exist now. Now it is lots of bots.

[SteveFoerster]

Related: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

[lzzrdgrrl]

Anyway nearly everything that was really great about the internet back then does not exist now. Now it is lots of bots.

The advancement of AI is stymied and this is what throws it for a loop: Poe's Law.......

It's not that the bots have gotten better, it's that the meat-space content creators have gotten worse. Rudimentary hive-mind thinking and copy-pasta and there you are.....'>.....

[Doc]

Anyway nearly everything that was really great about the internet back then does not exist now. Now it is lots of bots.

The advancement of AI is stymied and this is what throws it for a loop: Poe's Law.......

It's not that the bots have gotten better, it's that the meat-space content creators have gotten worse. Rudimentary hive-mind thinking and copy-pasta and there you are.....'>.....

"expert systems" Nothing says "our big corporation does not care about our customers then a talking bot that can't answer your questions or resolve your issue that you have to "convince to let you talk to a real human being that in turns read from a script and can't answer your questions nor resolve your problem. Some of these corporations are now so advanced in their customer dis-service even the supervisors can't answer your questions or resolve your issue. Which they in fact caused. Its like talking to a slot machine then being transferred to a bar tender.