I dont believe in gray

"Kate's Dirty Sister" (KDS)
12/16/2014 at 23:20 • Filed to: None

i I think that "trusted contributors" should be able to dismiss comments rather than promoting them.

I think that a lot of good comments are lost in the grey zone.

Removing bad comments would probably be more productive then the other way around.

My 2 cents.

DISCUSSION (30)

Steve in Manhattan > Kate's Dirty Sister
12/16/2014 at 23:25

I have posting privileges here, and I have no idea how the system works, nor do I understand why some comments on my posts appear in grey.

Gamecat235 > Kate's Dirty Sister
12/16/2014 at 23:26

The periods of time where there were no grays worked, up until everything went to shit. Just starting the cycle over again. I would love to see either a small group of "starred" users who are there for their ability to highlight and build and shape conversations, or a very small group of actual moderators / commenter/community liaisons whose role it is to build and shape the community.

I like the idea of the tiered commenting system, and the ability to directly dismiss (or in the case of Oppo, dismiss when necessary). But I don't think that there is a perfect solution.

OkCars- 22k Crossroads > Kate's Dirty Sister
12/16/2014 at 23:27

The problem is that im never out of the gray on the FP, and I only give positive comments.

PanchoVilleneuve ST > Kate's Dirty Sister
12/16/2014 at 23:28

The problem with the whole "trusted contributors" system is I'm a trusted contributor and I spent about an hour today doing the math on making getting an Autech Stelvio financially feasible.

Little Black Coupe Turned Silver > Kate's Dirty Sister
12/16/2014 at 23:28

The trouble is people will abuse it, and remove anything they don't agree with.

KirkyV > Kate's Dirty Sister
12/16/2014 at 23:29

I enjoyed the days of no-grey, but they had to do something in response to the giant clusterfuck of awfulness.

CRider > Kate's Dirty Sister
12/16/2014 at 23:31

Tier 4 Regular Commenter

Tier 3 Starred Commenter

Tier 2 Oppositelock Gold members

Tier 1 Moderators

Gamecat235 > Little Black Coupe Turned Silver
12/16/2014 at 23:31

Yeah, that would be my concern with anyone, but much less so with a compensated position, or with a defined role and set of rules and expectation which were enforced. We've tried quite hard to make Oppo as neutral as we can (while still being sensitive to the major topics). And it's led to many difficulties. I can only imagine what it would be like to scale that out to one of the front page environments (both Jezebel and Gawker used to have full time moderators, so it's a path we've been down before).

Gamecat235 > OkCars- 22k Crossroads
12/16/2014 at 23:33

Positive isn't always what they are looking for, insightful, intelligent and contributing to the content of the posts and conversation is really key. Positive helps, but knowledge and the ability to communicate will trump it any day.

Kate's Dirty Sister > Gamecat235
12/16/2014 at 23:35

i agree that there is no perfect system, but just take a look at the greyed out comments and you'll realize that a lot of great conversations are being lost.

I think the burner accounts thinghy ruined it, before that, there was a need to "auditionned"

Imagine a system where only people that made the cut are commenting, no youtubers, and some more trusted contributors have the right to dismiss any comment based on certain rules.

Kate's Dirty Sister > KirkyV
12/16/2014 at 23:36

just remove the burner accounts.

KirkyV > Kate's Dirty Sister
12/16/2014 at 23:36

I honestly thought they had.

Kate's Dirty Sister > CRider
12/16/2014 at 23:37

Damn I paid good money and never received my gold card.

Kate's Dirty Sister > KirkyV
12/16/2014 at 23:38

nope

Gamecat235 > Kate's Dirty Sister
12/16/2014 at 23:40

I dive into the grays when I have time, and I know that you did the same. There are some conversations which are quite insightful, and one of the problems is that the staff doesn't have the time to moderate and shape these conversations, while also producing content. The different EIC's have all had approaches and pleas to the community to take on this role, but people don't have the same power they did when there were stars, and continuously bringing someone out of the gray does get old.

I don't think that the burner accounts ruined it, because it was always easy to create a throwaway account, and technically, there is still an "audition" system with the pending / approved system. It's just only in the hands of the staff/authors/moderators now.

Kate's Dirty Sister > Steve in Manhattan
12/16/2014 at 23:41

Here or on the front page/sub blogs ?

whatisthatsound > Kate's Dirty Sister
12/16/2014 at 23:44

But that runs into the issue of not having any connections to social media. The only reason I moved to a burner was because I deleted my Facebook. With that I lost all my comment history under my older name. I agree that something needs to be done about the grays.

Dsscats > Gamecat235
12/16/2014 at 23:55

I've been on Jalopnik for 4, damn near 5 fucking years and I'm still in the grey on the FP. Fuck that. I honestly just stopped going there for a while.

Steve in Manhattan > Kate's Dirty Sister
12/17/2014 at 00:05

I suppose it is here - 'sub blogs' is not something I understand. I thought Oppo was Oppo ....

Gamecat235 > Dsscats
12/17/2014 at 00:10

Persistence kept me going. I frequent it much less these days, but I will say that I had multiple COTD's and many direct interactions with the staff before I got a star (back when there were stars), and that after the switch to Kinja, I interacted A LOT with the staff.

But I got frustrated at points as well. No one can make that choice for you. I stuck with it, and still comment sporadically (more often I'm silently starring people in the gray). But I do understand the frustration (it was a small part of why I felt so at home on Oppo back then).

OkCars- 22k Crossroads > Gamecat235
12/17/2014 at 00:17

well i did only positive because i thought a conflictive comment wont be out greyed. First i wanted to come out of the grey in order to post more deep comments

Gamecat235 > Steve in Manhattan
12/17/2014 at 00:24

Oppo is Oppo. But Oppo operates under the same framework as any other space on Kinja ("official" community blogs like Oppo, completely independent community blogs like Live and Let Diecast or The Cigar Lounge, or the front page entities and their spin offs - like Jalopnik and BlackFlag or FoxTrotAlpha).

There are several levels of commenters and I'll go over them from the top down. I should point out that these roles apply separately for each blog, so for instance, though Matt is clearly a moderator on Jalopnik, he is just a commenter on most of the other "feature" blogs (Gawker, Jezebel, etc):

Blog Owner (in the case of Oppo, this is Porsche9146, in the case of Jalopnik I suspect it's Matt, but would not be surprised to discover that there is a master account for the front page entities): This role has the ability to bestow moderator abilities on the blog in question and to bestow authorship on the blog in question.

Moderators: These individuals can bestow authorship on commenters, but cannot create other moderators. Additionally, both moderators and owners can Block a commenter so that their comments do not show, even in the pending comments on the blog they own/moderate.

Authors: Everyone who can create a post within a space is an author on that space. You are an Author on Oppo, I suspect that some members of the staff on Jalopnik are simply authors, whereas others will likely have moderator status - there is a chance that they all do, so that all members of staff can dismiss comments, but this is purely speculation on my part.

Followed Commenters: Followed commenters are commenters who have been followed for the blog in question, by someone who is an Author or above. These commenters will have their comments featured within the "standard" portion of the comments.

Unfollowed / Pending Commenters: All users/commenters start here.

If you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them.

Kate's Dirty Sister > Steve in Manhattan
12/17/2014 at 00:30

You can be approved on oppo, on foxtrot, on truck yeah or on Jalopnik, but it's all different approval.

Gamecat235 > OkCars- 22k Crossroads
12/17/2014 at 00:31

Back when there were stars, there were some commenters who were taken directly from pending/pink status (Gray is the new Pink) to being starred commenters because of very insightful, enlightening, but not always directly supportive comments. Though in every case I can think of, these were people that had information that had either escaped the staff writers, or that essentially required first hand knowledge, or extensive second hand knowledge of a situation or topic.

On the other hand, there were many more who slowly made their names noticed through being witty, sharing what insights they had, and participating, and participating, and participating, and ingraining themselves into the community until they made themselves someone who probably proved that they understood what the community was all about. And most of the time, those people were starred (or now followed). But not always. I fell largely into that category on Jalopnik, though amusingly, was starred on Lifehacker nearly right away for a bit of a rant defending the authors position.

OkCars- 22k Crossroads > Gamecat235
12/17/2014 at 00:34

Have to start commenting again, i stopped because as this post says, its left behind, nobody appears to read those.

The Transporter > Kate's Dirty Sister
12/17/2014 at 00:38

Not to be a smartass, but this place is too much like Reddit as it is.

Gamecat235 > OkCars- 22k Crossroads
12/17/2014 at 00:40

Some do, but I believe you're probably right in that it's less and less that try to search through and find the real gems and the real gems of commenters. Some of the staff is much better than others.

It used to be a direct responsibility of possessing a star, was that you were being entrusted with the ability to bring commenters out of the pending areas, and that with that, you were expected to do just that, but to do it responsibly and with the knowledge that if you approved the wrong sort of commenters, you would lose your status. In some cases it did lead to cliques, in others, it built community trust. I don't think it was a perfect system, but it did largely work.

livesquiggles > Kate's Dirty Sister
12/17/2014 at 04:00

I think it depends on the blog. I come from Hackerspace (Lifehacker), where there's virtually no conflict (not because we're better people, but because we just don't talk about the kinds of things one can argue about with any kind of enthusiasm). We'd probably be better off under a system where comments were automatically approved and any author could dismiss them. Some comments that are not so great would appear, but nothing terrible would happen even if all admins went on vacation for a week. But Groupthink or Jezebel? Completely different situation.

Stapleface-Now Hyphenated! > Gamecat235
12/17/2014 at 06:41

While I get that persistence is key, I think that is really oversimplifying things too. The burner asshats who tormented Jez pretty much screwed the whole system up for everybody. I understand something had to be done to stop them, but there should have been a better system that replaced the grey commenting. I think the community has suffered by only having certain commenters allowed (non greys). There used to be a good depth to the comments, and I could read those for hours because there was an insightful discussion going back and fourth. Now, most comments go unnoticed because frankly its a pain in the ass to have to read all of the greyed comments. And as such, people just don't read them.

I get the whole be persistent and good things will come. But when you do post what you think are insightful comments that might further the discussion and get no response, it's frustrating. Why bother to participate in a community that ignores you? After a while anybody will lose interest. Do I still keep plugging away in earnest in the hopes that one day I will be out of the grey? Yes. But at this point its almost like talking to that girl at the bar who has shot you down ten times already. You're talking, but no one is listening.

Manual Transition > Kate's Dirty Sister
12/17/2014 at 17:35

Does the presence and participation of those individuals deemed unworthy, generate revenue for Kinja? If that is the case, you should be ashamed of your elitist behavior.