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What is the Ideal Comment System?

Updated: 12:42 pm.

What is the best comment system for a site like this– given the audience?

Should the system be left as is?

All feedback is appreciated.

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46 Comments

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Neighborhood Eye

@ Reuben You have put your finger right on it! They don’t want to know about the lower-middle income folks who have been living here since the place was built out of a former duck pond.

Where will we go now? They don’t care. As they don’t care where the folks from down in LIC are going, or the people who lived in what is now a sports stadium in Brooklyn, or the ones who made a living in the former Valley of Ashes in the Great Gatsby, now known as Willets Point. The more wealthy have always pushed the less wealthy around.

That may sound like a whine to those who don’t want to hear it, but then a guilty conscience makes it hard to hear the truth. Unbelievers? Check the history of any country, the wealthy always take the land they want when they want it. Guess who lived on Park Avenue when the train tracks were on street level? The poor. When milions were spent to cover them over the rich moved in. Same thing is happening here in Sunnyside now.

I took a walk through Woodside yesterday, it is crowded with all different ethnic groups when it used to be mostly Irish. I’m a descendant of those Irish, but I feel more at home with the working class there now than I do in Sunnyside anymore. The current wave of newcomers in Sunnyside don’t want to be welcomed by the natives, they want the natives to disappear.

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What Craic Dealer Said

SIMPLE. “Have user names that can only be used once so there is no ‘handle theft.'” I could have entered “Craic Dealer” and posted and you wouldn’t have known it’s not him (or her). AND…email addresses are not required and what’s to stop me from entering someone else’s email address? A one-time registration tied to an email address–using a fake name to post–would be sufficient.

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Rick Duro

That was fun! Great read, some clever writing and a few belly laughs.

I agree, keep it anonymous. People should be able to voice their opinion in complete anonymity.

The old email lists and now comments pages of websites/blogs are full of people that get a great deal of joy over pressing people’s buttons, getting ya all worked up, hot headed and you end up playing right into their hands. It’s a game of sorts for some, and, can be quite funny to read.

We need Billy Goat Gruff.

RD

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Ruben

See O’Shea, see what you did there? did I say “All” ? nope, you choose to hear and see what you want to because deep down you are the real racist trying so very hard to not be. All you yuppies who want to think Sunnyside is this great trendy place ripe for dog parks and upscale businesses forget Sunnyside was for lower income families. You forget that there’s a side of Sunnyside filled with poor people being pushed out and you choose to ignore that these lower income areas carry more crime with them.

trolling, ha, a word used by people who want to bully their opinions upon others and demean those who have something to say that goes against their agenda.

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Eric The Allmighty Troll Leader

I take offense to troll bashing, we are people too and deserve respect.
Read up on your Norse mythology and Scandinavian folklore and see that we have much to offer. There is too much hate here from you liberals.

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O'shea

Yeah ruben all the Hispanics are low income criminals.all Irish are drunks and obama is an angry man. What else do you have?

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Ruben

Herbie, actually you’re the troll, blindly pointing at someone and labeling them a troll is a troll in itself. You’re not bringing up any facts in your accusation or flat out ignoring that I have left many comments that actually said something. You may not have liked what I have said but so what, It fell within my right, I never threatened anybody or harassed anybody. It’s your typical conservative sensitivities that look to ignore a voice what is in your face.

For example, I talked about most of the crime happening from the Greenpoint side of Sunnyside, where the poorer people are who happen to be Latino,. This is a fact…a statistic the same as you would say there’s some crime in the projects compared to say…Sunnyside Gardens. You couldn’t handle that simple fact? ignorant and out of touch politically correct BS.

or how I have expressed how sick I am of that Homeless guy who yells for Change in your ear as you pass by and nothing has been done..you know when something will get done..when he eats your kids face…till then you passive aggressive stone throwers continue walking by him ignoring him hoping he’ll go away.

I am no troll, I’m probably the most honest person up in here.

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O'shea

Thanks for letting us comment on how to comment on the commenting system. You do not comment on the commenting system or read the comments on the comment system but you are here today! eager to comment on the ignorant or racist comments; commented by others on the commenting system.
Oh you read up to this point! Get it.
Grandma Liz would not get a hip replacement if she didn’t need it. 🙂

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Craic Dealer

Have user-names that can only be used once so there is no handle theft (like Id theft) and THATS IT! Keep It Simple!

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Long time resident

Oh dear. I love that the Supreme Court is being brought in to a discussion of anonymous comments on a private blog. Get a grip folks.

In order to reduce the trollishness of some commenters, requiring a registration which allows for a nom de plume, FB/Twitter/G+/Wordpress login, as well as a banning of users who violate the sites terms of use (does the blog have a TOS?), with the ability to flag inappropriate posts, would likely do the trick. This will require some moderation of course, and perhaps will even result in some proliferate flaggers in being banned, but thems the breaks kid. Threaded discussions would be good too.

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Craic Dealer

KEEP IT ANONYMOUS!!

The right to remain anonymous may be abused when it shields fraudulent conduct. but political speech by its nature will sometimes have unpalatable consequences, and, in general, our society accords greater weight to the value of free speech than to the dangers of its misuse.

– mcintyre v. ohio elections commission 514 u.s. 334 (1995) justice stevens writing for the majority

KEEP IT ANONYMOUS!!

http://www.zerohedge.com/about

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opinions

I agree allowing comment that isn’t tied to facebook or real-life names is important. If someone’s comments are threatening, trolling, or otherwise cross the line, ban them — if this happens frequently, approve comments before posting. I also like being able to post without having to log in to anything.

And I want to un-recommend Disqus. It’s a real hassle and it takes forever to load comments. On sites that have converted, I’ve given up reading the comments completely. There’s often a lot that goes on in the comments here, and it would be a shame to make them harder to read.

This seems like a basic system that’s working well. Maybe a crackdown on banning, muting, or dimming trolls/bigots would help, but other than that I don’t see much reason to change things.

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Steven B

I say leave the site as it is. While I find many comments silly or offensive it is mostly people trying to bait someone else and it is easy enough to see through them and ignore. The back and forth over offensive comments would stop if the person who takes the bait ignores it.

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I can say I am any of you

I find it disturbing that I can enter ANY of your names and pretend to be you and post anything I want in this space. That is what should not be permitted. You should have to register but go ahead and do so with a fake name, but at least it’d be a consistent fake name. Those who do post with their full real names are at risk of having any random person come along and enter their names as their own.

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Anonymous

For what it’s worth, I find most comments here ignorant or irrelevant though I understand a need to keep up visits/give advertisements value, and I’m sure the ridiculous posts here contribute to that. The reason I visit this site daily is not for anyone’s comments, but to know what’s going on in the neighborhoods.

If people want to criticize the neighborhood or certain initiatives, or wax on about their theories of how the neighborhood is bad based on one kind of people or another, I would kindly invite them to start their own news blog.

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Time's Up

This is a good site, and if you can run it successfully w/o comments, that would be ideal.

But that doesn’t see to be much of an option. And if you need comments to generate revenue, then just allow them all w/o restrictions as you always had. Just make us give you an email address, as we’ve been doing. OM is spot-on @ 7:41.

Ironically, even on this meta-post about comments, some clowns post un-related nonsense and personally attack their neighbors. These commenters are a fascinating bunch. How miserable are you deep inside? Whose attention have you lacked growing up such that you desperately need attention to validate your existence now? I can only imagine how sad, fearful, and insecure you all must be.

Unfortunately, simple people need simple labels to help them make sense of a complex world. When someone rants about “hipsters” or any other fake group, the comment should be deleted. Not because of the hatred expressed (hatred per se is fine for a comment), but because it shows that the commenter has no idea what he/she is talking about and just wants to perpetuate divisiveness. It’s digressive and it allows for a race-to-the-bottom in the comment section.

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Ruben

Hey Herbie, you should change your name …IRL ,

As for the commenting system it just doesn’t matter. If someone actually WANTED to troll its very easy to make up fake accounts. This is about opinions right?, in what forum are you expected to provide any real information? for what? some hipster with daddy issues to spokeo me and find me on Sunnyside?

From what I have seen , these posts are what I see in every other forum. I have not seen blatant trolling , just opinions other people can’t deal with, which is typical with out of touch yuppies and hipsters.

speaking of hipsters and yuppies. Today I saw a couple drinking wine in sweat pants outside their wannabe stoop by the CVS. How obnoxious is that? This isn’t Napa Valley , this is Sunnyside, get your damn wine and go back in the house.

and I would also like to add this site wasn’t getting nearly the amount of comments until I started posting. so you’re welcome =)

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Fernando

Leave the comment system as is – I visit Sunnysidepost to read the news, sure, but the main entertainment is in all the ridiculous and hilarious comments people post.

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Anonymous

Eliminate comments. All the ridiculous complaints and moronic comments are less than informative. These are the first comments I’ve read on here in ages and I’ve regretted every minute of it. Focus attention on better articles.

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108 cops

only bored lonely women and gay men are on facebook, I would suggest keeping it the way it is here. Lets face it, your getting advertising cash depending on the number of clicks. I check and click on this site daily and its mostly for this “colorful” discussion board. Bored lonely women and gay mens comments don’t interest me. I want to hear what straight men think also, like myself.

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Oppressed Masses

Leave the comment system as is. Use of anonymous comments and/or non-de-plumes is a time honored means of public comment dating to pre-Revolutionary colony days in New York. Requiring the use of names for public comment will inhibit people who want to express opinions that are not in line with the established order or considered unpopular. Requiring the use of Facebook or other social media systems forces people to join web programs that compromise personal privacy. In addition, comment systems that require sign in via social media, like Facebook, are easily subverted and tend to promote crazy comments such as appear on the NY Post.

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Nom_de_plume

The ideal comment system is one where only people whose opinions are approved of by political commissar and JVB cheerleader Mike Novak are allowed.

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Nom_de_plume

Get rid of anonymous comments and only people with popular, politically correct viewpoints will bother to post for fear of being stalked and smeared as a bigot/sexist/homophobe etc… It’s the road to Orwellian groupthink.

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nobody

no comments. they’re not helpful…mostly hateful.

just look what happens on queenscrapper…that’s where this site is headed.

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"THE SUNNYSIDER"

I like your ccomment section before without the breakdown to the facebook and twitter and the post… at lest before evey commnt went right to this site… I wold love racist and nasty commto stop and wish people would be more civil to each other…but that is just my opinion…

by the way happy new year to all our jewish friends out there happy yom kipper and a good and healthy year to all of us jews and non jew..and have a good fast to all of us that are fasting the next 24 hours

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backslash

A free, open and anonymous internet is a very important yet fleeting concept. Changing the way this comment system works is making a conscious choice to move this site and the internet in general in a bad direction. The idea of potentially starring or rewarding posters who choose a more verified username is fine by me as it’s by choice.

Then again I think that Ruben, who may or may not be a pubescent troll who wasn’t getting enough attention at /b/, should be on multiple watch lists as he’s hinted at violent intent against multiple local groups and particularly one homeless and mentally ill man.

If you could do something along the lines of making posters names stand out more if they have verified an email address, that might coerce some to do so. People want their opinions to be validated. If they don’t they are likely trolls like Ruben or don’t frequent this site enough to care either way.

I do strongly suggest taking a stand and not doing away with the option to post anonymously as it’s a very slippery slope.

-K

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Deniz

Requiring to input email addresses when posting – with a promise not to reveal it to the general public – would eliminate a lot of the riffraff. Moderating an active forum is always difficult and time-consuming – it’s the nature of the beast.

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Nom_de_plume

Not Ruben FYI.

Mike Novak’s definition of hate speech no doubt includes any comment that doesn’t sufficiently sing the praises of his idol JVB.

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local

I highly recommend Disqus—http://disqus.com.

Lots of blogs/news sites use it, and it allows validated (Facebook/Twitter/etc) as well as anonymous commenting. It also allows for threaded discussions, which is one thing that gets confusing in these comment chains—the way they are currently stacked (e.g. people are trying to reply to someone 7 comments above them).

And it’s free and easy to integrate with any blogging platform.

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Herbie

anonymous posting lead to trolls & racist comments like Ruben posts on this site all the time. You should have to log into facebook or another service. I guarantee you Ruben wouldn’t be so hateful IRL.

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Webley

Keep the old system and allow people to post with facebook, the fancy shmancies..
Hey Nom_de_plume, if people use a facebook account on daily basis, they won’t log out and log in just post from a different name. That’s how they get you hooked.. I don’t want facebook knowing every site I visit, every comment I make.. So I hate it with passion.
Why can’t this site have a proper commenting system that allows subscription? That’s beyond me..

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Nom_de_plume

Can’t you use any name you want on FB and Twitter? Does someone from those sites come by your house and check your ID?

Under the current system you can use your real name if you want to as well.

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Krissi

I’m just finding the new comment system a little confusing. I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it though.

While I use my real name, I’m not sure I’d want my full FB profile on here. Although it may cut down on the “hate” posts that unfortunately happen on this site.

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