Not to split hairs myself but comments are a kind of content. I know the concept of "user generated content" really shook up the definition of content but like with "forum", in the most basic sense I think it works. It's a "contribution" from the users (using the word "contribution" extremely fucking cautiously obviously!) and I guess that concept still means a lot to me because there weren't a lot of ways for random internet users to contribute and have their voices heard by other random internet users back in the day.
I guess I'm becoming as skeptical of a laissez faire attitude towards online discussion as I am laissez faire capitalism because I don't like where either of those have gotten us. Not caring at all is no more reasonable than caring too much about the wrong things or even about the right things. Just because you don't see swimming in an online cesspool as a problem doesn't mean it isn't one. It being that way for years and only getting worse as the population of internet users increased is something I've always believed gave social media much of its appeal. It's hard to remember what exactly the buzz was like around that time but I remember people on TV, IRL, and even some of those old long-gone sites I used to frequent saying things to the affect that "the problem with the internet right now is it's still basically dominated by losers with no lives and normal people need to be made to just talk to people they already know online and not strangers".
That worked out wonderfully, didn't it? And I'm pretty sure GR has called me out here for contributing to some of the same shitting up of the place I'm pretty clearly against. And he's probably done it a few times on FAF and Weasyl if memory serves. And, who fuckin' knows, maybe he got through to me just by being polite and reasonable about it because people not giving a shit about being polite and reasonable is what eventually turned me into a 24/7 raging asshole on the internet (okay, it was a lot of other things too, and I will resent a hugbox as much as the next guy). So people need to be the change they want to see. But a lot of environments make that virtually impossible for a lot of people and it has a lot to do with why people up and leave.
I will admit though, if I could go back in time I'd spend more of it here than I did on FAF. Or even 2's old forum because unless something changed pretty drastically towards the end of that forum's run it was overall of much better quality from what little I can remember.
Not to split hairs myself but comments are a kind of content. I know the concept of "user generated content" really shook up the definition of content but like with "forum", in the most basic sense I think it works. It's a "contribution" from the users (using the word "contribution" extremely fucking cautiously obviously!) and I guess that concept still means a lot to me because there weren't a lot of ways for random internet users to contribute and have their voices heard by other random internet users back in the day.
I guess I'm becoming as skeptical of a laissez faire attitude towards online discussion as I am laissez faire capitalism because I don't like where either of those have gotten us. Not caring at all is no more reasonable than caring too much about the wrong things or even about the right things. Just because you don't see swimming in an online cesspool as a problem doesn't mean it isn't one. It being that way for years and only getting worse as the population of internet users increased is something I've always believed gave social media much of its appeal. It's hard to remember what exactly the buzz was like around that time but I remember people on TV, IRL, and even some of those old long-gone sites I used to frequent saying things to the affect that "the problem with the internet right now is it's still basically dominated by losers with no lives and normal people need to be made to just talk to people they already know online and not strangers".
That worked out wonderfully, didn't it? And I'm pretty sure GR has called me out here for contributing to some of the same shitting up of the place I'm pretty clearly against. And he's probably done it a few times on FAF and Weasyl if memory serves. And, who fuckin' knows, maybe he got through to me just by being polite and reasonable about it because people not giving a shit about being polite and reasonable is what eventually turned me into a 24/7 raging asshole on the internet (okay, it was a lot of other things too, and I will resent a hugbox as much as the next guy). So people need to be the change they want to see. But a lot of environments make that virtually impossible for a lot of people and it has a lot to do with why people up and leave.
I will admit though, if I could go back in time I'd spend more of it here than I did on FAF. Or even 2's old forum because unless something changed pretty drastically towards the end of that forum's run it was overall of much better quality from what little I can remember.