Comment of the week, 31 July 2015

What’s the best comment you’ve seen on a BoingBoing article this week? I’ll start.

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Well, all of mine, obviously.

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I know there was (at least) one of yours that made me guffaw in the past couple days…

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What do we mean by “best”? Any rules?

Can it be judged as say:

  • Funniest?
  • Most cogent for the topic?
  • The best example of the subject of a topic?
  • One we haven’t thought of?
  • Comment that best sums up our bickering?
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I vote yes to all of the above.

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Yes. I figure there are so many comments that don’t get seen because of the thread they’re in that it’d be nice to highlight your favorites.

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Aw, shucks.

We need different categories, like the Oscars. Then you can have Best Supporting Snark, Best Set-Up For a @crenquis Joke , Most Obvious Contender for @Mindysan33’s Slurping .GIF, and so forth. Hey, @beschizza, can we do it as a yearly event? We could have badges! Badges! And fancy hats!

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@Brainspore will just sweep them all…

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Campaigning for miss congeniality, eh?

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Fancy hats, you say?

http://funnyasduck.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/funny-pictures-fancy-cat-top-hat-animated-gif.gif

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Anybody ever haunt Videogum while it was still funct? they used to have a “Monsters Ball” with the 5 highest rated comments of the week (strictly based on “likes”) the lowest comment, and then a handful of “editor’s choice” comments. It was always fun. not saying it should work the same here, or as frequently, but having some like-based + nomination based awards could be fun.

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This thread really brings the funny.

A personal favorite:

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http://bbs.boingboing.net/badges/8/great-post

and

http://bbs.boingboing.net/badges/7/good-post

Are good starting points. But great comments in less trafficked topics will be at a disadvantage, yes. Less eyeballs = less likes.

You can also summarize long topics via the button at the top of the topic to see just the best posts via a variety of metrics, likes is obviously one.

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I had some similar thoughts a while ago in the meta thread about badges

Totally the reason I wanted to do this. Whether the posts are less interesting or invite less passionate discussion or if the comment comes late after most people have moved on, there are lots of great comments that deserve more recognition than they’re currently getting.

I was also partially inspired by The Mary Sue blog which used to do a weekly best comment feature, showcasing funny comments, great runs of puns, awesome trolley smacking, end others…

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Awesome troll smacking, eh?

Although BB does maintain the “list of people disappointed with BB” so it is possible to thread this particular needle if you are very careful about it.

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I dunno, is it unacceptably flashy to devastatingly dismantle a troll in public to show it exactly how wrong it is on every level?

I mean on the one hand it can be like dissecting a tumor for med students. But on the other hand it can end up looking like we’re tying them to a truck and roadhauling them till there’s nothing but a belt and a pelvis.

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Humor is a big factor. If it is from the Jon Stewart / Daily Show school of sending up political trolls, that is known to work.

Still, I would be wary of any (further) external encouragement of troll dismantling. Likes work quite well, and trolls tend to appear most regularly in those contentious topics that are the most active and visible anyway. Any stylish, funny (but civil) dismantling will be amply rewarded.

Because let’s face it, who is gonna bother to troll some super obscure BB post about the guy in the darth vader costume on a unicycle playing the Mario theme on flaming bagpipes? It’s always the typical sexist, racist, phobic stuff that pushes all the typical buttons.

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I understand that it’s pretty obvious that dismantling misogynists/fudies who haven’t a leg to stand on outside the bible/“nice guys” (of which I am grateful for being disabused of such vapid rhetoric myself in this very forum)/copologists who think that being an LEO somehow makes a person blameless/other trolls can be monotonous, and inspire groupthink. But I feel there’s still a lot of value in the 90/10 rule, in that most of the arguments won’t have much of an effect on the overt participants, while being invaluable in swaying the silent fence sitters.