Like most other Oklahoma news outlets, the Tulsa World is changing comment policy. They're now going to require people to use either their Facebook profile or their real name in order to leave a comment, in hopes that discussions will remain more friendly, light, and civil. This is great news to us at TLO because now we can do more posts like this.
From The Tulsa World:
Tulsaworld.com on Wednesday will begin allowing comments from all readers. However, all commenters will be required to use their first and last names in addition to the city or town in which they live. They can also choose to post comments through their Facebook account. Anonymous comments will no longer be published.
"We believe this will help change the tone of our conversations online to a more civil discussion of happenings in our community," said Bill Masterson Jr., publisher of the Tulsa World. "Online sites have struggled with anonymous comments for many years and we believe it's time for the Tulsa World to raise the standard in our community."
I'm kind of indifferent to this news. I avoid comments sections on news websites whenever possible. Except, of course, on this site. I love all of you trolls.
I've made a short list of the worst kind of commenters I could think of. Most of them have to do with gross fallacies, poor logic, or blatant blind hatred. After I described the prototype, I wrote a few examples of things they might say. You can leave a comment of your own and talk about the kinds you hate too, or--you know--get pissed and leave one of these said comments. I'm cool either way.
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1. THE ALL CAPS MAN
This guy doesn't use any punctuation, probably yells at hostesses when he isn't immediately seated at restaurants, and doesn't understand why you would compare him to Kayne. Oh yeah, you never have any idea what point they're even trying to make--the only thing you can really do is pick out buzz words. I think only other angry uncles can comprehend any of these rants.
FEDERAL BAILOUTS DEMISE THIS COUNTRY HEREINAFTER OJ SIMPSON CONTRIVED BATHSALTS RUDY GIULIANI WE CANNOT LET THE WHITE HOUSE TAKE LIBERTIES ROYAL BABY AARON HERNANDEZ
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2. The Dramatic One-Uppers
DOU's are a little hard to describe, but easy to identify. Their contributions always end up looking like this:
DOU: (a 10-12 sentences paragraph peppered with capital letters, derplahoman sensabilities, curse words, and other nonsense.)
Some Reasonable Person With Extra Time On Their Hands: Wow, DOU, that's a bit extreme. Would you ever use that kind of language when speaking with your mother?
DOU: I'm an ORPHAN and a HAVE NO VOCAL CORDS you ASSHOLE!!!!!
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3. The Qualifier.
This is the person who wants to make their point seem more insightful, and do so by prefacing their argument with how close in proximity they are to the issue at hand.
My co-worker's best friend is a lesbian, and she doesn't want to get married, so gay marriage is a complete waste of our time.
I learned Spanish when I traveled abroad in college for a summer in Europe, so why can't Hispanics immediately learn English when they come here?
I love black people, but once a black guy stole my cell phone. Can you blame me for assuming all of them are thieves?
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4. The Comical Misspeller.
This one's pretty self-explanatory.
HAHA your so stuped! Theres no proof that a democrissy even works in the long run.
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5. The "I Didn't Bother to Read, But I'm Angry Anyway" Dude.
I'm going to be kind and assume that most people who read news blogs can read English, but many of them blatantly disregard plainly stated words or phrases in a sentence. They're pissed, but they're pissed about the wrong thing. They might misread or skip sentences, read a title and jump to conclusions, or completely miss the fact that they're actually reading prose from the Onion. TLO is no stranger to this kind of commenter. Don't be that person, you guys.
TIDBRBIAAD: Those god damn fraternity boys think they're so fresh with their polos and hat and SUVs! Those rich boys don't give a lick about anyone but themselves! Those spoiled boys are going to exploit minorities and drink beer and live in the suburbs for the rest of their pansy-ass lives! Millennials and their trust funds, screw them! All they do is drink and are not good for our community.
Some Reasonable Person With Extra Time On Their Hands: Uh, the boys are raising money for a domestic violence shelter. I think this article is just trying to point out that maybe a KY Jelly bikini wrestling contest isn't a great way to go about it.
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6. The Over Simplifier
The Over Simplifier is guilty of taking a multi-faceted problem with several layers and complexities and reducing it down to a one or two lined "logical" response. They sometimes use the "either-or" fallacy, affirm the consequent, deny the antecedent, or some derivative of those "Is A is always a B and B is sometimes a C, then..." kind of reasoning.
Paula Dean's products were banned from Walmart for using the N-word. I wonder why they didn't give any of Jay-Z or Lil Wayne's albums the same treatment.
The only person who can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. So there's no need to re-examine any implications of our country's current firearm laws.
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7. The Slippery Slopist
You might have one of these people in your friend group, and you definitely had one of them in your Ethics 101 class. Their arguments rely solely on our country disregarding all restraint and going pretty much insane. Every issue is a classic "if you give a mouse a cookie" scenario in their mind. These people are the only ones who would ever utter the phrase "inter-species marriage." A classic Slippery Slopist took that Pandora's Box fable just a little too seriously.
If marijuana is legalized, what's next? Crystal meth? Polygamy? State-sanctioned civil duals?
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8. The Derps
We've done such a great job covering them that we don't need to make up an example.
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Chelsea lives in Tulsa, and very recently deleted her Myspace account and AIM screen name. Follow her on Twitter at @xCawoodstock
