Jezebel 
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New York, 2:24 PM
Thu Nov 26
42 posts in the last 24 hours
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Editor-in-Chief:
Anna Holmes
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Dodai Stewart
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Tracie Egan
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Irin Carmon
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Editorial Assistant:
Margaret Hartmann
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07/21/09
07/21/09
07/21/09
'We run the site' is a rich thing to say, considering that the whole endeavour relies on pageviews just as a magazine relies on readers.
Of course you can publish anything you want in any way you want, but if you alienate your readership you will soon have NO product.
One can refute almost every single argument made in favour of the new system.
'But we DO read all / will promote thoughtful comments' is not a logical or helpful response to the argument: 'I do not want and should not have to appeal to a group of chosen few to partake in a community.' Most people jump through this type of hoops enough at work and in school - a leisure activity is supposed to be a reprieve from the competition (unless you actively choose it, i.e. in team-sports).
The problem of many 'greys' on this site is that they neither chose this format, nor did they perceive Jezebel to be the place where this type of activity was necessary - whether you choose to call it 'bringing your A-game' or 'sucking up to the cool kids'.
Just as an observation: I can count the times I saw an unstarred comment go promoted this past week on the fingers of my hands. Most (although not all) starred people engaged in their own discussions, often punning away and inside-joking - while many worthwile discussions went on completely in gray.
There were positive exceptions, but this was the tendency.
This is the first thread where some of that changed, I will have to see if that is a trend or not.
I could go on, but seeing as my comment is already incredibly verbose, incredibly late and probably greyed out anyway, I will stop for now.
07/21/09
Because of that off-putting "class system"/Heathers aspect, and because it's simply unwieldy, of course it has a chilling effect on the MAJORITY of would-be commenters.
So I hate it.
But:
- I know it wasn't the Jezebel editors' choice. They don't exactly sound hyper-enthused about it, and I'm not blaming them. But I also have the right to express my annoyance about it and to not enjoy being patted on the head and given the consolation lollipop of "Oh 'lots of people' will still read your peon comments!'"
The de facto percentage of people who "really will read" all the greyed-out posts, whatever it may be, is not the point. The fact of the de jure differential treatment is the point, and I repeat that I fully understand the Jez editorial oligarchy *cannot control that* so I don't need it defended to me by them with the de facto argument.
- I have loved Jezebel for the choices of posters' subject matter - it has been thought-provoking, challenging and eye-opening - and its intense concentration of quality writing and expression by both the posters and commenters. (Most of them anyway - certainly by far the highest percentage of any site I visit.) In that order.
So I'll keep coming. But I'm going to make an aggressive effort to focus more on greyed-out comments than the 'real', black-font ones, and to reply more (or only) to them. No offense to the 'real' commenters, many of whose contributions I love. But I'll be exercising my freedom to act affirmatively.
07/21/09
07/21/09
07/21/09
And...because for some reason aforementioned box appeared on this thread, I felt the need to post the fact that I'm SO very happy that a good majority that are "featured commenters" are loving the new system. Because that's what really counts, right? (Not like there is a high probability of anyone seeing this without someone having to dig. OH well!)
07/21/09
07/21/09
I think some of the editors (and commenters) are missing the point when it comes to the "This is like high school" comparison. The point is that "popularity" in high school was rarely determined by the number of people that actually liked you--instead, it was decided by a small group of like-minded but fairly arbitrarily chosen people who were then given the ability to make your presence either relevant or irrelevant. In that sense, the new commenting system is exactly like high school--much more than the old commenting system, which was based on the number of people who legitimately liked you and gave no one power over anyone else.
I can see how the new commenting system makes sense for some of the other Gawker sites (I'm thinking, specifically, of Deadspin, where the average commenter seems to be someone posting irrelevant, stupid, or mean commentary just for the hell of it), but it seems like applying it to Jezebel is a mistake. The commenters here, on the whole, are insightful and interesting and relevant most of the time, and thus the division between starred and non-starred commenters seems much more arbitrary than it does elsewhere in the Gawker world. I don't think there would be nearly as much uproar if the starred commenters here were a small group of people that inevitably posted thoughtful, discussion-provoking commentary, but they're not. In fact--and this thread is a perfect example--I often find that the unstarred commenters are the ones posting the thoughtful, discussion-provoking commentary, but it's largely being overlooked because it's buried on Tier 2. The Tier 1 posters seem to post a lot of jokes, puns, silly stuff and "Awww, wish I could heart you all over again!"s, and while there's nothing wrong with that in moderation, and their sense of humor is likely what made them well-liked and earned them their stars in the first place . . . clearly you're going to lose posters if that's the stuff under the featured commentary, and those who spend the time to put together an insightful, interesting comment just get ignored. On the whole, I've found that, instead of doing what it's purported to be aiming for--shedding a light on the best discussions--the new commenting system actually buries them.
Hopefully the new group of mini-mods will be able to address that imbalance. I have no issues with spotlighting the best discussions, but that's hardly what's been happening so far.
07/21/09
And you brought up one thing that has always been an annoyance here, the bizarre over-appreciation of puns. It seems to be pretty much the number one most-loved sense of humor here. It's weird, cos puns are normally treated with eye-rolling sighs, on par with the bad jokes one gets in xmas crackers or bazooka gum. Yet here, it's the only humor that matters really. I guess that's not a bad thing, and I guess that's just the kind of humor that reigns on jezebel, it's just a shame is all. I'll have to save my boring ole grown up humor for elsewhere I guess!
07/21/09
07/21/09
07/21/09
(This glitch that destroys the comment if you click outside of the box is driving me crazy.)
More substantively, I know starred commenters who are afraid to promote the "wrong" comment because they don't want to lose their stars and have their comments sent to the vast abyss of grayness.
Jezebel has never been all that open to dissenting opinions and this system only makes it worse.
"Arbitrary" is the operative word. "High School" is a very apt comparison.
07/21/09
07/21/09
I made lots of intelligent, insightful, substantive, sometimes amusing comments and I was de-starred for making the fairly obvious observation that threatening commenters is not a good strategy.
The claim that this system promotes meritocracy is complete and utter bullshit.
Half the time I can't find my replies.
07/21/09
Half the time I can't even find my replies.
[Unable to edit three minutes after posting.]
07/21/09
You'll simply exhaust yourself writing it over and over again...
07/21/09
07/21/09
07/21/09
But here's the thing. We do want to shape the discussion here. And we want to encourage comments from the smartest contributors, even if they're only occasional visitors.
The old system -- by giving priority to commenters who hung around the site all day, made friends, and jumped quickly into each discussion -- encouraged a clique. The goal in these changes is to open up the site to new voices -- interviewees, the subjects of stories, other journalists, authors themselves who might have been deterred before. Mixing up the crowd should be to everybody's benefit.
07/21/09
07/21/09
1) The gray is really, really hard to read. The fact that this issue is not going to be fixed just adds to the feeling that second-tier comments are not encouraged or welcome.
2) When I click read all, I honestly don't see much of a difference between the gray and black comments. I can understand the desire to up the quality of the comments that are displayed, but I really don't see that happening here. It just makes it cumbersome and irritating to read.
In conclusion, I find myself spending much less time on this site and enjoying it less since the new system was introduced. Oh well, I have become more productive at work!
(Also, I had to come back and edit my comment to say that (horror of horrors) I've found myself over at XX more than Jezebel in the past few days. Sign of the times, I guess.)
07/21/09
Edit: Sigh, sorry for the non-hyperlink. The comments are still really buggy over here.
07/21/09
We like this site because we find the community easy to relate to and similar in mindset.
SO, in order for a site with a less-cohesive community to create an environment for intelligent discussion, the moderators/editors who manage the content will be able use stars to promote members that further the goal and concept of the site.
Do WE "need" it? No, not in my opinion, but that's because we are already much more in line with the result the new system wants to achieve anyway. It will get better, we will get used to it, and, I believe, we will begin to appreciate a more concise list of comments to read...or we'll just click "View all" and continue as normal.
07/21/09
07/21/09
If that is the case Looking at Gawkers own metrics for Jezebel I would say it is a big failure. As in a 40% decline or so in visits and page views since the new comment system was implemented. Its funny to see how the graph was trending up nicely with new highs just before the system was implemented. (But of course we must print the "Official Party View": the old system was bad!)
And considering the decline doesn't look to be stabilizing I wonder how low and for how long this can go before they realize hey maybe those gray people were right, this new commenting system stinks and is driving far more people away than gaining.
http://advertising.gawker.com/titles/jezebel
07/21/09
Not to be nitpicky, but it's showing the total for the month... since we're about 2/3rds through the month you could expect that views would be at least around may levels.
07/21/09
07/21/09
07/22/09
07/21/09
I never commented that much, but the whole point of Jezebel was that you could say what you wanted to say on topics of varied interest, be it politics or fashion or La Lohan, without being judged or attacked, unlike sites dedicated to those topics that are just forums for arguments and negativity.
Now everything comment you say is being held up for judgment.
But really, it's your site! We're just the readers. I would take my toys and go home, but it seems you've already done that.
(4. Why do only a few selected people get to decide what is "good"?
We run the site.) Thanks! It was good while it lasted.
07/20/09
And trying to type a comment takes FOREVER, damn it is slow. Must not like my XP computer running Firefox.
07/20/09
07/21/09
07/20/09
A lot is getting censored now out of laziness. Your idea is as practical as communism.