I would love the ability to delete comments on a video you posted.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Not at the moment - however we will be dealing with a way to manage comments in an upcoming software update, very soonish.

For blatant abuse - contact us, or post it to Sift Talk.

Just can't keep that crazy fascism down.

The sad thing is that some people on the Sift think that being offensive is clever...

yeah, good luck with that guys.
extremely thin line to walk.

who classes something as offensive?

yeah, i can't really agree with censoring a member's comments. something is always offensive to someone ...

for the comment in question: it gave me a chuckle!

comments like this (and others) give us insight to a member ... the good, the bad and the ugly!

anything that's against the posting rules should also be against the commenting rules. that's one way to censor fairly...

I think I'm in agreement with Pho3n1x. I'm somewhat nervous about censoring comments without some sort of ground rule, because what happens when people start to censor people they don't agree with, or even who are dead wrong? We wouldn't have seen Enfathom's hilarity of the Monty Hall sift, for example.

Also, after giving it some thought, I'd hate to see a Digg-style comment system, where each person can upvote or downvote a comment, just because I feel like that system fails to support normal debate and conversation as we do on VS.

I'm against censorship.

While you may not like what someone says in a comment, as long as they are civil - in fact even if they aren't - they have every right to say it. Very few people on this site resort to simple abuse. This Site should be a forum for free speech. But remember, just because you have the right to say something doesn't mean that you necessarily should! The right of free speech goes hand in hand with the duty to think before you speak!

^----- am opposed to that. We have posting rules for a reason, how does that not count as censorship? When we have rules as to what can be posted and what can't, that amounts to censorship by omission. Censorship is great and, I believe, even necessary, in small, controlled doses.

I believe that free speech works in a large part because people IRL have a single identity, and thus must face the consequences of what they say in public for as long as other people remember, and those people can choose to ignore what they say. On VS, comments are basically forever - they're posted, and then there's nothing we can do about it. I don't like that at all.

I am far more bothered by off-topic comments or garden-variety trolling than I am by gluonium's "offensive" comment.

I would hate to see the introduction of word police or the use of ban hammers for comments that don't even rise to the level of poorly-executed humor.

I too am opposed to the censorship of comments... I think that such a power would be too easily to abuse, especially when it comes to politcal or religious debates (two mainstays of the sift). If anything, I mostly agree with LadyBug on this, all comments, good, bad, ugly, stupid, frivolous, just give us more insight into the people we are sifting with. If you don't like something someone has said, call them out on it, remind them that they have a duty to take ownership for their comments and exercise some amount of restraint before posting.

How about a compromise to the problem with an "ignore user" button? Once clicked that users comments are now invisible to you. It's not a perfect system but if you really find someone offensive or an overall twit, at least you don't have to look at their comments any more.

Gwanns' right, civility is more important than semantics...I have pushed the envelope in the "nice" & "sweet" category in delivery myself (heh heheheh), and can't stand when a word or phrase is attacked with disregard for context, worse though, when the passive aggressive route is taken, here that means no-votes, etc., in the real world, it warrants an ass-kicking....soooo many asses deserving!

Most of the time, its not words or sentiments at all that ring offensive....its the confidence and conviction expressed, in matters of the unknown......guess just the conspiracy pooh-poohers and the zealous atheists, wankers all!!!

"I never met a God I didn't spite."....Hey...that'd make a great t-shirt!!!

Oh and to reiterate the dangers of the censor, once you say something, especially if you write it, that is it-you do have to live with it, for it, around it, etc. LIKE IN THE REAL WORLD, duh.

This is how we remain dynamic, and alive....and how we grow-

On the idea of comment voting:

The newest quality point feature is about as far we should take it, imo. That also includes the idea of voting for comments. The notion of downvoting comments may stifle commenting altogether, so it may not be a good idea.

I would much rather be able to playlist my favorite comments from other Sift members.

what we need is a good old fashioned witch burnin..mmm ha

*sucks on pipe and whitles some wood*

...see if the sorry bitch floats!! hey michie, glad to know I'm not the only one smoking ganja and jacking off....

My point was, Choggie, on the internet people don't necessarily have to live with something they say, only if they want to continue to be an accepted member of that community - which trolls, in general, don't. On the internet, a person could say something dumb and just keep repeating the same dumb point, thus clogging up the comment stream by physically taking up a lot of screen space and thus messing up a conversation, while in real life, people could just move away or ignore the person (unless that person got elected president, I guess). The internet is a lot different from real life, and I think it should be treated as such.

yes rembar, but one of the beautiful ways in which the internet is different from the real world is that it is (primarily) an unrestricted flow of diverse opinnions, viewpoints, and yes, even stupid stupid comments... but, you know, this is kinda what it's about (at least for me) and I just roll with it, and ignore the dumb ones.

Anyway, I like the idea of being able to block certain users comments... I don't think I'd use it myself, but it seems like a decent compromise.

I understand what you're saying, Raven, and I agree with you to an extent. I have no problem just ignoring the dumb comments, but I would prefer somebody step in when a stream of dumb comments starts disrupting the more thoughtful conversation, simply by a mass of bad comments making the good ones hard to find.

Perhaps some form of comment-blocking might be good.

just some notes not on WHAT but on HOW:

1) if "ignore user" is implemented, it should do it just like in vbullettin (you see the name of the user, the date of the comment, and a link to allow you to see that comment)

2) if admins could delete comments, for whatever reason, it would be WAY BETTER if:

2a) comments weren't really deleted, but FLAGGED as deleted (so you can restore it, just in case)

2b) in some cases, they could simply be flagged as "ignored comments", i.e. comments that every user automatically treat as if they ignored that user (see point 1)

That could work as a good compromise (the flagging and tagging looris suggests), that way, the comments remain, but are not as prominent. In any case, I don't think regular users (goldies or not) should have such power, only the admins, that way it would be harder to abuse such a setup, so it would be less likely that a poster who posts something that falls into those two categories you're not supposed to discuss over dinner (ie Religion and Politics), cannot simply eliminate all other viewpoints because they do not like to hear them.

yes.

moreover, regardless of who is allowed to do that (maybe diamond members could be allowed? they are FEW, i doubt they would abuse it), it should be clear and visible to everybody who took that action.

such as "this post has been deleted by user XYZ with reason 'do not feed the troll'".

just to prevent abuse.

Can we get upvotes and downvotes for comments too like /. and Digg?

There's enough thoughtless negative voting on the Sift already... I wouldn't welcome more.

I think that ignorance is bliss on this - the ability for each Sifter to choose if or who they ignore (including a feature to opt-in/out of Comments/Sifts/Collective) would be the best way to appease all.

I think it's better that any system implemented fall to the privy of 250s to use. Say a call between two or three, to the admins results in the offensive user account deletion/ban.

Am not for:
- Voting comments
- Ignoring comments
- Deleting comments
- Flagging comments

Because these systems create snarky enviroments like Digg.com.

250 at the least, Farhad. I just assume leave it up to the admins and not change anything.

I hope we don't decide to mess with the commenting. Benjee and Farhad are right.

I also agree with Farhad, Benjee and Swampgirl!

I've got a lot of faith in the admins on this site - if someone crosses the line in their comments, they'll deal with it.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Standards-and-Practices-Aqua-Teen-Hunger-Force

i proposed extending this to the 250s simply because, well, admins aren't so many, they can't take care of everything.

Lol @ choggie's last post.

Had I a vote, I would vote no to any global censorship system that incorporates anyone other than admins. I like things the way they are, although I would like the ability to *ignore Troll, which would simply collapse all of Troll's comments in a /.-like manner. I could still expand them individually if I choose to do so. Not really keen on scoring comments. I'm not one to read only comments others deem worthy.

Anyway... *ignore. Yeah, that would be cool. It shouldn't be something that is reflected in comments when it is used, either (like discard and save, etc).

fuck, i just had the biggest brainwave. i've a feeling it's probably similar if not identical to dag's aforementioned 'software update'.

how 'bout you have to earn vocabulary?

on probation?

shut the fuck up

passed probation, no star?

available words:
-yes
-no

10 published posts?

-yes
-no
-whatever
-good
-bad

50 published posts?

-yes
-no
-whatever
-good
-bad
-zomg
-roflmao


...etc etc. i think you get the drift.

the top dogs will obviously have the widest selection but still a tightly controlled vocab. maybe leave out the zingers such as 'hate', 'cunt', 'religion', 'jake' etc.

i tell ya, give it a go for a month and we'll all be virtual hugging.

rotfl (may i say rotfl with a gold star?)

I'm against granting such powers to the 250 members... just because someone has posted a lot of high scoring vids does not necessarily mean that that person is capable of judicious comment censoring... leave it to the admins, that is where it belongs... also, there may only be a few diamond bearers now, but give it a year, and there will be many more.

what you say makes perfectly sense, BUT.

i think it's the same of gold powers. just because somebody succesfully posted 50 vids, makes him capable of judging where should he discard something or add viral channel?

that's how the sift works. that's web 2.0.

sites run by their users. There MUST be admins who are present, and everybody knows them and knows they control them. And if some star, diamond or golden shitty misuses their power, they can be removed by the admins, can't they?

I think you didn't understand what I meant correctly Raven.

what? that two or three 250+ members confer before deletion? Seems cumbersome... and I stand by my assertion that just because some knucklehead has managed to get 250 Family Guy vids published does not in any way mean that person is capable of being responsible for the censorship of free speech... at the moment, I know it seems like all the diamond bearers would be up to the challenge but give it time, and we'll have scads of them before long.

and uh... ps. eric... I'm not so sure meth usage, as an excuse for whining or strange behaviour, is something you really want to share with the internets

I stand by my assertion that just because some knucklehead has managed to get 250 Family Guy vids published does not in any way mean that person is capable of being responsible for the censorship of free speech...

yes, but, as i said, that's the same for gold stars.

if they abuse their powers, they will be punished by the admins.

Then let the admins themselves "deputize" some hall monitors themselves if the troll workload is too high. Make them anonymous if you have to.

I'm happy enough w/ the *ignore troll idea though.

If one wanted to ignore a member's comments for trolling, could it be written so we could go to the troll's profile and put "*ignore" in their comments?

This does two things:
1. turns off troll's comments for the offended member
2. lets the troll know it too.

If troll sees a ton of ignores after a while, maybe he'll run away

I'm against censoring powers to members of any rank.

It is almost impossible to attain 250 status based on Family Guy videos alone. Reaching 250 means you gave enough of a time sink to this website to really give a care about what content gets posted. Furthermore 250s are a large group of some of the oldest sifters here, a peer to peer understanding is well enough.

But on that note within my entire time here, it is very rare that any 250 has blogged a video because of an offensive comment.

My Momma always said if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. I guess that's why I don't say much.

Sometimes I would like to *ignoretroll. I do think, however, that only admins should be able to delete posts or comments.

Farhad, I was being facetious, my point is only that being around for a long time does not always guarantee an individual has the sense to handle such responsibilities... just because we happen to have a good batch of diamond bearers now does not mean it will always be this way, so basically what I'm saying is, I'm with swampgirl, who is "against censoring powers to members of any rank"

I also like her idea that offenders get a message letting them know they've been trolled... maybe it won't scare them away, but it will give them a clue that they are being obnoxious, sometimes I think half the trolls keep on trolling because they don't realize they are being jerks.

please notice that maybe some trolls could be PLEASED in seeing many people ignore them, thus be encouraged.

I didn't think about that, looris. In time though, most of the regulars may have *ignored him...so hopefully we'll never know!

lol!

Flame Warriors:
http://redwing.hutman.net/%7Emreed/

well you could implement a content filter like slashdot, but again how hard is it to write "stupid fux" instead?

One problem with content filtering.. Once a forum begins actively filtering, you are then responsible for all content and the stuff you didn't filter. That is why all majoe sites only "hide" the content. This way users don't need to see racist, inappropriate content, but the website is not actively deleting comments.

We have been luck on the sift that no too much needs hidden.

i'm 100% against automatic filters. i never like them and probably i never will.

the sift don't need them, that's not a teletubbies forum. there are FEW comments who cause problems and they can be dealt directly.