Since I've been online, the level of discourse has degraded to appalling levels. I used to frequent a lot of political forums, starting in MSN Groups and then elsewhere. Most sites have filters that catch most of the vulgar language, but people have learned to bypass them by substituting characters or blank spaces. Other sites have active moderators that delete the worst posts, especially those with violence or obscenities, but far too often some manage to get past the censors.
YouTube is just about the worst and it seems to be up to the person who uploaded the video to police the comments section. Some care, some don't. I had an extension for Firefox that blocked all comments, but it quit working with one of the latest updates for that browser. I've learned to just watch the video and ignore the comments, lest I have an otherwise good experience spoiled for me.
One site that does a pretty good job of deleting nasty comments is IMdB.com, the movie/television review site. Still, even without obscene words, it has to be one of the rudest forums on the 'net. Religion or politics gets inserted into nearly every thread, it seems, even if the movie has absolutely nothing to do with either of those two subjects.
I wish I could give the URL to one instance I saw a few months ago, but I either didn't save it or accidentally deleted it in one of my periodic "cleanings" of files on my computer. I did save part of the conversation, though, in a Notepad file named "Stupid Sh*t". The person was blathering on about religious messages in some movie (I've forgotten which one) and after rambling on for several paragraphs, he closed with:
"BTW, I'm agnotick."
I wanted to reply, but didn't. Others took him to task, though but strangely enough, not for his fractured sentence structure and poor spelling but for misinterpreting the movie's message. I wanted to say to him: "First of all, it's "agnostic". Second place, it's one thing to be agnostic (OR agnotick) but there's really no sense posting on forums if you're functionally illiterate." One thing was certain, though...he's a dumbass.
YouTube is just about the worst and it seems to be up to the person who uploaded the video to police the comments section. Some care, some don't. I had an extension for Firefox that blocked all comments, but it quit working with one of the latest updates for that browser. I've learned to just watch the video and ignore the comments, lest I have an otherwise good experience spoiled for me.
One site that does a pretty good job of deleting nasty comments is IMdB.com, the movie/television review site. Still, even without obscene words, it has to be one of the rudest forums on the 'net. Religion or politics gets inserted into nearly every thread, it seems, even if the movie has absolutely nothing to do with either of those two subjects.
I wish I could give the URL to one instance I saw a few months ago, but I either didn't save it or accidentally deleted it in one of my periodic "cleanings" of files on my computer. I did save part of the conversation, though, in a Notepad file named "Stupid Sh*t". The person was blathering on about religious messages in some movie (I've forgotten which one) and after rambling on for several paragraphs, he closed with:
"BTW, I'm agnotick."
I wanted to reply, but didn't. Others took him to task, though but strangely enough, not for his fractured sentence structure and poor spelling but for misinterpreting the movie's message. I wanted to say to him: "First of all, it's "agnostic". Second place, it's one thing to be agnostic (OR agnotick) but there's really no sense posting on forums if you're functionally illiterate." One thing was certain, though...he's a dumbass.
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