These comments can be improved with browser extensions, replacing them with intelligent or amusing quotes. You could also just rip all the comments out entirely.

Translate Comments To Herp Derps

The Herp Derp extension will convert all YouTube comments to herp derps instead of hiding them completely. This extension is available for Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera. Don’t worry about missing any important information when you use this extension — YouTube comments might as well contain “herp derps” for all the value they offer. If you haven’t heard of the “herp derp” meme yet, Know Your Meme defines it as “an expression used to indicate that someone is unintelligent or making ignorant statements.” That certainly seems appropriate for YouTube.

You can click a YouTube comment to read the original comment, but, according to the add-on’s author, reading an original YouTube comment is “highly discouraged.”

Replace Comments With Feynman Quotes

If you really wish YouTube comments were more intelligent, you can install the FeynComment user script. It works in both Chrome and Firefox – you’ll find installation instructions on the Userscripts website.

FeynComment replaces all YouTube comments with quotes from famed theoretical physicist Richard Feynman. With Feyncomment, the comment section on YouTube will become a serious, intelligent discussion of science and physics. Even if you just see these comments out of the corner of your eye, they’ll fill you with a sense that your fellow human beings are intelligent people having a discussion about the nature of reality rather than bickering and cursing over the latest popular music video on YouTube.

Replace Comments With Nietzsche Quotes

Available as both a Chrome extension and Firefox extension, NietzscheDerp goes another direction by replacing all YouTube comments with quotes from German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche’s quotes can be rather bleak, so they somehow seem perfectly at home in a YouTube comment section. It’s as if all YouTube commenters have fallen into a malaise after being exposed to YouTube comments for so long.

Convert Profanity into Yuletide Cheer

It may not be the holiday season, but YuleTube works year-round. This extension, which is available for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, converts profane comments into festive expressions of goodwill. As the extension’s website says, it will “turn the troll‘s comments from naughty into something nice.”

With Yuletube, a YouTube discussion about Justin Bieber becomes a discussion about a chubby little elf. Mean comments become cute lines like “I bet every reindeer who gets into TV…”. You’ll wish your fellow men and women goodwill instead of being overcome by misanthropy. It’s the perfect pick-me-up to ensure you don’t become a Grinch in the holiday season, but it’s preferable to the original comments at any time of year.

Remove Them All!

The most obvious way to improve YouTube’s comments section is by getting rid of it entirely. Just install the No YouTube Comments extension for Chrome or Comment Snob for Firefox. No YouTube Comments hides all comments entirely, solving the problem in just a few clicks. Comment Snob for Firefox is pickier by default, opting to filter comments based on the number of spelling mistakes, capital letters, and excessive punctuation they contain. You can tweak these filtering rules in the add-on’s options or just tell it to hide all YouTube comments completely.

French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once famously said that “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” Removing comments brings YouTube that much closer to perfect.

Of course, YouTube comments aren’t the only blasted wastelands of intelligence on the web. Other websites with comment sections — particularly news websites — can be as bad or even worse. To get rid of comments on other websites, try the Shut Up extension for Chrome, which allows you to toggle comments on and off on various popular websites. it will remember your choices, so you won’t have to see comments the next time you visit the same website.

What’s your favorite way of dealing with YouTube comments? Leave a comment and let us know how you handle YouTube comments without going insane. (Don’t worry, our comment section is nowhere near as bad as YouTube’s! We wouldn’t tolerate that.)

The post 5 Ways To Improve YouTube Comments appeared first on MakeUseOf.

With Google+ comments, blog owners will not only see direct comments from readers on their blog, but also people talking about their content on Google+. So if people are publicly discussion a blog posts on Google+, that conversation will appear in the comment section of the owner’s blog. This is designed to create a more engaging place for both the content creator and readers alike.

The design is set up to allow users to control the kinds of comments they see on a blog: You can view only top comments, only comments from people in your circles, or all comments on a particular post. This gives you more control, allowing you to visit the blog on their own terms. Google claims that this new feature “not only encourages more meaningful sharing—it can lead to more blog traffic.”

Enabling the new comment system is easy for blog owners: Head over to the Google+ tab on your Blogger dashboard, and check the box labeled “Use Google+ Comments.” This will allow old comments to appear as normal, and new comments to come in using this new feature. If you’re curious what it looks like before enabling it, Google provided an example to a post using the system so you can see it in action.

Will you enable Google+ comments on your blog?

Source: Google

The post Google Battles Facebook Comments, Brings Google+ Comments To Blogger [Updates] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

According to Facebook, this new system has been in test stages for months, and rumors of its coming have been around for substantially longer than that. Facebook is hoping this change will help create more open dialog in the community, which should certainly come in handy for Page owners and the users who comment on them.

Not only does threaded comments make it easier for Page owners to respond to commenters, it also ranks responses based on three key factors. This will encourage better comments from users, which should create a more engaging community for all. The factors that rank a comment are as follows:

• Positive Feedback: The number of likes and replies to a comment will help it move to the top.
• Connections: Connections to another person participating in the thread may cause a comment to move up.
• Negative Feedback: Spam reports will cause a comment to fall down the list.

Will you use this for commenting on Pages, or on your own page? Will this help Facebook communities?

Source: Facebook

The post Facebook Adds Threaded Comments To All Facebook Pages [Updates] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

This breed are known as griefers, and they get their kicks from setting out to intentionally wind other players up. If you’re on the receiving end of a well-timed griefing then it can be very frustrating and annoying. But watching it happen to other people is hilarious, especially if they react in a manner that is way over the top compared to the “crime” that has been committed against them.

There are people who call themselves professional griefers, and they set out to elicit a response that they then capture on video before uploading to YouTube for entertainment purposes. What follows are some of the funniest gaming trolls on YouTube, and it should go without saying that all of the videos featured are very NSFW as they contain extreme language, vulgarity, and every -ism you care to mention.

Those of a sensitive nature should read no further.

Jahova

This YouTube channel specializes in trolling other gamers on Call Of Duty, though there are a few other games featured to add a touch of variety. The video embedded above shows a young kid and his dad both getting trolled, with the kid being exposed as a booster, and being punished as a result of his inherent naughtiness.

Troll Base

This YouTube channel boasts that it’s the “number 1 source for all your trolling needs,” and it certainly has a lot of content for those of us who enjoy watching a good griefing. The video embedded above shows a classic piece of trolling on Gears Of War 3, with one guy getting increasingly annoyed with what’s happening.

The Gentleman Troll

This YouTube channel features a better class of troll, or at least someone putting on an affected accent so that his victims think he has more class. Unfortunately acting posh makes no difference, with the same reactions being meted out to any griefing. The video embedded above shows the user politely asking someone to stop coughing… they don’t comply.

The Ninja Academy

This YouTube channel should really be about ninjas, but it’s not, it’s about trolls, and lots of them. This is anther channel that mainly focuses on Call Of Duty titles, because FPS fans do seem to be the easiest to wind up. The video embedded above shows a rare piece of trolling, with the CoD care packages used to great effect.

Dai Ling Ping

This YouTube channel features Dai Ling Ping, a true alter-ego of someone, somewhere, who would rather remain anonymous. As well as the typical trolling and griefing encounters, there are also parodies of popular videos, and a series featuring Manhunt 2 being played with added commentary. The video embedded above shows endless examples of online insults.

Jay’s Channel

This YouTube channel doesn’t hide its intent, with “I make videos about winding people up on online games,” in the the description. There are a good variety of games used as the backdrop to the trolling, and it makes a change to see more than Modern Warfare 3 being used. The video embedded above shows a stranger’s Minecraft creation being decimated.

TrollCamHD

This YouTube channel features episode after episode of trolling at its finest, and all in glorious high-definition. Because, let’s face it, trolling isn’t the same in smelly ol’ standard-definition. The video embedded above shows some guy being trolled by Stephen Hawking. Not the real one, obviously, but I’m still not sure I could shout at that electronic voice.

General Minus

This YouTube channel is my favorite on this list, and one of my favorite overall. If one person deserves to be crowned king of the troll it’s surely General Minus. Mainly because he always does it with class and elegance. The video embedded above shows him doing what he does best – getting angry Americans riled up – on Counter Strike.

Conclusions

What I find interesting (and entertaining) about these YouTube channels and videos is that the reactions are far worse than the original trolling. I end up liking the griefers and disliking the people shouting, screaming, swearing, and threatening violence against them. Trolls as likable underdogs? Who’d have ever thought such a day would arrive.

Do you know of a better YouTube channel dedicated to video game trolling than these? Have you seen an individual griefing video that deserves a wider audience? As always we’d like to hear from you, so please feel free to respond to the article in the comments section below.

Image Credit: Eurobas

The post Good Griefing: The Funniest Gaming Trolls On YouTube appeared first on MakeUseOf.

That effort really starts to pay off once you have a regular, steady flow of lots of visitors every day – visitors that interact with the site and comment on your articles. Getting that to happen isn’t always easy, but once it starts, it’s like a snowball effect. No one likes to comment on a dead blog, but people do feel encouraged to comment on a site where it’s clear other people have already felt compelled to comment.

This makes encouraging comments a nearly impossible task.  You need people to comment more in order to have more comments on your blog, but you need more comments in order to get more people to comment.

Thankfully, Disqus finally offers a few widgets that you can install on your site that will encourage your visitors to post their own comments – and get that commenting snowball-effect started.

Using Disqus to Promote Commenting

I’ve used Disqus for years. The reason I first started using the commenting service was because I was so sick of the standard WordPress commenting feature, and the mass number of spam comments that I’d keep getting on a daily basis, no matter what I would do.

Disqus more than relieved those problems. In fact, the service doubled the number of comments that my blog received on a daily basis, just due to the fact that there was already a substantial number of users at Disqus, making it very easy for people to comment with their existing Disqus account.

Now, Disqus has offered four more ways that you can encourage even more comments by carefully placing certain widgets on your site. These widgets use human nature to get people inspired to comment. You can find these widgets by logging into your Disqus account, click on “Admin” and then click on the “Tools” tab.

One of my favorite Disqus comment widgets is “Top Commenters”.

Using these widgets is simple enough. Just modify the settings, copy the code snippet, and paste it in your blog. In the case of the “Top Commenters” widget, you can define the number of commenters to list in the widget, whether to show avatars or block moderators from the list. Then, you just copy the code snippet and paste it in your blog. In my case, I wanted to list my top commenters right in the footer of my blog.

Here’s what the widget looks like once it’s inserted.

It’s clean and very fast-loading. I might do well in my case to block moderators from being listed, especially since I’ve commented on my blog using two accounts. This would also give regular commenters more visibility. Being listed as a “Top Commenter” is really encouraging for a lot of people – it’s the whole “gaming” mentality where people feel a very strong sense of pride when they make it onto the “leaderboard”.

My absolute favorite of all four Disqus widgets is the “Recent Comments” tool. This lets you insert snippets of all of your most recent comments into some area of the site.

Again, you can customize the look of the widget by adjusting how many comments to show, how long of a comment excerpt to display, and the size of the avatar. Once again, copy the code at the bottom and paste it on your page. Ideally, you’ll be pasting these widget codes into your site template – either a sidebar, header or footer that makes up part of every single page on your site.

In this case, I want all of the most recent comments to show up in the sidebar of my site. This gives the site a feeling like it is filled with life and conversation. As people read articles, they’ll notice these comments off to the side – it’s a hint to them that it is a site that has a growing community, and that they should take part in the conversation and become a part of that community.

It’s a good idea to try it out with certain settings, and then modify it so that it has the look and feel you’re looking for. In my case, I feel like 5 comments that show up to 200 words is a bit much. It makes the sidebar feel almost too busy. So, it’s back to Disqus to modify the settings and copy new code. With 4 comments and a max of 100 words per excerpt, the sidebar widget looks much more clean and professional.

The “Popular Threads” widget also offered by Disqus is a little bit different than the “popular threads” widget that you’ll find as standard in WordPress.

The Disqus widget displays not only the articles with the most comments, but it gives priority to the most recent articles with comments.

This prevents the problem where you have articles written 3 or 4 years ago that are consistently displayed on this list, only because it has more comments than any other article on the site. By giving priority to more recent articles, Disqus keeps this list fresh and always-changing.

Disqus also offers one more widget called the “Combination” widget. This one does everything above in one single widget – with tabs for top commenters, most recent comments and most popular threads.

You can customize the color scheme of this widget as well so that it blends in well with your site theme. This is a good widget if you just want to have everything listed in a single sidebar location, rather than breaking up the information on various areas in your site. Personally, I like using the individual widgets, but what you choose really comes down to how you want to lay out comments in your site.

Do you use Disqus? Have you tried out the Disqus comment widgets? If you have, let us know what you think. If you haven’t, give them a test run and share your feedback in the comments section below.

Image Credit: Transparent to the 3d via Shutterstock

The post 4 Disqus Widgets That Will Encourage More Comments On Your Blog appeared first on MakeUseOf.

If you haven’t read the previous parts, click here for Part 1 and Part 2.

In this final installment, I’ll be showing you five logical fallacies that make no sense. They might sound good on paper, but even a surface consideration is enough to find that these arguments have absolutely no reasonable foundation. If you see someone trying to win using one of these, just send them a link to the fallacy they’re using so they know you’re on to them, and can find a better argument (or concede you’re right).

Using the Section Links

• You can link to a particular section using the “link to this section” links in the header of each section:
• Right click on “link to this section.”
• Select “Copy Link Address.” Some browsers may call it “Copy Link Location,” or something similar.
• Send the copied URL to the person.
• Done!

Appeal to Ignorance (link to this section)

The appeal to ignorance is not an appeal to the actual ignorance of one of the participating parties. Rather, it’s an appeal to a general sense of ignorance of the matter at hand. When someone appeals to ignorance, they are asserting that a claim is true until it is proven false. Sometimes this will manifest in the form of an argument that says something must be true because it is a “generally accepted” proposition.

In a debate, the appeal to ignorance is often used to shift the burden of proof from one party to the other. Internet trolls love to do this because it takes all of the work out of their hands and places it into yours, forcing you to exert unnecessary effort–it is the responsibility of the claim-maker to prove their claim, not your responsibility to prove them wrong. The burden of proof lies on the one who is making the claim.

Appeal to Authority (link to this section)

The appeal to authority is when someone brings in a claim made by an authoritative source on the subject of discussion and then asserts the truthfulness of that claim based solely on the source’s track record. In other words, because the source is often correct about a particular subject, all of their claims regarding that particular subject are assumed to be true.

This is a debating technique that can be tricky to refute because it sounds reasonable. However, what you must realize is that a person’s status neither validates nor invalidates an argument. The only thing that matters is whether the claim can stand up to logical and rational scrutiny.

Just because Joe Schmoe is an economist doesn’t mean everything he says about the state of the world’s economy is true. An expert in a field can still be wrong–it happens all the time. Therefore, it’s illogical to assume that just because someone is often correct about something he must be correct this time as well.

The False Dilemma (link to this section)

The false dilemma is also known as the “black or white” fallacy. As the name describes, it is a fallacy in which only two mutually exclusive options are presented as possible choices in a debate. If an ultimatum is given (“You must choose A or B”) while there are more options available (C, D, or E), then this fallacy has been committed.

Internet trolls love to use the false dilemma because it pigeonholes you into making a choice–a choice that is often impossible or irrational. Many times, the false dilemma is presented as “if you’re not with us, then you’re against us.” This is okay when there are only two possible choices (e.g., Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice), but once a third option is introduced, this becomes a fallacy.

Quoting Out of Context (link to this section)

Quoting out of context occurs when someone takes a particular quote from a related (or even unrelated) passage and presents it without its surrounding context, thus distorting the quotes from its original meaning. This technique is a favorite amongst Internet trolls, especially when the discussion takes place on a forum of some sort.

Most of the time, an out-of-context quote will be used to misrepresent an opponent’s position (i.e., strawman argument). Other times, a troll will appeal to authorities by quoting well-known figures in a way that makes them seem as if they are in support of the troll’s position.

Whenever someone tries to make a point by using quotes, always check the original source to see if they are true to its context. If not, kindly let them know that they’ve taken the quote out of context and must reconsider their argument.

The Fallacy Fallacy (link to this section)

Now that you’ve been exposed to so many of the tricks that Internet trolls like to use, this last fallacy is something you should watch out for. In essence, this fallacy occurs when you completely discredit someone’s position simply because they used a fallacy when making their point. A flawed argument does not automatically imply a flawed position.

On the flipside, you might accidentally commit a logical fallacy when trying to provide an argument in a discussion. The other side may realize your mistake and then try to completely ignore your position because of it–but they’d be wrong to do so. If this happens, fix the fallacy and rephrase your argument.

Conclusion

That about wraps up this series. You are now equipped with the proper skills to identify and rebut 15 different logical fallacies that Internet trolls will use to shut you down. Use this knowledge and don’t let those trolls win any arguments with their weak words and faulty logic! Instead, refer them to these articles and help them raise their level of reasoning and online discussion. The world will be better for it, and your life easier.

What did you think of these posts? Were they helpful? Do you feel like you’re better prepared to face the trolls that lurk across the Internet? I’d love to hear your feedback, so please share in the comments!

Image Credit: Argument Image Via Shutterstock

The post The MakeUseOf Toolkit Against Online Trolls [Part 3] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

In Part 2, I’ll be showing you a number of logical fallacies that are based on emotions or intuition – arguments that may seem airtight on the surface but, in actuality, are unreasonable and unsound. Let the other person know when they’re using one of these fallacies, and if they don’t see the errors of their way, feel free to ignore them and move on.

Using The Section Links

• You can link a particular section using the “link to this section” links in the header of each section:
• Right click on “link to this section.”
• Select “Copy Link Address.” Some browsers may call it “Copy Link Location,” or something similar.
• Send the copied URL to the other person.
• Done!

Begging The Question (link to this section)

When it comes to logic and argumentation, Begging the Question refers to a fallacy in which a proposition is made in such a way that it uses its own premise as evidence for its validity. When someone begs the question, he is appealing to his own assertion to prove the assertion. You may know this as “circular reasoning.”

In logic, this applies to a proposition that requires proof but is accepted without proof.

• “That painting sucks because it’s obviously worthless” is an example of begging the question. Here the speaker is basically saying that the painting is bad because it is bad. He doesn’t provide any proof of the painting being bad. The reasoning is circular and the assertion has the premise built into it.

Loaded Question (link to this section)

A Loaded Question is a question that has a built-in assumption that is not justified. In other words, a loaded question clearly directs the answer in such a way that an alternative answer cannot be given. You may have seen this fallacy used a lot in courtroom dramas and law-related shows.

Examples of loaded questions:

• “Do you still want this candy?” This question is phrased in such a way that automatically implies the receiver wanted candy. Even if the receiver never wanted candy in the first place, this question cannot be answered in the negative without explicitly stating otherwise.
• “How does it feel to be a party pooper?” This question is loaded with the assumption that the receiver is a party pooper. No matter how he answers the question, that assumption will come off as fact.

Correlation Proves Causation (link to this section)

Correlation Proves Causation occurs when someone takes two correlating sets of data–or two correlating events–and automatically assumes that there is a direct causal relationship between the two. In other words, the claim is that because the two events occur together, one must be the cause of the other.

Consider the following:

• Over the course of a year, whenever ice cream sales increase, the rate of drowning also increases.
• Therefore, ice cream consumption causes drowning.

As you can see, there is a correlation between the two events. However, just because the two events correlate does not mean that one necessarily acts as a cause for the other. Instead, it’s more reasonable to say that during the summer time, both ice cream sales and the rate of drowning increase.

It might also be that the two are entirely unrelated – and that’s the point. Just because two things show a correlation does not in any way imply causation.

Anecdotal Fallacy (link to this section)

The Anecdotal Fallacy is when someone attempts to prove a point by using an isolated example or experience–anecdotes, if you will. Usually they’ll tell a story about how their uncle’s best friend’s mother-in-law’s dog managed to survive cancer because of something it did or didn’t do.

Sometimes a person will use an anecdote to disprove a statistic or trend, claiming that it wasn’t true for them, thus the claim must be false. A lot of the evidence you’ll see in an Internet argument – if it isn’t cited properly – will be anecdotal. Spot it, consider it, then realize that a single isolated incident doesn’t prove or disprove anything.

Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy (link to this section)

The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy is a fallacy where pieces of data that have no relationship with one another are brought together in order to prove the existence of a pattern. It is related to a psychological phenomenon called the “clustering illusion,” in which the human brain has a tendency to recognize patterns in otherwise random data sets.

This fallacy often arises when a person has access to a large amount of data but chooses to cherry-pick a smaller subset of that data in order to fit a hypothesis. It typically occurs when the hypothesis is formed after the data has been collected, rather than collecting data to prove or disprove a hypothesis. Consider the following:

• Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy were elected to the presidency exactly 100 years apart.
• Both of them were shot and killed by assassins who had 3 names with a total of 15 letters: John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald. Neither would be tried.
• Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy and Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln.
• Lincoln was killed in the Ford Theater while Kennedy was killed riding a Lincoln made by Ford. Both were killed on a Friday.
• Lincoln was succeeded by Andrew Johnson and Kennedy was succeeded by Lyndon Johnson. Both Johnsons were born exactly 100 years apart.

Does this look like an amazing coincidence to you? It might, until you consider the fact that there are so many other tidbits that you’re neglecting. Lincoln was Baptist while Kennedy was Catholic. Lincoln died to a pistol while Kennedy died to a rifle. There are more differences than there are similarities. It only seems impressive when you cherry-pick certain points of data.

Conclusion

And there you have it. Part 2 out of 3 complete, and you’re now equipped to identify ten different logical fallacies that people often use when arguing online. Don’t fall for the clever tongues that deliver convincing but fallacious arguments!

Look out for Part 3 in this series, which will be published in the coming days. I’ll finish up with five final logical fallacies that you need to be aware of. Then you’ll have nearly every logical argument under your belt to raise the level of online discussions!

Image Credits: Argument Image Via Shutterstock, Dinosaur Comics

The post The MakeUseOf Toolkit Against Online Trolls [Part 2] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

You might know these kinds of people as “trolls” – people who will come up with any and all types of nonsensical logic. And then there are times where people will make baseless arguments unknowingly.

I’m going to be writing a 3-part series on battling Internet discussion trolls. Together, these make a toolkit you can use any time you come across a troll, to make your life easier. The posts are formatted for ease of use: you can quickly send a link to just one of the sections, to show what logical fallacy (or “crappy argument”) you’ve detected in the discussion, and hopefully raise the level of reasoning. With this toolkit, you will never lose an argument to another troll again.

Using The Section Links

You can share a link to a specific section in this article by using the “link to this section” links in the header of each section:

• Right-click “link to this section.”
• Select “Copy Link Address.” Some browsers may call it “Copy Link Location,” or something similar.
• Send the copied URL so the other person learns about the logical fallacy you believe you’ve detected.
• Done!

The ad hominem (link to this section)

Ad hominem is short for the Latin argumentum ad hominem, which literally means “to the person.” The ad hominem is a way of discrediting a claim by attacking the character or beliefs of the person supporting the claim rather than disproving the actual claim itself.

From my experience, this is the most common form of argumentation that you’ll find on the Internet. Why? Because it’s easy and makes you feel good about yourself. Some examples:

• In politics, someone might discard a Presidential candidate’s suggested policies because he had an affair.
• In gaming, someone might brush aside another player’s gameplay suggestion because he is of a certain race or ethnicity.
• In academia, someone might ignore or neglect a particular hypothesis because the proposal came from a person of religion.

In its most basic form, the ad hominem is little more than name-calling and flaming. Saying someone is wrong because he is a “f–ing idiot” is this fallacy in a nutshell.

The Strawman Argument (link to this section)

The strawman argument occurs when someone misrepresents his opponent’s position and then attacks the misrepresented position – in other words, he builds a strawman that he can attack. By defeating the misrepresented claim, he creates the illusion of having defeated the opponent’s original claim – but in actuality, he hasn’t.

In Internet discussions, particularly those of a political or religious nature, the “strawman” has become something of a synonym to “logical fallacy,” but be aware that it’s a specific logical fallacy that deals with misrepresented claims. To be true, though, people will create strawman arguments frequently because it’s an easier way to combat a claim than to deal with the actual issues at hand.

• Suppose Person A wants to relax gun laws. A strawman argument would be if Person B misrepresented Person A’s position by slightly altering the claim away from “relaxing gun laws” to “unrestricted access to guns.” His argument might be that if we granted guns to everyone, society would plummet into chaos – which is obviously not what Person A originally claimed.

If someone tries to misrepresent your position, tell them to discredit your actual claims, not the ones that they’ve created for you.

The ad populum (link to this section)

The ad populum is short for the Latin argumentum ad populum, which literally means “appeal to the people.” This is otherwise known as the “bandwagon argument”. The ad populum is when you claim that something is true because it is either popular or believed by many people. The error here is that a logical statement’s truth value cannot be determined by its popularity. It’s either true or it’s not – regardless of who believes it to be true.

You might have used this one (or heard it used) when you were a child. My parents would often keep me from participating in certain activities and I would argue “why not? Everyone else is doing it!”  I thought it was a good argument back then. Now I know better.

• If you’ve ever heard someone say something along the lines of “a thousand people do X. A thousand people can’t be wrong, right?” then you’ve heard the bandwagon argument.

If someone throws away your particular position on the grounds that it’s an unpopular or minority position, enlighten them with this explanation.

The No True Scotsman (link to this section)

The No True Scotsman fallacy occurs when you appeal to a sense of purity or completion in the original claim to exclude all cases that may be possible but do not fit the claim. Here is the famous exchange from which the name of this fallacy is derived:

• Person A: All Scotsmen enjoy haggis.
• Person B: My uncle is a Scotsman, and he doesn’t like haggis!
• Person A: Well, all true Scotsmen like haggis.

When someone’s position or argument has been undermined by a counter-example, many will instinctively defend their position using the principle of the No True Scotsman. Like most of the popular logical fallacies, this one is also easy to use because it requires little logical sense. Instead, it just excludes particular cases that don’t fit the original argument.

The burden, then, falls on the two people to arrive at a proper definition of “Scotsman” before they can continue with the argument. Sometimes, people will confuse “No True Scotsman” with “Begging the Question,” a logical fallacy that will be covered in Part 2 of this series.

The Slippery Slope (link to this section)

The Slippery Slope occurs when someone argues that if A were to happen, then an unwanted outcome B is bound to happen, thus A should not happen. It’s easy to see why someone would want to use this to attack a point.

You’ll hear this logical fallacy committed a lot in the political realm. When certain changes or propositions are made, there will be a lot of hypothetical situations used to argue the validity of a claim or position. Unfortunately, there is no way to test whether or not a hypothetical statement is true or not, thus this cannot be used as a proper means of argumentation.

There are situations in which the Slippery Slope can be a strong point, but it depends on the warrant. If someone can positively demonstrate a process such that A will always lead to B, then it may find traction. If someone tries using the Slippery Slope argument against you, then the burden of proof lies on them to demonstrate the validity of the slope’s slipperiness.

Conclusion

This toolkit is all for you. It’s meant to help defend you against the trolls who will throw illogical reasoning at you in the name of winning. In response, you can help raise the level of discussion by linking directly to these fallacies, inviting the other side to make a better argument. As an added bonus, you’ll know which fallacies to avoid when you’re crafting your own arguments!

Look out for Part 2 in this series, which will be published in the coming days. We’ve got plenty more logical fallacies that you can use to identify and make the Internet a better place for intelligent conversation.

Image Credit: Argument Image Via Shutterstock

The post The MakeUseOf Toolkit Against Online Trolls [Part 1] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Capture Social Conversations

One of the biggest problems with maintaining branded social accounts is that conversations about posts get lost. Social commentary has value, and it should be shown on the page it was originally referring to, but there’s really no easy way to do this – except LiveFyre.

When enabled, conversations regarding your posts on Twitter or Facebook will be pulled into your site. This alone is a feature that really makes it worthwhile if you have an active social presence.

The ability to login via social connections is also a big feature for increasing engagement, and I personally really appreciate not having to type in names and passwords everywhere I go. When users connect, they can start tagging their friends in comments using @ notation, potentially bringing new readers to your blog. Social sharing can also be enabled by users, so comments they make will be automatically posted to Twitter or Facebook. It’s win-win all around.

Realtime

Comments appear as they are posted, and a “listening” stat tells users how many people are currently reading the page, offering an incentive to post. With comments appearing in realtime, the chance of someone replying and a genuine conversation occuring right then and there is far greater. Compare this to the typical commenting, sending a notification, replying, possibly sending a notification that it’s been replied to… urgggh.

If users do want they can easily “follow” a topic, and set their individual notification options with far greater control than WordPress allows (even with the “follow comments by email” function added with WordPress JetPack)

Superior Moderation

The default WordPress comment administration interface is fairly poor, as our own comment editor Tina knows all too well. Akismet is also getting a little dated in terms of spam protection, and it just doesn’t catch enough. LiveFyre works together with Impermium to stop spam and offensive comments, and it works really well. The moderation panel itself is also much easier to work with than the simplistic WordPress admin; you can even add notes explaining why the comment was banned or moderated for fellow admins to see.

LiveFyre also allows community flagging, meaning when comments are overlooked then your fellow readers can make sure they get moderated. You can also specify certain commenters as official moderators, useful if you don’t want to start handing out WordPress priveldges just for comment moderation.

If you moderate multiple sites, you’ll also appreciate having them all in one central dashboard.

I want it. Now.

Calm down, I know it’s awesome and I know you need it right this instant. Thankfully, install is simple – just search for LiveFyre from within your WordPress plugin installs. Once activated, you’ll need to click the link that takes you to LiveFyre and authenticates you as the owner of the blog. Unfortunately, 2 of 3 sites I tested this on gave comment import errors; I’m working to sort these out with the LiveFyre support team now, but on the front end commenting is working fine so it seems to be a problem with just the actual database syncing and may be quite specific to my server.

The options within WordPress are non-existant. If you click on the LiveFyre link under the comments menu on the sidebar, you’ll get a message saying it’s working. That’s it. To adjust options and access the comment moderation panel, use the following URL

livefyre.com/admin

A few things you might want to adjust straight off

• SocialSync – this pulls in comments from Facebook and Twitter. Enable under Settings -Widget Defaults. Click “Add Rule” and enter your Facebook Fan page to pull comments and posts from there.
• Guest posting – by default, users need a LiveFyre account to comment. This probably isn’t what you want, so enable guest posting from Settings – Moderation
• Profanity filter – oddly, this isn’t enabled by default, so rude comments will get through fine. Enable from Settings – Moderation

Is it worth the effort?

I’m utterly convinced LiveFyre is the best commenting system around, and it’s ability to tie together your branded social presence as well as easily enable users to integrate their own social friendships via tagging is something that you simply can’t get elsewhere. Let’s face it – the built-in WordPress commenting is woefully inadequate and has always been an afterthought to the main blog system; some might even call it broken. LiveFyre fixes that, and gives you all the features an ultimate commenting system should have; on both the front-end for users and the admin side for moderators. This is a must-have plugin, get it now!

Let me know in the comments if you’ve had some import problems too or what you think of LiveFyre, and be sure to check out all the other fantastic plugins hand-picked by me (and from your feedback) on our Best of WordPress Plugins page.

The post Livefyre – The Best Comment Plugin For WordPress Ever! appeared first on MakeUseOf.

I was first introduced to the whole concept of online “conversations” during my early days on Internet forums. If you’ve ever spent any time on forums, then you know that the conversations can get very heated and very personal very fast.

One unfortunate part of forums was the forum “troll” – the person that would jump into the middle of a forum conversation for the sole purpose of creating discord and conflict. Usually, they would post some kind of “flame” – hateful or mean comments about someone – in some strange effort to strike a nerve and inflame the emotions of those taking part in the thread.

Once I migrated away from forums and into the world of blogging, I realized that even though the dynamics of the conversation are different, Internet trolls were still present. However, what I learned about these individuals is that often they don’t really even realize that what they are doing is wrong. It isn’t so much what they are saying, but how they go about saying it.

As James recently described, there are many things bloggers do to encourage blog comments, but usually what most bloggers hope for is the sort of constructive and intelligent feedback that Joshua recently described. Unfortunately, that isn’t always what bloggers get.

How To NOT Comment Like an Internet Troll

Having grown up in a household that was often filled with lively debate, I never took well to trolls. Friends and colleagues would advise me to “never feed the trolls,” but I would inevitably get sucked into a flame war in an effort to expose the idiocy of this hateful individual.

Alas, such an effort never ended well. Both sides of the conversation turn emotional, and everyone involved loses sight of the original topic at hand. All of that simply because one comment was written in such a way that came across wrong. That is the danger of the Internet, and it is the minefield that we call the “comment area” on blogs scattered throughout the Internet.

So what are some ways that you can post your opinion or your criticisms without coming across like a hateful troll? Let me describe a few techniques from the perspective of a long-term online writer.

Making Personal Attacks

I’m not sure what it is about some people that read blogs and think that they have some sort of right to attack authors with comments like “you’re stupid“, or “that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever read!”  Whenever I would respond to such comments with some kind of counter-attack, the troll would always act shocked and offended.

It’s almost as though some people feel entitled to be cruel, like they’re at a restaurant, ordering food off the menu, and that the server (us bloggers) are supposed to just take any and all abuse without responding in kind.

The truth is, that’s kind of how things are. In my early days of blogging here, I certainly would respond in kind, and of course get a bit of a talking-to with our editor-in-chief afterwards. It didn’t take long working as a blogger to realize that ultimately you need to have thicker skin than most people.

On the other hand, if you want to come across as a thoughtful, considerate and valuable reader with useful insight, avoiding personal insults of any kind is a mature and intelligent way to comment. Or, go ahead and call the writer stupid – and you’ll join the ranks of the many other trolls that have come before you.

Nitpicking Instead Of Focusing On The Topic At Hand

So many times I’ve received an array of comments after some articles, with both positive and critical statement providing a really cool mix of perspectives and opinions. Through the years, I’ve really come to value those perspectives, even when they differ from the original viewpoints I might have expressed in an article.

Often, it can be something as simple as a reader pointing out how the way that I’ve set up some technical project could be simplified with a few very minor changes. Those critiques are invaluable – not only to me, but to all other readers that come along and read those comments.

But then, there’s the person that I’ve come to call the “Nit-Picker”. You’ve written over 1,000 words, describing how to do some task in great detail, and then someone comes along and points out some minor, irrelevant error that you’ve made.  It’s almost as though some people sift through tech blog articles, hoping to discover a “gotcha!” mistake. It might be pointing out some very minute technical error, or something as mundane as pointing out a grammar mistake.

Maybe pointing out insignificant errors is a way to boost one’s own ego, or some people just feel the need to knock those high-and-mighty tech bloggers down a notch or two. Whatever the motive is – it makes the person posting the comment look like a total troll.

Failing To Empathize With The Vulnerability Of The Artist

One way to look at commenting on a blog is to imagine that you’re standing at an art gallery, with the artist that created the painting standing right beside you. How likely are you to immediately blurt out, “Wow, this painting really sucks!” when you’ve got the person that poured their heart and soul into that artwork standing within earshot?

Just blurting out a one-liner like, “Wow, this app is the worst thing I’ve ever seen!” without providing any explanation whatsoever is impersonal, immature, and everyone that comes along and reads it later will recognize it as troll-like behavior.  That isn’t to say that you were wrong – but it’s all in the delivery.

Any good artist values criticism, and the best criticism comes in a delicate and gentle manner that takes into account the fact that when an artist puts their work out there into the public, there is a degree of vulnerability they are subjecting themselves to. Understanding and empathizing with that vulnerability will keep you miles outside of the “troll” zone.

Acting Like A Know-It-All

This is a tough one, because as technical bloggers in general, we can sometimes come across as a know-it-all ourselves. So, to recommend that anyone posting a comment should avoid coming across as a know-it-all can perhaps be hypocritical. For example, in telling you the best ways to avoid coming across as a troll with comments, aren’t I acting like a know-it-all?   Sort of – but not really.

You see, if you can back up something you know with past experience or with data, then please do post what you know. That’s really what the comment area is for. The real problem comes when people post that doing this-or-that is “so simple a 5 year old could do it“, yet they provide no evidence to support the claim that they themselves really know how to do it.

That isn’t to say that readers won’t have better ways of doing things. As I mentioned previously, I’ve learned a great deal from some of the people that have commented on my tech articles – whether it was a cool coding shortcut, or a software app that could accomplish everything I just laid out in a fraction of the time. I love those comments. Most bloggers do, because they help all of us – bloggers and readers alike – learn together how to do things better.

The problem comes when the troll points out that the method described in the article is stupid, but offers no alternative of their own. Or they say that a much simpler and easier alternative exists, without telling anyone what that alternative might be!   If you’re going to take the time to comment that a method or application isn’t good enough, then take those extra few minutes to explain a better alternative. Otherwise, you will most certainly come across to everyone as just another Internet troll.

I hope in offering these four points of advice, that I don’t come across as a troll! It’s something that’s very easy to do on the Internet, in these text-based mediums where the tone of our voice and our true intentions don’t always come across very well.

With that said, I would love to hear from other bloggers out there. What has been your experience with trolls? Do you think that many people that troll are doing so unintentionally? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Image Credit:Gargoyle Via Shutterstock, Man With Glasses Via Shutterstock, Art Gallery in Milan Via Shutterstock, A Man Being Surprised Via Shutterstock, Waitress Taking Order Via Shutterstock

The post 4 Types of Blog Comments That Make You Look Like a Troll [Opinion] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

You can see an example of this working here on MakeUseOf – when you post a comment, you won’t leave the page – instead we’ll send it through an AJAX call, and then send a quick “thank you” note back. Read on for a full tutorial.

For using non-WordPress functions as AJAX, please read my previous tutorial, and be sure to check out all the WordPress related articles.

Introduction

There are a two separate parts needed to get AJAX WordPress comments working, so lets explain those first to give you an overview of the whole process.

• Some Javascript on the page that intercepts the user clicking the Add Comment submit button, that also makes it an AJAX call and also handles the response.
• A PHP handler that hooks into the comment_post action

Javascript

First off, this is going to need jQuery, as does anything remotely exciting in web development nowadays. If you’re not sure if it’s already being loaded, go ahead and skip down to the Javascript code and try it anyway – if you have Firebug and the console log says “jQuery is undefined” when you refresh the page, then add this line to your functions.php file to ensure it’s being loaded.

function google_jquery() {
if ( !is_admin() ) { wp_deregister_script('jquery'); wp_register_script('jquery', ("http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7/jquery.min.js"), false);
wp_enqueue_script('jquery'); } } 
 
add_action('wp_print_scripts ', 'google_jquery');

Note, that’s an elaborate way of loading jQuery because we’ll be using the latest version from Google CDNs, which is faster and more up to date than the one included by default with WordPress – so it might be a good idea to add that anyway even if jQuery is already loaded elsewhere.

Now, for the actual Javascript that will handle the comment form, we have a few options. The easiest is to just paste the code into your single.php template – assuming you don’t have commenting enabled for pages as well.

Alternatively, you could paste into an existing .js file used by your theme, or create a new .js file in your theme directory. If you choose to put it into your own separate .js file and not paste it directly into your theme template, be sure to add the following lines to your functions.php, and note the filename is assumed to be ajaxcomments.js in the root of your theme folder.

add_action('init', 'ajaxcomments_load_js', 10);
function ajaxcomments_load_js(){
		wp_enqueue_script('ajaxcomments', get_stylesheet_directory_uri().'/ajaxcomments.js');
}

Here is the Javascript to handle the comment form (or you can view it on pastebin):

<script type="text/javascript">

// AJAXified commenting system
jQuery('document').ready(function($){
var commentform=$('#commentform'); // find the comment form
commentform.prepend('<div id="comment-status" ></div>'); // add info panel before the form to provide feedback or errors
var statusdiv=$('#comment-status'); // define the infopanel
 
commentform.submit(function(){
//serialize and store form data in a variable
var formdata=commentform.serialize();
//Add a status message
statusdiv.html('<p>Processing...</p>');
//Extract action URL from commentform
var formurl=commentform.attr('action');
//Post Form with data
$.ajax({
type: 'post',
url: formurl,
data: formdata,
error: function(XMLHttpRequest, textStatus, errorThrown){
statusdiv.html('<p class="wdpajax-error" >You might have left one of the fields blank, or be posting too quickly</p>');
},
success: function(data, textStatus){
if(data=="success")
statusdiv.html('<p class="ajax-success" >Thanks for your comment. We appreciate your response.</p>');
else
statusdiv.html('<p class="ajax-error" >Please wait a while before posting your next comment</p>');
commentform.find('textarea[name=comment]').val('');
}
});
return false;
 
});
});</script>

To break the code down, we’re first creating jQuery objects of the comment form (which assumes your comment form has the default css ID of “commentform”), and adding an empty info panel above it which we’ll later use to display messages to the user about the progress of posting their comment.

commentform.submit is used to ‘hijack’ the submit button. We then serialize the form data (turn it into one long line of data), give a “Processing” message to the user in that info panel, and go ahead with an AJAX request. The AJAX request is a standard format, but not really in the scope of this tutorial today – suffice to say it reacts to either a success or error, and blanks out the form if successful to prevent the same comment being accidentally posted twice. Adjust the messages and errors as appropriate, or add some suitable styling to your theme’s stylesheet if you’d like the error messages to stand out somehow. The last line – return false - prevents the form from completing it’s default action.

PHP Handler

Lastly, we need something to prevent the page refresh and send the appropriate response back to the user as well as notifying the admin if the comment needs moderating, or notifying the author of a new comment. For this, we hook into the comment_post action which occurs just after it’s added to the database, and detect if it was an AJAX request. Add this to your functions.php file:

(Also available at this pastebin)

add_action('comment_post', 'ajaxify_comments',20, 2);
function ajaxify_comments($comment_ID, $comment_status){
if(!empty($_SERVER['HTTP_X_REQUESTED_WITH']) && strtolower($_SERVER['HTTP_X_REQUESTED_WITH']) == 'xmlhttprequest'){
//If AJAX Request Then
switch($comment_status){
case '0':
//notify moderator of unapproved comment
wp_notify_moderator($comment_ID);
case '1': //Approved comment
echo "success";
$commentdata=&get_comment($comment_ID, ARRAY_A);
$post=&get_post($commentdata['comment_post_ID']);
wp_notify_postauthor($comment_ID, $commentdata['comment_type']);
break;
default:
echo "error";
}
exit;
}
}

Spot Problems

If the page is still refreshing instead of posting through AJAX, it’s likely to be one of two problems. One – you might not have jQuery loaded. Install Firebug, or enable Chrome developer tools, and check the console log for errors. If jQuery isn’t found, go back up to the JavaScript section and read the first bit on adding jQuery to your theme. The second possibility is that your theme does something special to the comment form and it’s ID is no longer “commentform”. Check the source code, then adjust the var commentform=$(‘#commentform’) line in the JavaScript to be the correct ID – that might work.

As ever, I’m around to help out further as much as I can, but please post links to an example URL where I can take a quick look, or post in the MakeUseOf Answers forum if this post’s comments are closed. Enjoy AJAXified the comments!

The post How To AJAX-ify Your WordPress Comments appeared first on MakeUseOf.

There’s no lack of solutions and managers out there, but no matter how sophisticated, they can’t make us faster than we already are. Keeping up with various tweets, messages, comments and updates becomes next to impossible, especially if you use more than one account. Into this mix enter FanMix, which offers a web interface that turns your social activity into something not unlike a Gmail inbox, promising you’ll never overlook another comment again.

The Social Inbox

Fanmix is a completely free service (although future premium options are probable) which consolidates your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Disqus accounts into one slick mailbox. To start, sign up for a Fanmix account. This takes about 15 seconds.

You can now start adding all your social accounts into Fanmix. You can add multiple accounts from each network; simply provide your user credentials and watch your list of accounts grow. You can always add and remove accounts later on, so you can add just one or two for now to see how it works.

Fanmix will start archiving your messages, threads and conversations immediately, and present you with your new social inbox, which includes activity from all the accounts you’ve added. This is a general overview of the inbox, which, as you can see, resembles an ordinary e-mail inbox.

Fanmix offers several mailboxes aside from the general inbox, such as a priority inbox, sent messages, archive and contacts. You can also easily add, remove or reconnect (for troubleshooting) any account through the Connected Accounts list.

With time, Fanmix will learn more and more about what’s important and what’s not, and mark these threads with a golden flag. You can manually mark and unmark messages as important to help the process along. You can also use stars to mark your conversations. The priority inbox shows you your important and starred threads first, and then all the other messages.

Just like with e-mail, you can search Fanmix using keywords or names and instantly find all the relevant threads from all your networks.

Communicating Through Fanmix

Fanmix is not a means of updating several social networks at once, but rather, helps you keep up with everything that’s happening across your social networks and blogs. To post a new message through Fanmix, click on the Compose button and write your message. You can choose one of your accounts to post the message through.

You can also track and engage in conversations through Fanmix. When someone replies to your post or sends you a message, it will show up in your Fanmix inbox. In this example, you can hold a Twitter conversation, making sure you never miss a reply. You can even retweet right from Fanmix.

One weird oversight is the lack of a URL shortener. URLs you post in Twitter through Fanmix are not shortened in any way. If you wish to use short URLs (and you probably do), you’ll have to use a different service for that.

Things get even more complicated when it comes to Facebook, but Fanmix has that covered as well. You can easily follow comments and likes from Facebook, post comments, updates, etc.

The Contacts box is also really useful. You can find all your contacts in one place, view only contacts from a specific network, and sort them by name, conversations, network size and most recent.

Adding Fanmix To Gmail

If another perpetually open tab in your browser is not what you’re after, and you happen to be using Chrome, you can add Fanmix to your Gmail inbox, and run everything from the same tab. In Fanmix, find the “Add FanMix to Gmail” button (only in Chrome), and click it to download the extension.

You may need to refresh a few times after installation, but next time you load Gmail you’ll find the FanMix button right there on the top left. Through it, you can track all your social activity right from Gmail.

Bottom Line

After using Fanmix, I can safely say it’s one of the best ways to track and keep up with multiple social interactions online. It might not entirely replace other social clients, as there are important features still missing, but when it comes to never missing another thread or ignoring a comment by mistake, Fanmix is a true life saver.

What do you use to manage multiple social accounts? What do you think of the e-mail interface of Fanmix? Share in the comments.

The post Fanmix – An Email-Like Interface To Ensure You Never Miss A Comment Again appeared first on MakeUseOf.

What I have here are just five simple ways to keep the comments moving with your own blog, and by all means, everything is relative. I’m quite aware of that, and hopefully, this is just a way to springboard you towards better conversation on your own posts. Keep in mind that this certainly isn’t a complete list, but it definitely is a helpful one.

Answer Every Question Asked Of You

After writing any blog post or article, there are bound to be quite a few questions. It’s like a mini press conference for the press itself. As a matter of fact, I personally believe that is the readers’ favorite pastime next to reading itself – asking questions.  As obvious as this may be, the best thing that you can possibly do is answer them (I suppose it’s just nice to have a little reminder).

Granted, there may be the instance that you don’t actually know the answer.  No worries there! Simply state that you don’t have a clue, and if you can, try to redirect your reader to someone who does (like MakeUseOf Answers).  Also, there may be that occasion that you miss a question and find it months later – go ahead and answer it. Why? Future readers may want to know the answer, and there is also the chance that the reader has signed up for an email alert and will get your response anyway.

Forward Your Readers To Other Blogs

It’s nice if you can write really great articles, but it’s also pretty awesome if you share other really great articles. Say that you’ve got a reader that gave a simple encouraging comment – cool, right? I know that it makes me get all giddy inside when someone writes a comment on my articles. I typically celebrate with unhealthy food and extravagant parties at the MakeUseOf office….or sometimes I just smile and respond. Usually the latter. But really, my cubicle is the best one here, and no one leaves it without a margarita in one hand and a cigar in the other.

However, while in comment ecstasy, you shouldn’t forget that this reader is someone who is simply wanting to know a little bit more about the topic they just read about. Why not help them out by linking to other resources? Not only is it just a good thing to do, but it also might help bring readers back since you’re helpful (oh, and yes, the picture is of a reader actually sharing other resources – same effect, right?)

Respond To Insults With Charm

I’ve been insulted quite a bit before, and I can honestly say that it makes me squirm. The fact that someone would say something so rude – whether blatant or backhanded – is just beyond me. What’s the point of it? Why hurt anyone? To be frank, I could get a billion positive comments on either side of the issue of an article, but the one that is rude will be the one that stands out the most.

Realistically, there’s a great method to handle these comments, and that is to just let it roll off your back. You can do this a variety of ways, really. Ignoring the comment is one way of doing it. Another way is to simply thank them for their response, but even still, despite your intentions, it could come across as being rude as well (you’ll know it if you see it, and I’ve done it myself). However, you could always try to win them over. Take a stab at humor, or perhaps you could just ask them why they feel the way they do. I’m just saying that it may be a little better to win someone over than be at odds with them – not necessarily easier, but certainly better.

Ask Plenty Of Questions

You’ve got readers asking questions, but why don’t you ask some questions yourself? Get them to expound more on their opinions. Figure out the details of their points of view. Honestly, I consider it a success if the length of comments on an article is much longer than the article itself.

However, I wouldn’t stick to discussing only the content of the article. Call it unprofessional if you want, but I like to learn about who my readers are. I mean, we’re on the Internet, and we’re able to connect people from all over. Why not take advantage of it? If the situation presents itself, go ahead and ask a little bit about the personal life of your readers. It makes everyone a little more human, and in most cases, much more fun.

Ignore Grammar & Spelling

I’ve harped about leniency over grammar and spelling before, and I’m going to do it again. When it comes to commenters on your blog, don’t let their grammar and spelling leave you with a bad first impression. Sometimes it seems as though we assume the level of someone’s intelligence due to grammar (I know I’m assuming here as well), but that’s not always the case. Basically, I’m just saying you should take everything with a grain of salt.

Granted, I encourage you to use proper grammar and spelling with your responses, but that’s only because of the image that you want to give to your audience. However, as always, don’t sweat over it too much. Keep everything conversational and fun.

The Bottom Line

That’s it, ladies and gents. All of these are just a few ways to keep the comments flowing and the conversation fruitful on your blog. Will it actually work? Not sure. I can’t help you with your personality, for that’s only something that you can deal with. However, I can give some tips to bring it out a little more.

What other ways do you keep your comments consistent? Do you use any of the methods shown here?

The post 5 Ways To Maintain Comment Consistency On Your Blog [Opinion] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

So with that being said, I just wanted to tell you the kinds of feedback that I like after folks read whatever blog post that I’ve written. A lot of readers provides some really great insight! You’ve likely seen all of these types of feedback before, but hey – let’s just point them out real quick.

The Social Recognition

In this age of social sharing, we’ve been privileged with a new way to smack our seal of approval on anything without even having to type a single word. These days, all it takes is the click of a button to let someone know you like what they have to say. The Social Recognition comes in the form of the Like button, a Retweet, a Google +1, a Stumble, and even a Reddit upvote. Realistically, it’s not much, but it is a way for the viewer to let the creator know, “Yeah buddy. I may not have anything to say, but I like what you’re doing here.” It gets me all giddy inside.

The Excerpt Approval

For some reason, a common trend with blog readers is to start their comment off with an entire portion of the article a la copypasta, and then they will provide a following sentence of approval. It’s like social recognition on steroids, but at the same time, it repeats what you’ve already said, reinforcing the statement. You know what? That’s alright in my book.

The Personal Email

One entirely different type of feedback is the simple email, akin to “letters to the editor”. The fact that someone would take out the time to email me means a lot. Sure, comments and social sharing are great, but when someone sits down and writes a personal note? That, my friends, says quite a bit about the person. Even if the email is an utter death threat against me and my family, I can safely say that the notion is still appreciated!

Granted, letters are even more personal than emails, but I can’t say I have (or ever will) get a letter because of a blog post (also, I’d rather not publish my address because of death threats).

The Shameless Plug

I’m not entirely a big fan of stealing someone’s thunder – it’s just not classy. However, I’m not entirely against folks writing a little comment (even if it’s pulled from the sky) and then slapping a link to their own personal site at the end of the comment. Why? Well, it actually could mean one of two things. For one, they could be spamming everybody’s blog with their ad-farm, and they are thunder-stealers, and they should be flogged by the entirety of the blogosphere.

On the other hand, they may think you have plenty of readers who will see their site, and they may very well like your content enough that they think their own will be of interest to you. I’m kind of okay with that. But really, otherwise? Blogosphere flogging. Flogosphering.

The Thoughtful Contributor

You know what I like? I like when someone basically extends the post and writes a comment that is sometimes close to if not more than the length of the actual article. Some folks may find it snarkish, but I think it’s kind of cool. That’s the beauty of online publications right there – the ability to provide feedback.  It’s as if the article doesn’t end, and each commenter passes the baton to the next. So whenever there’s a question at the end of these posts, just know it’s there for a reason. For the record, I like to learn new things from those comments.

Conclusion

Granted, there’s a lot more than what you see here, but we’ll save that for another time. Basically, I just wanted you all to know that feedback online is appreciated. However, I know that the lot of you blog in some form or fashion as well.

What kinds of blog comments do you like? What type of blog feedback do you hate?

The post The 5 Standard Types Of Blog Feedback I Love [Opinion] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

So, he performed an experiment. Using a equal number of solar cells, young Aidan laid out the solar panels side by side in sunlight. One, the typical flat panel that people use today, and the other his unique “tree” design – a metal structure shaped like a tree branch. Young Aidan hooked up a meter to each, and to his surprise, he saw a higher voltage reading from his tree design. It was a remarkable finding, he thought.  So he decided, with the support of his parents, to enter it into a national science competition – and he won.

The Internet Attacks Dreams

What happened next is something that those of us that have been on the Internet for a long time now would not find very surprising. The story about the science competition hit the Internet, and everyone from PhD researchers to armchair scientists took a look at young Aidan’s design, and the flaming began.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Aidan’s introduction to the world of online commenters didn’t go too well.

“Commenters and bloggers attacked Aidan with vitriol usually saved for political enemies and the Kardashians. Blogs decried his experiment as ‘bad science’ and ‘impossible nonsense.’ Someone called him ‘an alien—a cool one, though.’”

Reading the article made me remember some of the stories that I used to write about years ago, such as science scams and other silly claims throughout the fields of Ufology and the paranormal. I’ve always felt justified, as an engineer, in my online attitude. In fact, I’ve been one of those vitriolic writers before, trashing poorly designed scientific theories and various silly claims like alleged “free energy” findings.

Here is a blog post of mine in 2006, publicly ripping apart a guy who constantly claimed there were connections between UFO stories and the CIA and other government agencies.

I called him an idiot, a moron, liar…

This was back in 2006, and in the next 5 years, I gradually – for lack of a better word – “matured”, to some degree. And writing for MUO helped, because I started noticing what it’s like to be at the receiving end of all sorts of nasty accusations and cruel comments.

Why People Feel the Right to Be Cruel Online

The truth is, I really don’t think that I would talk that way to people in real life. I don’t think many people would. The guy I was slamming above – if we were sitting together in some cafe having coffee – we would probably have a pretty interesting intellectual conversation – disagreements and all.

But there is just something about the Internet that feeds hate and anger. For me, it’s people that flip out and draw premature conclusions over so-called scientific “discoveries”. I’m sure that’s what angered the many PhD academics and skeptics in Aidan’s case. But do we have to be so cruel about it? Even here at MUO – a community that I consider to be very intellectual and mature – there is a contingent of people that have a certain arrogance, and feel justified in calling someone they don’t even know a moron.

Here’s an MUO Answers commenter calling the questioner stupid.

Or this commenter in another article calling another reader retarded.

And yet another spat between commenters on another article, issuing pretty nasty jabs back and forth.

What has scared me the most, since writing and reading posts and comments from other writers here and elsewhere on the web, is that the cruelest comments that I’ve read remind me….of me. It is a sobering realization, and one that dampens my comments as the years go by, although I am still known for losing my temper with others now and then. I don’t know if it’s genetic, or maybe just a curse.

Mistakes Lead To A Pig Pile

What I’ve noticed is that two things seem to incite a greater level of vitriol, the likes of which poor young Aidan had to experience. The first is making a mistake. Online folks are very unforgiving when it comes to making mistakes. Aidan’s mistake was that in his entry into the science competition, he only measured voltage. Unfortunately, voltage alone doesn’t equal overall power – so his findings were questionable. That one single mistake led to an influx of attacks and name-calling.

The other factor seems to be anonymity. Anonymous posts are almost always particularly harsh…cowards are always so brave with their words when they don’t have to use their real name. Would those same people have spoken those same words directly to the young boy’s face, in the presence of his parents? I doubt it.

And if Aidan goes on to accurately measure the power of his test contraption, and he is proven correct in his theory, will all of those arrogant, nasty people respond again and apologize to young Aidan? Will they be remorseful for attacking a young child that is motivated enough to explore science at such a young age? Probably not.

Why do you think people get off on trolling and posting hateful comments online?  Have you ever done it yourself and regretted it? Let us know your thoughts and insights in the comments below.

Image Credits : Wall Street Journal, Shutterstock

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