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The original intent of the comments section--a place for readers to respond to content and start a dialog between author and audience--works fabulously in some circumstances. Some blogs have dozens of thoughtful, well reasoned comments cropping up at the bottom of each post. But as sites become larger and more popular, and as the audiences become less knowledgeable and more general, comments sections frequently devolve into a 200 car pile-up of stupid. Writing regularly for Cracked, I've gotten pretty used to seeing the regular types of commenting idiots. People who yell "First." People who yell other ordinal numbers. Spell checkers. People who post entire essays. Anyone segueing into something not in the article, especially articles that aren't about Ron Paul. People who post "Meh." Ron Paul.
(Less frequent, but appreciated all the more for their rarity, are my favorite types of commenters: Nude co-eds. People who post '8===D' and nothing else. Naughty co-eds.)
To see how commenter intelligence varies across different sites, I've created a scientifical method of analysis. By choosing a single story that multiple sites have reported on--
The Development of Flesh Eating Robots--I'd be able to observe how different communities respond to the same stimulus. I'm actually pretty proud of this experiment: It's easily the most scientific thing Cracked has done since DOB had sex with that vacuum cleaner.
A brief synopsis of the Flesh Eating Robot story for those of you who've been in your robot shelters the past few weeks: Scientists working for the U.S. Government have created a robot that is capable of harvesting organic materials (plants, animals...... AND MAN
-record scratch-) and burning it as fuel for its engine. Yesterday, the CEO of the company observed that the machine would not be harvesting dead bodies, remarking, "We completely understand the public's concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population." I'd like to imagine he continued: "Now please put your weapons down," but none of the linked articles can confirm that.
Anyways, here's what our selected Internet communities thought of this:
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