Comments are the lifeblood of TechCrunch, and we love ‘em. But we also get our share of the freaks, conspiracy theorists and jerks out there who have something to say and believe they have a constitutional or God given right to say it, right here. The author thinks they’re funny and insightful, but when we see the same comment over and over (and over) again, we fail to laugh.
Ten of our least favorite comment types are below. Which one are you?
- “Slow news day?” - Typically left on stories that the reader thinks are boring, not newsworthy or off topic. A recent example is the Britney on Twitter story - early on someone made this insightful comment and the story ended up with 112 comments. This comment is left at least once per day on some story, and usually multiple times per day. We usually delete them.
We haven’t had a slow news day at TechCrunch, ever. I always have a list of ten or more posts to write, and am just looking for the time to get to them. If a story is on the site, it means we want it to be there.
- “TechCrunch is really going downhill lately.” - First left in 2005, a couple of months after the blog launched. Seen daily since then.
- [random trolling, often with a wish that we'd die or are unethical in some way] - We get lots of these, and delete as many of them as we can. But first we check the IP address against previous comments left on the site. About once a month we see a really nasty anonymous comment that’s left by an IP address that had always been used by a single named commenter before that. Most of the time we had just posted a critical review of the person’s company right before the comment was left.
We don’t publish the real names of these people, but I do keep a list of people that seem to be really disturbed in some way. It’s often funny to see them at an event, acting like they really think TechCrunch is great.
If you are going to say something nasty, use your real name or learn about the magic of proxy servers
- “SoAndSo already did this” - A comment left when the reader believes that the new service we are describing is not a new idea, and therefore shouldn’t be given any attention. The problem is that there is very rarely a brand new idea. Instead, most of the products we review are iterations on what’s come before. And sometimes a new product tries to tackle the same problem that someone else has in a new way.
While it’s worth pointing out other products that are similar or relevant to new ones, it isn’t interesting to simply suggest they are a copycat of something else. If we’re covering it, we think it’s interesting or unique in some way.
- “Nice journalism…where’s the balance?” This comment, which comes in many forms, criticizes us for writing a one-sided story. People are used to reading old media, where journalists don’t write their opinions. Instead, they get sources to say what they want. I’ve seen this first hand - being interviewed for half an hour or more on a topic and then seeing a single, misleading quote in the finished product.
We don’t strive to be balanced. We strive to be correct. And we don’t try to trick the reader by making them think some source said something they really didn’t.
- “How much did the company pay you to write this post?” This is a conspiracy theory comment, bred in the minds of people who only see evil in the world. Think through this for a moment…if we ever asked for or received payment for a post, how long would it take for someone to talk? We are stubbornly independent, and our opinions are our own. If someone offered to pay us for a post, we’d just publish the offer immediately and humiliate the company.
When it comes to advertisers, we have a strict ethical wall between sales and editorial, just like “real” media. You can buy ads all you like on TechCrunch, but it won’t get you editorial coverage.
- “What’s your problem with [Company X]“ - Often left when we critically cover Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL or Google. Most recently it’s been Yahoo, which has been mismanaged beyond negligence this year. These comments are particularly funny when its alter ego (see immediately below) is written after a positive story on the same company.
I write what I think, and then I write why I think it. If you disagree, great. But that doesn’t mean there is a conspiracy theory to trash a company unfairly.
- “You are such a Yahoo/Microsoft/Google/AOL shill.” - This is Yin to no. 7’s Yang. What’s really entertaining is watching the comments on a negative post on a company and seeing something like this, when a day or two earlier the opposite comment was left on a positive post about the same company.
- “I hope you die/I’m going to kill you” - These comments happen more often than you’d think. More on that in a later post. In one awesome example we got a non-anonymous death threat from a startup engineer. When I sent it to the CEO, he said “ah, that’s just him, he’s a little strange. Hey, when are you going to cover our new product?” To this day we haven’t mentioned that startup again on TechCrunch. There are lines that shouldn’t be crossed, and threatening to kill any of our writers, my dog, or my family is one of them.
- “Unsubscribed!” - A comment left after we’ve expressed an opinion counter to what the reader believes. Saying they are unsubscribing is their way of showing that they think we deserve a decline in readership. Our counter is to ban certain readers, most of whom get apoplectic and fail to realize that we have no way of stopping people from reading the site’s content.
We can live with a few readers unsubscribing out of anger from time to time, it shows we’re at least keeping things interesting. If you really think we’re derailing, leave a reasonable comment saying why you think so. We listen closely to those.
Bonus: “You deleted my comment!” - left after someone has said something spammy, hateful or ridiculously stupid. The reader then comes back and complains that we’ve violated their right to free speech and are censoring them. Besides the fact that they’ve confused us with the U.S. government and their constitutional rights, they’re generally unwelcome and quickly get an IP block.
See all
Post
You are such a TechCrunch shill
what happened to the “Customer is always right”?
I agree with most of ur counter feedback to your feedbackers… and i love to you care so much about the comments you get here.
@Dan An old colleague of mine had a saying, “The customer is always right… maybe just not right now.”
Lol… TechCrunch is really going downhill lately
Internet comments are a beautiful thing - the only time you get to see people’s inside voice.
Don’t you hate it when people reply to one of the first few comments with a totally irrelevant comment, just because they know it will be seen more prominently?
That sucks.
But.. it works!
“Anonymous comments are the purest form of criticism.”
- anonymous
Welcome to the TMZ of Tech
11. Phantom Haters, Drive-By Haters that spew ridiculous rants about other peoples comments. they dont have the integrity to identify themselves or share a product or service of there own. im sure some probably work for TC.
12. locator dudes- they are passionate bloggers/businessmen/investors/entrepreneurs/visionaires that put there money where there mouth is.
“a man of character stands behind what he says and does …cowards hide behind it.”
CharacterLocator.com
Michael Arrington, why do you let this guy crap all over your site with his spam. Seriously.
Locator dudes- Proof that TC does not give a shit about crap comments.
TC’s all time biggest comment spammer is complaining about the lack of integrity and character of other commenters.
Did someone say IronyLocator.com ?
I’m getting to this post very late, but as soon as I read it… I couldn’t help but think of that Locator Dude. Sure enough he’s here.
If there is anyone who’s been in sore need of a banning, it’s him. I get the feeling that Locator Dude brings a smile to Arrington’s face.
Resubscribed!
Yet Locator Spams all over this site? Why doesn’t he get deleted?
wow. I really expected “slow news day?” to be the first comment.
I’m genuinely gutted that slow news wasn’t the first comment! good article!
If I’d gotten here earlier, you’d have gotten that first comment.
Yeah I’ve noticed comments seem to be going downhill lately.
I expected “First!” to be the first comment, although you probably remove those anyway.
Having already been outdone (was gonna go for “slow news day”- It’s early, I haven’t had coffee yet, and I actually thought I’d be the first person to think of that), I briefly considered finding a way to fit all 10 into a paragraph. Alas, 7 and 8 don’t work well together, and 9 isn’t funny, even in parody.
It _was_ probably the first comment, but it promptly got deleted and the user’s IP address banned.
Slow news day?
TC is really going downhill lately.
The lack of ethics inherent in this article about other people’s lack of ethics is quite astounding.
You are such a Google shill.
I really *don’t* hope you die, since putting that much passion into it would mean that I care. I don’t.
Please ban me,
Please ban me,
Please ban me -
MA says he wants to can me
That my non-spammy critique
Is undoin’ TC’s fine mystique!
Please can me,
Please can me,
Please can me!
Because damn it, I really don’t care. There are more IPs and user names where these came from- not that I’d bother using them anyway - it all depends.
Unsubscribed? Sure. Why not?
There is nothing to subscribe to. Your RSS feed? Come on.
And just to pre-empt you:
You deleted my comment? Hot damn.
Have I pretty much covered all the bases?
Don’t you get bored of the people commenting as someone else in some kind of “Fake Steve Jobs” takeoff?
After moderating thousands of comments, I don’t think it’s about boredom, it’s about looking for stuff that could get you banned from Google.
What about the, un-related traffic whore:
“First sentence is a bullshit comment somewhat related to the article with no substance. The next 3 sentences are about their product, which has nothing to do with the post really. Comment usually ends with the URL of the company”
yes. that’s no. 11 on the list.
Hey that’s my type of comment!!!
Jay (http://www.konsulted.com)
“Some of our weaknesses are born in us, others are the result of education; it is a question which of the two gives us most trouble.”
Mike, grab a pad and call it a bad PMS day.
Special request of Sir Michael of Arrington.
Would you mind terribly if I asked you to spend a few precious
minutes redirecting a few No. 9’s toward Rob (the very brave or very stupid)?
let’s bring some humor into the fold.
Here’s a pix of an entreprenuer pitching a VC.
http://www.ofb.net/~epstein/sl.....6-butt.jpg
What’s with those very nasty blog posts on Valleywag as of late.
Some are downright vicious ?-(
Good stuff. You can’t please all of the people all of the time, it seems.
must be a slow news day for this downhill-riding blog with a deathwish to be doing something that’s already done on other crappy spam blog sites with more journalistic integrity. i bet someone paid you guys to write this worthless tirade, probably that retarded youtube-wannabe loic from seesmic. god, what’s your problem with twitter? i hope you die by means of jerry yang accidentally running you over while he’s pissed drunk from being fired.
i never subscribed in the first place.
Subscribed!
you forgot 11
Anything said by “silicon valley drop out”
I kid I kid! (mostly)
TechCrunch is really going downhill lately. I mean, commenting on your own comments? Really, writing an article about your own site is so unethical. And it’s not even original! Special Kind of Stupid was talking about the kind of comments they get just last week. Where’s your balance, TechCrunch? Where’s the journalistic integrity? Why aren’t you writing about the kind of comments they get!?
Honestly, Arrington, how much are they paying you to write about this site? You’re such a TechCrunch shill. It just makes me want to kill you, and all of your houseplants, when you write this kind of crap. Was it a slow news day? Or could you just not find an excuse to bash on TechCrunch, like you usually do, covering it up with thinly veiled platitudes about how good it is.
Whatever, man. Unsubscribed!
lol I can’t work out if this was done as a joke or more than a little ironic :p
You forgot to leave a URL. How about URLLocator.com?
I knew someone will beat me in writing a collage comment like this.
how much did hendrickson pay you to write this post?
really interesting post.people really enjoy this.Pinch here
http://www.iboozi.com
lol…Total spam post right there
Hahaha, I don’t comment often, in fact, this is my 2nd comment here, but I think I’ll be a …. techcrunch is going downhill guy =D
What are the top 10 comments that you do find insightful are helpful?
Really!, be positive, man.
10 things that piss me off in my avg. work day.
Good question, Peter.
I would be interested in that too.
Best post ever - on so many levels.
haha . Was thinking if someone would come up with something like this. BTW, check you archives . Oct 19 ** the same day with the so-called-Britney-on-twitter ** and Oct 18 seemed a little less on posts side .
i have to start strategizing my comments so they dont keep getting deleted.
Mike, I liked your closing graf, especially “they’ve confused us with the U.S. government and their constitutional rights” that’s eff’ing funny. The stupidity of some ppl just floors me.
Sounds like you’re whining. You delete negative posts? That’s awful you didn’t even mention spam. And I, for one, will not stand for this calling out of perfectly legit posts. You should be happy when someone says a news story is boring. It’s free advice from your readers.Threatening your reader base is good too.
yeah, you’re banned.
negative comments are fine. negative comments that are boring and/or threatening are deleted.
LOL this cracks me up
Hmm… nice post but other sites already did this (and where’s the balance?).
—
I think ‘unsubscribed!’ is one of the best: especially when you happen to hear it many times from the same folks…
good
The best part of this post was right in the middle and to some, might seem like table stakes:
“We don’t strive to be balanced. We strive to be correct.”
So many say it. So few do it.
Keep on keepin’ it real.
I’m banned.
Maybe you don’t get them here, but FIRST!!!111 seems to be popular elsewhere. They think it’s even more amusing when they clearly won’t be the first commenter….
Sometimes a perfectly loyal reader thinks you’ve jumped the shark. Ah har har.
Does this sound a little like this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmvkRoEowc
slow news day?
sure is
Weird Al, is that you?
Don’t you ever get people trying to punt their porn companies in comments to you?
Hehe, this is a funny post. I like the irony of the “blog going downhill” comments starting back in 2005. You must be on one big ass hill.
yeah, it’s by Sand Hill Rd — greatest road of (dis)illusionment.
Is that where W got ahold of enough “illusionment” for the 2000 and 2004 elections? VCs really _are_ evil.
what happened to the “Customer is always right”?
I agree with most of ur counter feedback to your feedbackers… and i love to you care so much about the comments you get here.
Whoever said “the customer is always right” never had any customers or had a loose definition of what a “customer” should be.
Try that trick with your doctor some time.
Funny how we rely on sites like TC to bring us info, but somehow any moron who can hit the broad side of a submit button is magically “correct” because they can punch a few buttons. What a world.
Nice post Mike!
The customer is the advertiser, not the visitor. If visitors disrupt the site or create an unpleasant side to the community, it puts advertisers off. I can’t think of anyone less likely to buy anything from anyone than a comment troll.
“The customer is always right” belonged to the honeymoon phase. It’s now a ‘real relationship’ between brands and customer. As in the dreaded ‘honey we have to sit down and talk’ phase
*shrugs* Brands took a “customer is always right” view because they couldn’t hear their voices normally.
@Daniel you are wrong. No customers, no advertisers. Unless you think a newspaper doesn’t have reader customers? If we the reader aren’t buying - with that social currency, ‘attention’ - then advertisers won’t come either. And advertisers will go wherever the numbers are - even the trolliest of blogs - because they are eyeball whores, not custodians of good taste. Perez Hilton anyone? Or is that Perez Arrington?
Your dog before your family?
Great post!
Michael you are a such Troll.
Try going to other people blogs and see how you will be treated!
I think that these types of comments are almost standards right now, although that one with killing you or your dog is pretty lame.
I’m with you Michael. Although I don’t always agree with your perspectives, I come back daily to check the news and find out useful stuff. Thanks for sharing!
I think its so cool that you write in your open and straight forward way. But I fail to find the purpose of this article. I guess you want more quality in your commments. Maybe you should have ended the article with some message to all readers with your goal for this article. Or was it just a fun way of reacting to all the bad comments you get?
It seems to me that there are two distinct classes of comments you mention here. Those that make a fair point, albeit sarcastically, and those that don’t.
Comments of type 1,2 & 10 are all expressing the author’s opinion that the article was in some way a non-story.
Those of type 5,6,7,8 express the opinion that the article was biased.
And 4 indicates a similar service which adds depth to the article. All of these seem to be valid points to make. OK, the author might be better off making their point in less emotive language, but you know what they’re trying to say, so surely if you invite comments, you should accept this criticism.
It’s only 3 & 9 that would appear to be offensive and without merit.
You must get a lot of spam per day.
Don’t you use Akismet?
TC switched to TypePad AntiSpam a while ago:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008.....m-fighter/
I don’t remember seeing news it TC having switched away from TPAS.
If you want to see a comparison between TPAS, Akismet, and two other comment spam fighters, see:
http://changingway.org/2008/05.....-the-trio/
By the way, I think that the link to my own blog is cool and insightful, but others may differ. I won’t sully my keyboard by stating their pitiful arguments. I don’t strive to be balanced. I strive to be correct.
I always like the “unsubscribe” comment in real life, by text message, or by email. It’s totally trollish and people don’t expect it. As a comment on a blog it’s no good because your post is to an audience, not just to one person.
Who reads comments anyway!
This post seems so pretentious, like a kid in the school ground who thinks is more clever than anyone else and is sooo in your face, you just want to punch them don’t you.
Mean man, Don’t Be Mean Man
If one writes a comment, it might as well be thought through and well argumented, so this post is right on target.
However, even though I wholeheartedly agree with all the points made, I’m sure I’ve posted comments equally stupid at one time or another, thinking at the time that it was clever.
Beer can do that to you.
Also, we are not all writers.
Forgive and you shall be forgiven, because stupid or rash comments will probably appear now and again for as long as you allow comments.
What you could add is a delete button, because sometimes the stupidity only becomes clear to you once it’s to late to take back.
If one could delete one’s own comments, I’m sure a lot of crap would vanish from the comments all by itself.
@Mike:
#4 on the list - So & so did this already may not necessarily mean a negative comment on the originality of the product or the repetition in coverage. It could just end up complimenting or completing the article if the service in comment is relevant to the article.
I totally loved the ‘payment for review’ link. But is that the only one under the table offer you got so far ?
I hate dog killers! I’m gonna kill em. LOL. Just kidding. Very insightful article. I never imagined that you guys are getting comments like that. I’ll accept those kind of comments anytime. It’s better than getting “nice post” comments.
I like the one where the commentor is rude as hell while behind the screen and then friendly in person. They usually experienced lots of ass kickings on the playground during their childhood!!!
Personally I’d add the following to the list:
11. Comments from *Locator.com
12. Comments from Chris at Beerco/Orgii
13. Comments from myself
hey wait..
I second that 11th one !
Third! Down with SeriousInterwebzBusinessLocator.com.
Absolutely with you regarding IdiotLocator… Granted, I just ignore them, but I still have to scroll past them.
Mike,
I have always used my real name, and you can track my record that i have been a TechCrunch fan from day one.
However, i have to admit you my opinion has slipped lately:
I was one of the winners of the PicWing social experiment, and still have not received my t-shirt.
Also, you had a recent auction for the Chrome Comic books, and I was one of the final bidders. I would have bid much more, but never received a response from several of my questions. I beleive you could have gottne much higher bids if you just had someone watch the thread
slow news day??
haha! sorry i had to say that. yeah, it really annoys me when people just that. people forget that its a blog. i think these people come from new york times
anyway, great post! keep it up!
@Mike Do we readers have the right to view the comments you think are boring? Like in the form of Digg that you bury those spam comments and if we are interested and have the time we can un-bury them?
I trust you personally that you won’t hide anything other than true spams, but I do trust better procedure more.
In the distance, I see the Slashcode download site getting DDOSed by TC staff.
- TC is too serious for MY PERSONAL liking! We can click pretty widgets to kill time, after all ;D
Seriously, we need to see the crap
Ah back to this post! TC’s not going downhill, it driving ME up the wall, and since I’m the Lord of the Rings, you better listen to me or else…
But you can’t doubt that TC is a superb communication instrument.
WIsh you TC geeks had a big red bleeding heart ;D
what a great site, what unnessary self indulgence…….
Entry #5 made me laugh out loud in despair. At the risk of misunderstanding it, are you saying you’d be in some way superior to the “old media” because you add opinion to your pieces? (Old media of course offer opinion too, but *good* old media marks opinion as such, and leaves the regular reporting as balanced and objective as possible.) You’re of course correct, you throw in your personal opinion all the time - which is exactly the problem with blogs. Unbalanced “reporting” is a violation of one of the most fundamental work ethics principles of journalism, in fact it isn’t journalism at all, but rather commentary or, at its worst, propaganda. Like we need any more demagogues.
“We don’t strive to be balanced. We strive to be correct.” is a really lovely soundbite, but really nothing more. Because, in all fairness, an awful lot of the time you’d be so much more correct, trustworthy, credible, if you were more balanced. Or just in any way balanced.
Yes, it’s much better to have science or tech reporters who flunked algebra, or reporters who can’t properly quote a source and choose, instead, to craft the quote to fit their story which was based on a preconception but never logically analyzed nor supported by evidence. Yes, please, sign us up for more of THAT!
Blogs are what they are, and it’s a big world. I think you assume superiority in the same way many journalists assume their product is somehow better because they are backed up by an editorial staff. Sure, that doesn’t mean they are always right or check facts (I encourage you to look up Jordan Golson’s article about iPhones in D.C. as reported by “The Hill”), but they are pedigreed journalists, so naturally we must all bow to their glory and might. Right?
Since the stated goal is the truth as seen by TechCrunch, I think the phrase should be fair and unbalanced. That would be the truth.
Truth by definition needs no balance.
But I am just a lurker.
A journalist writes about what he thinks other people will be interested in, a bloggers writes what they are passionate about.
“ethics of journalism”
ROFLMAO!
I heard the Loch Ness Monster was photographed recently….