Sit down for a moment commenters, we need to talk.
Yes, you all knew this post was coming one day. We’ve talked about this topic at length internally, and we have decided that we’re going to clean up our act. For some time, Hack a Day has been growing a reputation as the prime source of extremely negative, vulgar, rude, sexist, and inflammatory comments in the hacking community. We’ve had complaints from readers (yes there are readers that aren’t commenters, thousands of them) and fellow members of the hacking community about this problem for a long time. [Eliot] even mentioned it back in 2009 when a job applicant expressed concern. We’ve nicely tried to steer things to the positive in a variety of ways, from suggesting commenters to be more supportive, jokingly making a troll detector, and simply stating that the comments need to stay “on topic and nice”.
When we see things like these tweets by [Jeri Ellsworth], we hang our heads in shame.
She’s not the only one. We actually get this quite regularly. As our readership grows, we see it more and more often. We get emails explaining that people have done a hack but don’t really want to post it because the commenters will just tear it apart in an unnecessarily aggressive and negative way. We have actually had people ask us to remove their projects and comments due to uncivil behavior. Constructive criticism is good, but insulting and angry deconstruction isn’t helpful to anyone.
We’re better than that aren’t we? We are fast, agile and fairly unrestricted in our content. We should be at the center of this community, not on the outer edges, reviled by many for the behavior of a few. Hackaday should be the teacher at the front of the classroom, not the kid in the back throwing wadded up paper at the kids in the front.
What we’re doing:
First off, as far as we can foresee, we will never close the comments section of our web site down. Hackaday should be a home for the entire hacking community and as such, you will always be able to settle in and have a reasonable discussion. We do not want to implement any sort of G+ integration or similar, nor do we want to require registration to leave a comment. We will if we absolutely have to, but lets try to avoid that.
Comment sections and forums have often been a place where negative comments can get out of hand. There are many theories for why this happens, but the result is usually the same: rules and moderation. Many sites have already laid down the law and are adhering to their goals of keeping things civil. We realize that we are to blame if our image is this poor, so we are doing something about it.
From this point moving forward, Hackaday comments will be civil. If you are posting an empty in-joke (“where’s the Arduino?”), a declaration of “not a hack”, a racist, sexist, completely off topic, platform-hating, or personally insulting comment, your post will be deleted. This will be at the discretion of whichever Hackaday staff member happens to see your comment first.
Can you criticize Hackaday?
You can’t walk into a business and start screaming about how much they suck without being escorted out immediately. Same thing applies here.
We are always hard at work trying to find interesting hacks, makes, repairs, tweaks, videos, etc. that appeal to a wide spectrum of readers. We put this web site together for you, as well as 200,000 other individuals. Not everything will appeal to everybody. That would be impossible. However, if you don’t like a post or project, just skip it – we’ll have another one ready in short order. We will feature projects that appeal to the seasoned EE as well as the complete beginner. We were all beginners at one time, and it would have been great to have something like Hack a Day around back then to show us hacks ranging from simple to advanced.
From time to time however, Hack a Day can be a less than desirable place to hang out, especially for those who are coming here for the first time. We don’t want to chase off young, creative minds. As a community, we should be helping those that are just starting to venture into hacking electronics.
If you have a problem, email us. You’ll probably actually get a response that way too. My email is Caleb@ and you’re always welcome to email me personally. Again, please be civil (yep, I’ve had my share of death threats).
Grammar/spelling corrections and dead links:
No need to comment, just email us. A message to team@ will suffice, but you will probably get a quicker response by emailing the author directly. We know we have issues – we’re often so excited about a hack that some little goof slips by. Email us and we’ll fix it. Don’t write a 3 paragraph comment about how important the oxford comma is, or how we’re obviously incapable of functioning because we accidentally flubbed a word. We promise we will never intentionally screw up some grammar, spelling, or punctuation.
What you can will do to help:
Be constructive.
Every project here probably has an area that could be improved, or a part that was done inefficiently. Support your fellow hackers by offering your expertise. Explain why something isn’t working, or how you would improve it. Don’t slam them for their shortcomings. Also keep in mind that different people go about things different ways. Poster X didn’t build something the way you did? Offer an alternative without being insulting. If someone chooses to use their brand new Core i7 monster system to drive a few LEDs, that’s their prerogative. Inside, we all know that it is not the most efficient use of money or technology, there’s no reason to beat that dead horse in public.
You know what else encourages hackers to do more projects? A pat on the back. I talk to people all the time who say that they just don’t have any constructive criticism for the projects, so they don’t comment. Well, that and they know they’ll bring the ire of the worst commenters if they happen to ask a silly question. Drop in and say what you like about a project. Those positive posts might just be enough to encourage that hacker to take it a step further. How many projects have you seen dropped simply because people thought there wasn’t any interest? Tons. If you like a project, let them know.
To encourage this, the writers are going to be keeping an eye on the comments. Randomly, when we see someone being exceptionally helpful, we’ll contact them and send them a prize. This will most likely be in the form of a hackaday sticker, but we’ll see if we can’t find some other fun things as well.
Help us make Hack a Day great. Please.
[Update: we’re working on a comment flagging system currently]
[Update: threading and comment reporting have been added]
@Dax If they’re on my front lawn. Yes. They pay to use this space, and have a right to moderate as they please. If you wish to have that right, use your own space.
long time reader, 1st time commenter.
FINALLY! THANK YOU H.A.D. !!!
… buuut id prefer hiding comments like yahoo news. MAYBE START A MODERATED THREAD ON THAT ;P
BUT as long as some1 HUMAN can delete all the kids that have never hooked a motor to a battery, i might post a few of my nuggets here in future. either way im happy i will get to read more technical discussions instead of being disappointed in all the uselessness.
@staff: i hav a feeling there was a previous post that may have been (unfortunately) true, this changeover should be gradual to allow ad-$ to decrease-increase instead of just decrease-ing, to prevent temporary funding gaps? idk.
I like it, there is no reason we can not disagree without resorting to childish behavior and rude comments. I am glad Hackaday is taking a stand against rude comments and vulgarity. I share many of the projects with my young son and do not need him reading any rude or vulgar comments, i don’t watch movies or listen to music with that kind of language and usually avoid the comments section here for the same reason. GOOD JOB GUYS. :)
Thanks. I look forward to chatting to people about projects here more!
I’ve been reading posts on this website since I accidentally stumbled on to it while in Iceland in 2004. I’ve been skipping reading comments since about the first or second day coming here. I have never posted before because I never figured a “good job” would even be noticed by most of these hackers. That and I’ve never been able to do anything like this once I finally got the time to try due to money being an issue. Joking should NEVER be shunned as long as it is tasteful. Don’t get me wrong H.a.D. I’m not saying you can’t put a stop to all joking on *your* website, however this is what it seems like you’re saying in one of your “what will be done” to remedy the situation statements. If you get too serious, you will lose just as many readers and possibly some hackers. You are not responsible for some undesirable person choosing to be an ingrate and posting something hateful. The person that posted it is. I hope this is taken as advice not anything else: Don’t be like a government office. Don’t punish everyone for the mistake of one person. There are ways of dealing with an individual’s misconduct without having to force people to sign up such as banning the email address they used to comment. That being said, I appreciate that there is a place like this on the internet even if I cannot participate anymore than reading about it at this time. I appreciate the fact that people out there take time to maintain this website, that people allow you to post their hacks here, and that they do the things they do in order to make something they need or want.
Let’s do an experiment: comments are allowed only by whom has project published, in HaD, Instructables or other public place which allows comments… :D. After all, are we or not, a hacking community?
i would be interested in a graph showing the percentage of troll/flame/rude comments by country.
are there certain areas in the world where troll comments come from most?
@octel
“This is a (publicly readable) blog operated by a private organization. It is not publicly owned, operated, or funded.”
It doesn’t have to be.
The way this place operates makes it analogous to any old town square. It is a public “place”.
@DivePeak We’re not talking about personal property here. If we were, there would already be a system in place to keep out people who were not a “memeber” of this site. And yes, as a matter of fact, I CAN say whatever i want in your house. Same as you have the ability to kick me out. That’s exactly my point. Once it’s been said, it’s there and that’s that. What HAD is proposing is going back and removing it, and pretending like it didn’t happen. Instead, kick me out of their house. I know and you know if I berated you in your own home, you’d throw me out, but it wouldn’t change the way you feel nor would it remove it from the memory of anyone who’d been there at the time. HAD can’t remove it from people’s memory, but they can hide it and say it didn’t happen. I for one am not for that.
Troll sniffing rat is going to be busy…
What happens when Anons post a link to this article on twitter or 4chan?
You know this is a red flag for that stuff…welcoming you to the intertubes.
@DivePeak
@Alan
If you don’t want just anybody walking in and saying stuff, don’t have your door open to just everybody.
Don’t let the rain in and the complain that your carpet gets wet.
The owners have the technical right to do whatever they want, but they can still be in the wrong in they way they conduct themselves and this forum.
Good job, HaD!
Just because we have the “freedom of speech” doesn’t mean we have the right to post slander in the form of “free abuse”.
And for the record – I like Jeri Ellsworth’s EE videos and projects! She’s awesome!
…and Caleb — I stopped picking on ya after the taser video — you took one for the team, and it made up for the shoe phone incident. ;)
Keep up the good work HaD — been reading for years!
Finally… Maybe the Arduinos can live on this site without being hated to death now (good thing).
But “comment deletion” only is not going to keep the trolls away. Make a 3 strike IP ban. Many readers here know how to avoid such a thing, but at some point they probably get tired of changing IP’s.
Or even better require registration with email validation.
I am disappointed about this decision. In the old usenet the “comments” have been often more rude than here. I don’t like these beeing nice policies. When you submit something to the public you have to tolerate criticism. I don’t like sexist and racist comments, too. But I think it is overreacting to delete posts containing “platform hating” comments or when they contain “its not a hack ” or “wheres the arduino”. In my eyes this is childish. I don’t have to read comments I don’t like. Often negative criticism is the dung for successful growing. This is not a pet site and my experience is that a negative commenting style is often used by commenters on sites with technical content.
WOO HOO
Thank you Hackaday for a turn for the better
@Matt
I request that your use of noob be changed to newb. Noob is used as a derogatory comment in the gaming community to sneakily insult someone. While largely believed to mean the same thing as newb, it does not. A noob is someone who doesn’t listen to others and clearly doesn’t know what they are doing/talking about. Since I’ve been there for a long time now, I understand that a lot of people DON’T know that this really is what noob means. From my experiences (early MMO, quake3, Unreal Tournament, etc.), it has never been a substitute for newb, but has been claimed as such so that the insultors (sp?) can continue to insult someone and get a laugh out of it. Please note, I am not claiming you are, in particular, using it in this manner. However, it is how something is perceived, not how it is intended, that causes problems. I also understand that there is no edit button, and simply mean for you to please change it in future posts. Thanks for your time.
Well, I have to agree, it has been getting way, way out of hand lately, so I for one, welcome the change.
RobK….
…wat?
@Harald
“This is not a pet site and my experience is that a negative commenting style is often used by commenters on sites with technical content.”
Like I said above, it’s often not even explicitly negative, but simply contrarian. (Problem being that thin skinned people don’t see the difference)
Don’t do this, do that.
Point being that it opens up an argument and the question why should you do this when you could do that, or why the latter is actually a worse idea.
The difficulty is in the fact that people with the feelgood pat on the back mentality understand as constructive criticism simply pointing out other solutions and improvements. And you cannot cannot cannot point out what is wrong with the original solution and why it needs to be remedied or you’re being “negative and mean”.
@RobK:
Thanks for pointing that out. Had no idea there was a difference :-/
I’m not in the gaming community (never have been) and had always heard them referred to as the same thing.
I’ll keep that in mind in the future.
I never had problems with the comment (of course I browse /b/ and read youtube comments so comparatively everything here is mild)
I find them entertaining, and elightening. Its just the kind of community I like, raw uncensored, the good, the bad AND the ugly
If you say something bad about HaD, we will delete your comment….
why dont HAD actually listen to negative comments for once instead making pretend land
The great wall of HaD.
You must not be negative about anything.
You must not point out our flaws
You must obey you must obey you must obey
About time. I gave up looking at the comments ~2007. All the armchair experts came out and the trolling grew. It’s about time something was done.
Regarding the “safety patrol” kind of comments — some of them maybe painfully obvious to most of us, but if a hack is potentially dangerous, I think it should be acceptable, and even encouraged, to point out these potential dangers.
If these “safety patrol” comments save a SINGLE twelve year old from losing an eye, arm, or accidentally killing themselves, then they are all worth it, in my opinion.
Text is cheap. Body parts are not.
I have zero problems with the “safety pa(troll)”
i started hack-a-day this is 100% great, hack-a-day team, great work!
Unfortunately I can see this just driving away commenters. Heavy handed moderation is not the answer.
Welcome to the internet. That’s kinda how things work here.
I’ve never seen a single racist comment on here. Let alone enough to consider it a “problem”. As for the other things that are being mentioned, again, this is the internet.
HaD isn’t so popular because it posts such amazing hacks and certainly not for the quality of its write ups. Half the reason its so popular is because of the comments. I can get everything HaD has to offer elsewhere, at a better quality. But I come to HaD because of the funny comment section.
If I come here and all I see is dick sucking comments then I’ll know it’s complete BS and wont be coming back.
@therian: Um, Hackaday DID listen to negative feedback, and they ACTED on it. Hence this moderation policy.
To all of you in opposition to this policy, I say: Go create your own hack-related aggregate site and do it your way! If you can do it better, people will flock to it and you’ll be famous.
Sure, I’d like to see a rating system, but as Caleb said, they don’t have the resources. If you really want such a system, maybe donate some resources. Just sayin’
“Be the change you seek in your world” -Ghandi
I’ve never noticed any outright racism but i know that can be some very rude comments. I’ve been in some flat out arguments with some people defending the arduino as a platform.(although not nearly as bad as the comments on sparkfun about the new labview interface for arduino yikes!). Fortunately the arduino haters have either calmed down or moved on.
I just hope that you don’t take the moderation to far. Remember “Moderation in Moderation” Yes if somebody says “this sucks” then delete it, but please be careful this could turn out to be a slippery slope. Like Matt said even negative comments can be helpful if as long as they are not just rude comments.
As for the the spelling and grammar. I’ve never complained about it. I’m not that great at grammar so I have no right to complain, and if i find a spelling error I might have posted about it before but never in a derogatory way. No offense to HAD but this is not a “Professional” website. This is a site for hackers. If you were publishing papers for IEEE then spelling and grammar would be important but not necessarily here.
@Dax
@RobZilla
OK, points taken.
Personally I’d prefer not to have to register to post. I would register, but others who have something useful to say wouldn’t and we’d miss out on that contribution.
As far as moderating comments goes, I’d prefer them to be replaced with a “comment deleted” type of post rather than leaving them be or deleting with no record of the deletion.
‘Bout time!
Well done Hackaday. This is my first ever post, but I’ve been a fan of the site for a couple of years now, and I like the broad definition you have of hacking – it means you cover some really interesting things that other sites might miss.
Be careful not to delete critical comments that are constructive however – we don’t want just a load of “cool project” comments – they should have some substance.
But keep up the good work.
Lets see how many of these “first comment!” and “I haven’t posted before because…” continue to post after a week.
really great article, much needed.
@Dax
You are absolutely right. The comments at a lot of maker sites are often only boring. I like the contrarian commenting style (a much better word than negative).
Just member this: Free speech does not give you the right to be insulting or condescending.
If I put a nickel in a sock for every junk project I’ve seen on HaD, you would be wise to duck when I was swinging it around.
Should we encourage these brilliant engineers to take their wrist-mounted-spring-loaded-box-cutter-with-firework-mortar-launcher to “the next level” with positive comments and accolades? No, we should ask ourselves HOW ASININE AND IRRESPONSIBLE PROJECTS CONTINUALLY MAKE IT TO THE FRONT PAGE OF HACKADAY.
(Go read through the archives if you don’t like my capslock.)
Hacker culture has always been to use pseudonyms, so the focus remains on the work product. Jeri makes her videos to mug for the camera and get posts on her social networking profiles.
“ooh jeri ur so smart and pritty lol im in luv <3"
She could just as easily release anonymously, so she has no grounds for complaint. When you divulge personal information, you open yourself to personal attacks. In the meantime, can we stop with the white knighting? Your thin skin is your problem, and your boss isn't going to mollycoddle you if your ideas suck.
Matt's post has the right ideas, let's not foster acceptance of mediocrity. Not everyone is a winner, and I'd rather this site went back to one good post a day and leave the rest on the cutting room floor.
I am really tempted to complain about how there is no arduino used in this article.
But seriously I can understand removing vulgar and hateful comments but some of the jokes are priceless, and in most cases expected.
Also the negative or I would have done it like this comments maybe arrogant but at the same time they give readers another approach to solve the problem.
“I use a spoon to spread peanut butter on my toast”
Comment— Whoa man! I would use a knife, it is simpler and you waste less peanut butter…
Then when someone searches for an article on spreading peanut butter they get 2 possible ways of doing it, because perhaps there is no spoon?
Way to go! Been a HaD reader for years. Great stuff! Always hated the comments, though. You deserve a supportive and inspiring community. Be vigilant.
Finally. Next time one of my projects is featured, I won’t cringe and ignore the comments.
Frankly I’ve only read the comments a few times, and having never seen this behavior before I’m shocked outright that the Hackaday community of all places could be so harsh (Okay, not really shocked, knowing the internet, but more disappointed.)
I welcome the more active moderation, but sincerely hope that we can continue to have criticism, though obviously of the less douchey variety.
Get Rid of Negative COmments Finally:)
As someone that has contributed articles to HaD and someone who honestly tries to be helpful and make instructive project posts, I would be happy to see the “that’s stupid I did one and it was so easy but I am not going to help you or post my own build” posts go away.
I agree with an above post that the youtube mark as spam button would be a good idea, the community could help police the comments and take a load off of the staff at HaD.
@Stevie
“I’ve never seen a single racist comment on here.”
Your lack of awareness is irrelevant. Racist, sexist, homophobic, and other types of nasty comments come up quite often here.
“If I come here and all I see is dick sucking comments then I’ll know it’s complete BS and wont be coming back.”
“Dick sucking comments”
You’re the kind of person who this policy targets. Please, make good on your promise and GTFO.
Well, I certainly learned a lot this evening! I didn’t know what “trolling” was, had never heard of Jeri Ellsworth, and didn’t know what danger I was in had I posted a hack!
Guess I’m less of a noob, now!
I think HAD is great, I think the trolls need help, and I’m totally supportive of anything that increases the info to noise ratio.
And I’ve just been watching JE YouTubes and I think she’s wonderful. But then, as a 63 year old who started programming first generation machines in raw machine code, 40+ years ago, I guess I don’t have the sorts of insecurities that frighten the trollers into their silly sexism, etc.
Go HAD!
@octel: Well no doubt you’re a yank who believes all the government bs and how you’re in the land of the free. So free that you can’t even play poker online and so free that the gov takes international domains without even having a court case. So yeah, it doesn’t surprise me that you don’t mind this oppression being imposed on HaD.
Fantastic news. An end to the snotty childish comments would be very welcome. Sometimes there seems to be more trolls than comments.
@octel: what, because he said “dick”? why are you being so offensive? can you see the irony?
There is a single answer for several of the complaints made above:
Problem: HaD features lame and boring hacks.
Solution: Make your own site and fill it with awesome, mind-blowing hacks every single day (because this is apparently easy).
Problem: This is censorship and anti free speech.
Solution: This is America. Make your own site.
Problem: HaD editors make too many spelling and grammatical errors.
Solution: Make you’re own sight.
Problem: I enjoy being contrarian simply because I hate myself and I want others to feel as bad about themselves as I do.
Solution: Make your own self-loathing website and fill it with endless, rambling tracts about exactly nothing.
Some of you need to get over yourselves. HaD owes you nothing.