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]
(crap, i wasn’t the first to think of the obligatory xkcd)
Is there a separate page where the new guidelines are listed?
Clear dot points with a (very) short description of each would be nice. We don’t really need a huge condescending post where you baby the entire HaD community over the actions of a few. What are new commenters meant to do?
Keep it short and sterile (cut out the crap). Throw a link on the front page and another below the comments section with a message that reads “Please read our commenting guidelines before sharing your opinion.”.
Finally, enforce your new guidelines.
On a side note:
Is this the result of the mess over in the AVR power-saving thread?
PT was clearly in the wrong, starting with his over-reaction to the smallest criticism.
It’s ridiculous that he praises his own level of customer service while responsding to all those people in such a discourteous way.
Won’t somebody think about the busloads of Simpsons-esque Supercilious Comic Book Guy types? Where will they go if they can’t snark it up in the Hack-a-Day comments?
@at those who say its all going to be nothing but lovey dovey comments….
Constructive critisms are ok, and encouraged, and helpful. Like, if you did it this way you’d use les i/o pins.
Not…Hey it sucks. I wont say why it sucks so you can improve it, and I wont post my own hack that shows how to do it.
The owners of hack aday are the owners of hackaday. As such, if they listen to our sugestions, nice but it’s their show. What they choose to gives us is their descion. Anyone that doesn’t like it can go elsewhere if it bothers them so much. As for who hit the nail on the head? PT and HaD. I have a feeling the others hit the nail on their finger. It seems that the biggest objectors are the ones most likely to troll the place. Tough. It’s not the trolls that make this place great. It’s all the awesome hacks. It seems there is a too large number of people that think finding faults or issues=being a jerk, or that competition must mean war. Or forgetting there is something called colaberation and helping.
I still don’t understand why HAD doesn’t use disqus. It works really well and its available on a bunch of other sites. It requires registration but that’s kind of the point. Its still anonymous short of some kind of hacking done to disqus.
I can understand allowing total anonymity on some kind of political blog or even places like Slashdot where a lot of real discussion happens (well, and lots of crap), but this is just a hack blog, and we’re mostly just commenting on the article at hand. I don’t see why we need to have total anonymity in any kind of free speech way. It just doesn’t seem worth it here given the type of conversation and the real problems associated with anonymous comments.
I am saddened that you know longer trust me to decide for my self who is an idiot. Flaming has long been an internet activity. Hacking is physical proof that authority(as in the authority of the designer/business owner / marketer) is fallible. The hacked item is improved, even if only in the mind of the hacker.
Freedom. Freedom of expression and the freedom to openly share ideas is what the Hacking community is about. The hackaday website is yours to control as you see fit and has been a tremendous asset for us all.
I am deeply saddened Hackaday turn to the fascist control of censorship because someone might be offended. Are so certain that you have all the right answers and your views are the only correct ones? Why do you believe that the community can no longer determine if a post is just malicious stupidity or an attempt to express an alternative view?
There are a couple disturbing things I see in this comment thread (as I’ve read every post for the past day):
1) Many people (on both sides of the discussion) posting their opinion without first reading the thoughts of others. Many thoughts here are repeated dozens of times because people didn’t take the time to read before opening their mouths. To me, that makes the signal-to-noise ratio even worse than negative comments alone. If you support an idea, I think a simple “+1 so-and-so-poster” would suffice in most cases, rather than regurgitating the same ideas over and over again. This is really common sense and respect for other peoples’ time.
2) Many people are claiming that they’ve never posted before because of the trolls, but claiming that they want the trolls to go away. I sincerely doubt most of the folks that have been “not posting because of the trolls” will begin posting regularly anytime soon. If that were the case, the trolls would have been overrun by positive posts years ago. For the sake of HaD, I hope that the majority of people that have been posting in the past are in the “this is a great idea!” camp rather than the “this is threatening to change the site I enjoy visiting and drive me away” camp.
So, as some have suggested, I’ll be watching to see how this plays out. But I don’t think I’ll be suddenly seeing dozens of comments from people that have never posted before. People are what they are; if they’re too lazy to spend a few minutes reading others’ thoughts and typing their own opinions into the computer, they’re not going to suddenly start because the mean people suddenly leave.
Just food for thought.
I see now, the AVR power saving article… I have completely missed it. So, the entire shitstorm is because someone can’t handle fairly deserved criticism about a few lines of code. This is the way to go, Mr.PT, HaD, everyone.
@max and @svofski – the HaD comment policy had nothing to do with me saying the comments need to be improved on HaD in another thread, they were working on that post long before the AVR power saving post.
read caleb’s post, he says this has been coming for awhile.
if you ever spot something here i specifically say that you don’t think was correct, email me: pt@makezine.com
for the AVR power stuff, if i didn’t want feedback and good discussion on the things i did or are part of i wouldn’t put them out there. criticism is fine, name calling isn’t. the majority of comments right here are all supportive of HaD cleaning up in the comments a bit. if cleaning up HaD comments wasn’t needed you wouldn’t see hundreds of comments supporting it.
if you’re had your work featured here or if you’re not a guy (see the comments by jeri, fbz, limor, and many others above) – the comments here, at times, can be completely inappropriate.
i don’t think there will massive changes here, only subtle ones that will improve the tone and inclusiveness. if you look at today’s the posts the comments are *already* better with more people saying things like “here’s how i would do that”. i think that’s great!
I read about 40% of the comments,mainly because after a while they started to basically reiterate the same thing over and over. I agree the racist/sexist/completely disparaging comments need to go. So here’s my two cents about the rest:
1. Get rid of the massive amounts of arduino posts, we’re all tired of them. Some of them are cool, some of them arent, but the flood of them is just getting ridiculous. Spend a month or two posting only things using ic’s or are built from the ground up.
2. Only post one good (hopefully original / clever) hack each day, that way the posts are better written and we all spend some time seriously considering each project, you’ll get better comments almost immediately.
addendum to number two. Post two good hacks a day, one of which is an in depth one which requires hacking/electronics knowledge. The second should be an “easy” or beginner hack.
i’ve known plenty of people who dont have a math/physics/engineering background want to start tinkering with electronics but are put off by the lack of well documented starter projects. I’m not talking one’s with arduinos, but maybe ones with 555’s, or a really basic audio amp. In fact I’ve got one im writing up that i should submit in two weeks when i get back, it could be your first one.
But last but not least. Thanks hackaday for making me smile and giving me ideas for awesome projects.
oh man the avr thread is *epic* everyone go read that now. I can definitely see why people might think pt is influencing HAD policy though… I’ll give pt the benefit of the doubt but damn it’s tempting not to.
Please just plug in disqus or something similar. I’m sure there are plenty of commenting plugins that will integrate nicely into wordpress.
Otherwise, there will be a sneaking suspicion of the invisible banhammer, wielded by the ‘influential’. It won’t matter if it never actually happens, the suspicion will always be there, especially if the general tone improves. If we can see the flamers, and downrate them, at least we know the ninjabans aren’t happening.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/disqus-comment-system/
go, now. is free. has a plugin for wordpress. you could have it up and running within the hour (if you totally ignored all the rules of a good sysadmin ;)
@Aleks,
yeah, that thread happend to blow up at the exact wrong time.
Aside from that, we’ve said many times that we cannot do any dev on the site right now. We’re hoping to resolve this soon.
@Caleb,
I hope so! It’s kinda weird to be running a site but not to be able to make any changes to the backend. There’s got to be a really good (well, in the gossipy sense at least) story behind that, considering how tight WP and HAD are supposed to be :D
Just to shed some light on the subject psychologically speaking I think that the reason trolls make the comments they do is because it gives them a sense of power and social recognition and response to that message is instantaneous and guaranteed. People with low self-esteem which many times have a lot of knowledge on math, electronics and so on will tend to look for a place in which they can convert that knowledge into power.
If you are a troll and you are reading this. Try teaching instead, it feels great.
Thank you HAD Staff.
Trolls are nasty and unnecessary, their nastiness will not be missed.
I have always and will continue to enjoy your website whenever I crave the hack of the day.
Jokes are always funniest if everyone is laughing and no one is crying, or feeling uncomfortable.
And back under the bridge to any troll who doesn’t like it.
I say the same thing, I enjoyed reading it! I LOVE HACKADAY! :D
Btw Jeri is the most greatest and smartest hacker I have ever seen, her hacks are CRAZY! i hope to be one day 20% smart as she is! She is my idol, forgive her for some weird anegdotes, because she is DAMN smart and she can afford to act how she wants with that crazy smart (brave) hacks! Support to Jeri!
Ok, let us assume that it is reasonable to “clean up” all the trollish comments and drive the trolls away. But shouldn’t the same be done for whiteknights too? Haven’t read the comments and don’t know if somebody else mentioned it , but i really think it’s the other side of the same coin. Might be wrong though.
A thumbs up system sounds horrible for various reasons (yeah it works great on youtube and fb :/ )
And last but not least i read somewhere the phrase from pt “if you don’t like it , make your own site”. This is just juvenile. If i said “Well if you don’t want people to dislike your post , then don’t post that in the first place” i would seem like a massive idiot to say the least.
Yes, i want a nice HaD and i am very grateful because of the ideas.But when it comes down to it i pay very little attention to what others have to say because i am interested in the idea, not the comments.
@d01 – ah, i can be more specific. i think if you run a site like hack-a-day it takes a lot of care and effort, if someone thinks this is all easy or they can do better, or they want to see different stuff – i suggest they try it! make a site they way they would do it.
there’s rooms for many many more types of electronic’s sites out there, i am sure hack-a-day would like to more sites and communities spring up too!
i really want to see some specialized sites come out, when i helped with the kinect open source driver bounty there were sites that covered the kinect hacks and eventually kinecthacks.net it’s now one of my favorite sites!
another example is dangerous prototypes, ian who was part of hack-a-day went on make his own OSHW company and he has a great hack-a-day / adafruit style blog.
Nice post, and i wish you best luck judging posts without some similar g+… In spain we’ve got serious trouble on prestigious newspapers. And i’m quite proud of the one found on http://www.lavanguardia.com –> http://www.lavanguardia.com/libros/20110728/54192486202/la-fisica-cuantica-llega-a-la-literatura-juvenil.html It’s easier to judge with hopefully parallel common ground compute.
@pt: I’m a very long time reader and HaD featured many of my projects, I’m glad it did I’m proud of it. I do not remember any negative comments in my address, or maybe I just fail to see how criticism that happens to be expressed here is “attacking”, I believe it’s cool. I love HaD, it’s one of my favourite places on the net. The comments, the way they are now and have always been, add a spicy flavour to it. You never know where the next idea is going to be born (example: one of the funniest projects here is the troll sniffing rat). Creative people tend to be harsh because their brain is boiling constantly and there may be some hot splashes that would burn you. If you make it bland, it’s going to die sooner. Such is my opinion and liking and as long as I can I’m going to defend it.
A lot of people complaining about bad comments here also say it that they don’t care about the comments. How do they know that the comments are ugly then? If you don’t care about the comments, let those who do use them and keep on not caring. It’s a win-win for everybody.
And dear sensitive people, some harsh remarks you may see in the comments here are nothing compared to harshness you may encounter in real life. That said, you probably think too much of yourselves if you think that the “trolls” really care to insult you personally. 99 out of 100 “troll” comments happen to be about the quality of this site content and not even of your projects, let alone you as a person. Ok, the 100th “troll” remark would probably be about Jeri’s good looks, but so what.
I’m happy to see this. I only just started watching hackaday regularly, and I’ve been amazed by the poor quality of comments here. Particularly with how negative they seem to be toward the projects listed.
I think this is overdue, and I’m glad to see it’s being addressed.
Why not give a choice box for the comments that they want to leave? Pro / Con or + / – or thumbs up / thumbs dowm ?
Split the comments that way and give people a choice as to if they want to read the positive or negative or both [ I read everything but the sports section in the paper, but don’t hate the paper for having it. ]
I also like the begining / advaced hacks idea of Mekael –
Mmmm, gotta love me some censorship.
You do realize that all communities that implement this kind of stuff die out or become irrelevant?
If I wanted to play nice and be everyone’s friend, I’d go to the My Little Pony message boards.
I was under the impression this was a real site about and for the hacker community, and not just some strictly supervised praise-fest where no-one is ever wrong.
Keep up the good work destroying your site, if you really think this way, it’s for the best anyway.
I like yetihehe’s idea about a comment system to youtube’s with the “spam” button.
+1 Mekael
“Free Speech” is not even close to being relevant in this situation. The only thing free speech laws protect you against is going to jail for your views. For example, if you walk into work and call your boss an asshat he is well within his rights to fire you. Just like how you can be sued for slander; free speech is not a free pass to say anything without consequence.
Thank you, Hackaday!
Though maybe you should consider an offshoot project- Arduinoday? LOL
Thanks again from:
Long Time Reader; First Time Poster!
I’ll feel left out if I don’t add my dollars worth, so…
First, I support the cause. Now moving on…
I would like to vote for a “flag this comment”= minimize the comment and a ranking system….um, if anyone is keeping a tally of votes that is. Oh yes, and it should be very clearly marked and easy to use. None of this tiny vote sign off in the corner stuff. Again, if anyone is keeping track.
I don’t personally mind a method to help reduce non-constructive criticism, fluff, and otherwise de-motivating comments. However, I think it will be difficult for the newly implemented method to be sustainable.
First: Staff time would probably be better spent doing other stuff. It would be better to have something that is automatically community driven and self correcting.
Second: HAD is run and owned by a staff, but driven and supported by a community. It is much more sustainable if the community is guided into supporting the cause itself. The community needs to participate and have a feeling of ownership for it to work well. Umm, please trust me on this. I kinda know what I’m talking about.
Here is an idea: Ask HAD readers what they think and implement it, rather than trying to press it upon people (people don’t like being told what to do…specially if they are doing something…wrong).
Goodluck, but please keep long term sustainability in mind while you now actively grapple with these issues.
PS- It is engaging to have both an informative and entertaining list of comments. You risk loosing a lot if you decide to eliminate all of the fun little fluff. “Where is the Arduino” and the occasional comment about zombies adds something. You risk changing the whole dynamic, including losing the light-hearted good stuff. Careful, you have just taking on a whole lot more responsibility than I think you think you have.
Oh well, I might as well keep typing…
I’ve got another recommendation: You wrote a long post about changing stuff, but I see nothing about it as I type this message. Its only a matter of time before new people come or people start to forget. Thats going to really increase your workload. I suggest you clearly note some of the new rules somewhere where near where I am typing.
Oh by the way, sorry if I am repeating what millions of other people have said. I can usually work myself down a list of comments, but this particular thread is beyond my attention span.
Thanks for publishing a great site. Always enjoy the daily read and feel as a community we should encourage one another as projects are discussed. There is far too much negativity in the world and the HAD community can should set a positive example.
@Robo You actually made me smile with your suggestion that youtube has a good comment system, hilarious!
Hehe you made me post for the first time too. After years of reading.
I support this move. I was kinda used to the trolling thing but I am certainly sure I will not miss it a bit!
@FractalBrain
Totally agree. Would +vote if HAD had a comment rating system.. *hint* *hint*
Voting systems encourage gangforming and saying things that you know works on the crowd to stroke your e-ego.
And if there’s a downvote option it encourages bashing people that are not in the mainstream gang.
Many sites abandoned downvoting completely because it just ruined things.
And as many people noticed currently in real life and the internet there is a real issue with people ganging up and not wanting to be exposed to anything but their little groups mantra, and that is not healthy.
But unfortunately sites like facebook and google and such seem to think it’s all great and encourage that kind of thing, sometime without people knowing, like facebook analyzing what you do not like and hiding comments automatically and google downgrading results/news/info it thinks you do not want to hear, making your world smaller and smaller and creating people who can no longer handle anything that isn’t in line with their small world.
Reddit is also an example how voting can go wrong btw, yes spam and such might get downvoted, but also any view not in the top 10 popular views, and often people get downvoted like mad and then when the person asks why (and someone bothers to reply) it might be it can something as small as a typo that people could have pointed out but they think it’s easier to click a down arrow… making the poor sap thing they disagree strongly with his/her views.
And on some sites like youtube there are even political or religious groups that deliberately get together to downvote someone who has a different opinion, in large numbers.
@Matt, Aleks, Whatnot, svofski and others for making the reasoned and mature argument here. I absolutely agree with most of what you guys are saying, and there’s no need to reiterate here.
We are concerned that this moderation will go to far. While not exactly ‘helpful’ per se, even a ‘This sucks because you didn’t use x’ post contains some content, and I really hope that even this overly-critical posts can stay. I’m all for getting rid of the comments that are completely devoid of content – but these are also rarely actually offensive and hardly worth removing.
Finally @pt:
Your comments in this thread and the AVR thread are among the most offensive, hypocritical and immature I’ve ever seen on the site. I respect what you’ve accomplished with HaD and the projects you’ve done, but seriously – grow up. I really hope you don’t have much influence with HaD anymore, because if your attitude is going to be the rule w.r.t. moderation, you’re going to completely ruin what little active community this site has.
Finally – the ‘not a hack’ and ‘grammar’ posts are definitely a reflection on the quality of editing. It is just downright poor. Don’t sweep this under the rug by moderating the complaints – FIX IT.
HAH Frack that
@error404 – i think there was a pretty good debate going until it devolved in to name calling, i can do better too, duly noted. i’m human, occasionally the comments here get to me too. i won’t let that happen again :)
@pt – Im not human… Bit my shiney metal A$$
ok im done before i get in trouble :P
Usually, I find censorship irritating, but really, it’s about time. After all, it’s entirely reactionary.
@tinkermonkey
“Oh noes! Those FASCISTS won’t let me exercise my freedoms to post nasty comments on their blog!”
Are you for real?
Wanna know how I can tell who got beat up back in high school? :3
In all honesty, I don’t care if the rules change or not. I can roll with punches, dish ’em out, act civil, etc., whenever the need arises. So I’m cool.
No matter what is done, you’re going to be driving away a certain clientele, and attracting another (though more than one of each is certain, too). If the management is content with that, so be it, but IMHO, HaD’s management is really trying to stretch this site too thin. You’re NEVER going to satisfy both the hard-core >40-year EE, and the tArduino-using beginners, at the same time. I know HaD is trying to satisfy everyone in this diverse crowd, because that would mean more readers and will (hopefully) serve to expand the maker community. But don’t try to have your cake and eat it too, knowutimean?
Perhaps you should come up with a classification system for your articles, e.g. Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, Everyone, Reference, Just Cool, etc. That way, the readers will know the ‘level’ of the item’s material before getting into it. Also, it will serve as an indicator to commenters, as to the intended audience. Think of it this way: if you were a freshman engineering student, wouldn’t it be stupid of you to hand in your work to an upper-level instructor, and have him/her grade it as he/she would a graduate student’s work? No, because it’s unfair, and I think that’s what HaD’s dilemma has become.
Thank you! I would love to submit my projects for consideration, but they are simple and sometimes sloppy because I am constantly using parts for the next project. But I am always worried about the flames.
Actually, it should be “yes” in that last sentence. DERP.
Hey, how about adding an EDIT BUTTON?!?!?
@octel – “It’s sexist, creepy, and objectifying.”
Sexist yes, creepy is really a matter of perspective, and objective go for it.
I have not missed a HAD post in the last 2 years and I read roughly 70% of all comments, I assure you at HAD we’re not seeing this kind of behavior often enough for the level of concern and worry being thrown about. There is certainly no denying that undesirable comments exists but we haven’t any need for all of this which has come about in the past days.
It seems almost as if everyone is sighing a huge breath of relief for the departure of an evil villain that plagued our community for years past, except he never existed and nothing has really changed.
I’ll say it again, everyone wants to be a victim these days.
The url doesn’t have an apostrophe in the we’re.
Sorry. Couldn’t resist. Last time. I swear.
Anyways I think this is about due, although I hope this doesn’t inhibit the posts that offer ideas of what to do next. The beauty of a hack is that it is never really complete. At any time it can be improved and upgraded, and I think that commenters should be allowed to suggest these improvements.
At least all of the “ZOMFG FURSTZES!!1!one!(etc.)” comments will hit the graveyard forever.
oh, and @Steve-O-Rama
edit button ain’t gonna happen, at least not without major changes to hackaday’s backend and frontend. With the way comments are posted now, it is pretty much impossible (default wordpress commenting system). To be editable, the comments would have to be based off of an actual login, like the forum is. As long as you can just type in a name and an email address to post comments, you will not be able to edit them (Just think about the security nightmare. Anyone who figured out your email address could edit your posts. Every single one of them.)
Also, edited posts would clog up the moderation lines.
So for the time being just triple-check what you typed before you click the ‘Submit Comment’ button. If it’s really that important to you, you might be able to email HaD and make them change it for you.
Censorship = Evil
Is it better to rate or remove comments?
If you minimize low rated comments, people will still be able to see who the trolls are. It also takes a lot of the load off of the moderators.
It would be a bit more work to implement a ratings system, though. Requiring raters to be registered, adding some code to make the comments hidden / visible, etc.