This time I want to discuss a topic that is somewhat informal for our site, but I suppose we need to talk about different things, including such. Moreover, the topic of comments today is applicable to any segment, whether we are talking about smartphones, electronics in general, politics, sports, and so on. Anything, in short.
The format of comments on the Internet has existed for a long time, in one form or another, 'comments' can also be called communication on forums, and even what was before, writing articles in response to some other articles, and so on. Now 'commenting' is clearly expressed as a definitively developed format – under almost any article, under any news, note, even under the pictures, there are comments, and commentators leave them. Countless.
Picture from the Internet
In fact, I decided to bring this up after we decided to post stuff from the past on weekends to. This format is called 'Retro', and as part of it, the site now constantly publishes the most interesting (and still relevant) articles of the past years. So, after reading a couple of materials and comments to them, I remembered how I started to write on the site and how readers answered me. It was about 10 years ago, and then there was no 'discas' as a generally accepted platform for commenting, and readers left their opinion about the article on the forum in a specially created topic for this. The topic was created by the reader who first wanted to comment on the material. And some more people preferred to send their comments directly to me as the author on work mail.
Then, in the first year of work on, there were a lot of negative comments to my articles on the forum, so it seemed to me at that time. Every second reader wanted to teach me something, express their disagreement with my position, and so on. It seemed to me that some snobs and clever people gathered on the forum who wanted to teach me about life. Now I smile, remembering how I felt about the smart advice and reasoned opinions of other people regarding my first materials then. Rereading now these discussions of my articles on the forum, I see for the most part reasoned criticism, almost always confirmed by facts, examples, references, that is, the kind of comments that are increasingly difficult to meet today. Yes, even 10 years ago, some readers began their comments with a veiled thought like 'the author, kill yourself against the wall', but after a couple of paragraphs they brought a page of text in the form of links, arguments and, in general, honest and correct criticism or amendments. As a result, even without completely accepting the format of the address of that audience, I could learn as an author, these people helped me day after day with advice, arguments, references, clear expression of my thoughts, clear corrections and other things.
Today I read comments to various articles, not only on our website and not only about technology, and I understand that almost no one is trying to back up their opinion with arguments, facts, links, to clearly express this opinion in an accessible and understandable language. Yes, such commentators are still found, but very, very rare. These comment threads are always interesting to read, and it is all the more offensive that today (in my opinion) there are very few of them. I don’t even know how difficult it should be for new authors to write well if their articles are mostly monosyllabic phrases from a couple of sentences that do not carry any value.
It turns out that the culture of commenting that was 10 years ago has gone along with the forums. Or did she leave with that generation? Share your opinion on this matter, it will be interesting to read.