Disqus - Latest Comments for itinerantsophist

Re: Introduction | subjunction.org

Derrick Burns — Sun, 01 May 2011 16:09:28 -0000

My first comment!

Re: Introduction | subjunction.org

Derrick Burns — Sun, 01 May 2011 15:49:08 -0000

And here's one more.

Re: Introduction | subjunction.org

Derrick Burns — Sun, 01 May 2011 15:32:45 -0000

This is a test post!

Re: Scripting News: Ideas for conferences

Derrick Burns — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 21:44:37 -0000

Precisely.

Re: Scripting News: Ideas for conferences

Derrick Burns — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 21:39:06 -0000

With a hot tub and/or a few joints, hell, who even cares *what* the conference is about? :)

Re: Why Twitter Must Die

Derrick Burns — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 19:57:06 -0000

Your question is a valid one. In fact, it is idealistically reminiscent of a comment I left over on TechCruch yesterday in response to a piece of Scoble's regarding the degradation of discussion and interaction within the blogosphere due to an influx of trolls, spammers, gamers, flamers, and, of course, morons. In effect, my contention was that, when your neighborhood is in danger, you have to band together, put your backs into it, and do what it takes to save it. This is fine and good for the neighborhood.

But when your house is on fire, you climb out the window.

Re: louisgray.com: The Hubris of the Twitterati and Twitterati Wannabes

Derrick Burns — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:26:51 -0000

Well, I suppose at least some good has arisen from the steaming wreckage of the crash-landed FailWhale: us pathetic wannabes can now strap on an air of indignant outrage and carry our low (or non-existent) follower counts with the bitter pride of war wounds, and take a breather from trying to get our numbers up.
Facetiousness aside, though, I think you're spot on. If there's any part of this social media circus that's worth anything at all, it's the facility for communication and mutual edification, not in the inbuilt mechanism for arbitrary ego-stroking.
Besides which, as a commenter pointed out earlier, follower counts are so easily faked as to be meaningless anyway.

Re: Video: Scoble Tells the Comment Trolls To Go Back to Digg

Derrick Burns — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:02:45 -0000

On the one hand, it's easy to blame the blogosphere's hollow discourse on the ignorant, the abusive, and the manipulative. Wading into the commentspace on some of the more popular blogs is about as appealing as walking into a seedy movie theater barefoot.

But a lot of the blame for that lies with us, friends.

We've got to remember that what we're dealing with here is analogous to (a hyper-simplified vision of) urban decay:

Times get tough in what is otherwise a pretty good neighborhood; People start losing their jobs. Homes and lawns go to seed a little. Property values start to drop, and before long all the people who still have means pull up stakes and move on. In their wake come those of means lower still, or else parts of the neighborhood lie altogether fallow. Over time, crime rates will climb: vandalism first, then petty larceny; maybe a little low-key drug trade. Still more of your friendly, upstanding neighbors will pack up and leave as they can.

If we extrapolate this trend far enough, eventually we'll see property values so low that none but the slumlords are able to make a nickel, and none left there but those that have no options left. Our once-pristine neighborhood is reduced to tenements and hovels, its streets ruled by violence and greed, its people empty and afraid.

This is exactly the sort of decay that's drained the blogosphere of its conversations. Otherwise-silent comment threads and disinterested, uninvolved readerships are the perfect breeding fodder for trolls, and they propagate like rats in empty warehouses.

But our real problem isn't too many trolls, it's that there are too few bright, motivated, genuinely interesting, intellectually-engaged netizens out here who give a damn about the greater discourse. Let a little flame war break out, or a couple of idiots bouncing in meme-o'-the-minute style from Digg or Reddit to spew froth about an issue they don't understand, and we just grimace with distaste and leave.

There will always be a noise floor. That's the price of democracy. But if we pull it together, remember why we came here in the first place, and keep cramming our forums and comment clusters and social networks full of enlightening, thought-provoking idea exchange, then we can rise above the noise.

We can make the blogosphere a great place to live again.