A few weeks back, a friend of mine showed me this video entitled "If Business Meetings Were Like Internet Comments." Not two months ago, I probably would have found this video mildly amusing at best, but after posting on a blog myself for a while and seeing how comments can go on other blogs, I couldn't stop laughing:
Like I said, the humor itself is not all that funny; but then again, neither are the blog comments that they mock. Not to get into too serious of an issue or anything... but I was reminded of an article I read by Joel Spolsky called "Learning from Dave Winer" about the hindrance of web commenting. Spolsky references another author, Dave Winer, in his argument that web comments should be permanently disabled. As soon as the meeting starts we begin to see the "dribble of morbid, meaningless, thoughtless comments," that Spolsky refers to. Despite a perfectly respectable and important agenda, the meeting is immediately shot to hell by the commenter's ability to actively respond. I'm happy to say that this hasn't been much of a problem on this blog, but then again, each post on this blogspot only gets an average of one or two responses. I have, however, seen plenty of blogs by now whose intelligent messages are quickly drowned in succeeding mind-vomit.
The best thing the video does is show us the people who are making the comments. These are people in business suits or dress shirts making comments that 13 year olds would make anonymously. This is perfect due to a comment that Spolsky makes about how little he cares about these people who make these exact same anonymous comments. "[They're] not even human to me," he claims. "[they're] anonymous." Except here they're not anonymous in this case. We see that they are in fact, respectable looking business men and women.
Despite this, it doesn't seem that the video has the most pro-commenting message. In the end the guy running the meeting gives up and storms out after having accomplished nothing. I'm not even certain that the creators intended to persuade for or against blog comments, but they seem to make a fairly good case against it and it's hindrance to productivity.
Oh yeah, and the worst thing the video does (or rather the makers of the video) is create a second video just like it. It says the same jokes and really isn't worth watching, but it's only fair to make it known that there is a sequel.
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These videos were absolutely amazing. I've been a member of a couple of forums and this described them exactly! It might also describe blogger and other blog sites like that, but essentially this is how my life has been in the forums. It's crazy because it DOES make you question whether comments should be enabled or not. I've had my share of serious topics that get overthrown by comedic posters who don't care at all about the topic. I noticed in the video that they mocked the smart guy who likes to give his input on the serious matter at hand. Some people are pro-comments because they believe that these people need a say in the blog, but in the video they proved that these inputs are completely overthrown by the other posters. This completely goes against the argument that these voices are heard, even if there are only 1 in 10 with something real to say. Apparently these voices are actually getting drowned out. So then why are there comments? I dont know...
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