Aug 8, 2008 12:00 PM
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Well, commenters, here we are again. After we had our little talk a month ago it seems like what we went over hasn't really taken hold. The number of off-topic conversations hasn't really decreased and complaints from your fellow commenters are piling up. Instead of running wild with the banhammer, we figured we owed it to you guys to have another talk.
Before we go on, if you haven't already read io9's amazing How to Be an Opinionated Commenter on io9 and Not Get Banned post we suggest you do. We at Gizmodo don't think we need to go over what being a decent commenter is all about. But if you are still unsure of which comments are appropriate please check out that io9 guide, we'll all be happier you did.
Please Keep it On-Topic
So here's the problem, the comment threads are still becoming too off-topic. We're not gonna point fingers at specific commenters; we just want everyone to understand what affect this has on the Giz community.
Let us first say that our comments are usually filled with a wealth of information, and that's why we love 'em. We here at Gizmodo—just like you readers—visit the comments section of every story wanting to learn more from each and every commenter. By engaging in on-topic discussion, the comments can provide an amazing amount of insight for any given story, such as similar products that do something as good or better than what we feature. Sadly, what is happening is that a few off-topic comments will get posted amongst all the on-topic ones and then the whole comment thread derails and turns sour. Our comment threads, which are our communal pool of knowledge, end up completely ruined because of a few horny idiots.
So we are asking all you guys again, please don't pee in our pool. It hurts all of us in the end and no one will be happy when the POOL'S CLOSED...
New Pre-Banning Feature: Disemvoweling
For those of you who continue to ruin it for the rest of us, instead of just banning you on the spot, we now have a new feature which will note your idiotic comments. It's called disemvoweling and what it does is take the comment in question and strip all the lovely vowels out of it. The comment is then left looking like a jumbled mess, and since this disemvoweling can not be reversed it will stay vowelless FOORRREEEVVVERRR! So here's a warning, if you find one of your comments disemovoweling you better straighten up before the banhammer comes knockin'. This also serves as a notification to other commenters as to what type of comments are NOT acceptable.
And if commenters keep making off-topic posts even after the disemvoweling, we will have to put them on a temporary time-out.
We wish we could take credit for this nifty disemvoweling feature but we can't. We tip our hats to Boing Boing for this one.
If you guys have any questions about the new disemvoweled feature or simply want to apologize for making off-topic comments please send all those messages to comments@gizmodo.com.
Instead of writing a sympathetic conclusion to this post, we thought it would be best to leave you with words from your own Pope John Peeps II.
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