Be Excellent To Each Other

§1. Hypothesis
The Majority of people who leave comments about computer games are nob jockeys.

The proposed reason people why comments thread are filled with nob jockeys is explained in Figure 1. This also explains 'Internet Drama', 'Flame Wars' and Cunts.

Figure 1.


§2. Method:
Eurogamer gives you the ability to 'ignore' posters so their comments are removed from the site (when you are logged in). For the next month everyone who falls outside 3 standard deviations from the mean of common human sense, decency and literacy will be ignored (those in the grey sections of Fig. 1). Then a comparison of the lengths of comments threads before and after the ignored people are taken into account will be compared.

We predict a significant drop in the numbers of comments visible. Most likely a 50% drop will be expected.

Reasons to be ignored: Include, but are not limited to

• Proclaiming yourself to be 'First'
• Using the word 'casual' as a derogatory term.
• Making ridiculous comparisons
• Overt intense love for a corperation that blinkers basic common sense.

DAY 1

Castle Crashers article has ~50 comments.

r3n was ignored for stating:
"2 page review for an XBLA game. Aren't there other actual retail games that warrant reviews over this?"
What a cunt.

Another user was ignored for proclaiming himself to be first.
"Pesser" is on a watch list for stating:
"1200 MS points YOU CAN SHOVE IT UP YOUR ASS MICROSOFT"
due to extended use of caps lock to make a legitimate point.

Now 40 Comments remain in the thread.

Lave - have you finished your thesis yet?

FIRST!

//edit: Damn you, Chris. Damn you, and all your kind.

This will be chapter 4.

I meant your real thesis.

May I be the first to say that such a casually cobbled together hypothesis is as worthy of testing as it is worth me writing to Bill Oddie asking his advice on squirrel catching when I know he prefers birds to squirrels and whenever he sees a squirrel he prays for a hawk to swoop down and carry it off.

With comments like that and the Stewart Lee sig your basically my favourite new poster.

And no Chris. I haven't.

(Ignored a guy for using 'lol' (and no punctuation) to say nothing at all. And a guy for calling a game developer a 'fanboy')

EDIT: 'mem' deleted for posting this (oh, and terrifyingly he isn't being ironic or taking the piss).



I've finished my din-din break, so I'll leave this abortion of an idea till tomorrow now. If I remember or care by then.

No, this is excellent - keep it up!

Yes, this is most excellent and certainly chuckle-worthy. I would try the same thing with YouTube but I suspect the universe would implode.

I remember being on B3TA and their boards, and nearly every post to the image challenge would have "first post!" underneath it. I dunno whether they banned that in the end because I left, can't be doing with clutter like that.

I propose that David Darling be the only person allowed to leave comments on Eurogamer.

Indeed. This is a fine use of science.

This is a dangerous idea that will destroy the internet and quite possibly all civilisation.

I approve.

I foresee this being held up in the future as one of the great scientific achievements of mankind, like "Origin of Species" or the Theory of Relativity. There will be statues of Lave in town squares, and universities will be named after him. Or possibly it will become some self-consuming monster that will end up with everyone on the internet ignoring everyone else.

Bringing this back from the dead to mention that the comments section for the You're In The Movies review is the richest hunting ground in a while for people who'll make your life better for never again being allowed to impinge upon it.

You've got the "Haha XBox sucks" crowd, the "casual gaming sucks" crowd, the "Wii must die!" zealots and all manner of unspecified general fuckwittery, all neatly gathered in one place.

I didn't even notice this when you started it, but good work! Did you complete it?

registered at news for games (n4g) the other day to comment, and noticed i could choose if i was reasonable person or a fanboy... so i would see only those in that category

Yeah, it's still full of utter cunts, though. Get a lot of traffic if you get over 100 degrees, but the discussion is just bollocks.