Reading the Comments • Reading the Comments 7. Bemused: “WTF!” Joseph Reagle Published on: Apr 03, 2019 Updated on: May 14, 2019 Reading the Comments • Reading the Comments 7. Bemused: “WTF!” Angle is wrong (2/5 stars): I tried the banana slicer and found it unacceptable. As shown in the picture, the slicer is curved from left to right. All of my bananas are bent the other way. —J. Anderson, Amazon review of Hutzler 571 Banana Slicer “Angle Was Wrong” Was Wrong (5/5 stars): I can’t believe anyone could be so inept as to think that they couldn’t slice their bananas because they bent “the wrong way.” All that person has to do is to buy the model 571C Banana Slicer that is for bananas that bend the other way. Although I prefer left-bending bananas, I got both the 571B and the 571C so that when shopping, I don’t have to have the hassle of finding bananas with the correct polarity. I hope “Angle Was Wrong” sees the light and removes that harsh one-star rating for this indispensable product duo. —H. Madizon, Amazon review In 2010, Ken Fisher, editor of the technology news site Ars Technica, posted an article about “cleaning up our comments.” He wrote, “Today, I would like to discuss with our community the recent decline in both quality and civility in our front page news discussions/comments.” Fisher then solicited suggestions from his readers for how to address the situation. The first comment to Fisher’s thoughtful query was literally this: “First!”1 This short exclamation is both inane and intriguing—much like “fail.” For those who read comments and read them in the order posted, “first” is often the first comment, the second comment, the third comment, and so on. These are the result of competitive commenters submitting their firsts within seconds of each another—but there can be only one first. The inanity of this comment is that it contributes nothing to the discussion and is likely to be submitted before the article could be read so the commenter can claim the honor of being first. As far as honors go, it is slight, so why do people even bother? Beyond the pleasure of seeing one’s name in a prominent position, the first (or at least early) comment can be a valuable asset. I came to appreciate this over a decade ago on the social news site Slashdot. Like many sites, Slashdot permits active users to rate comments, which have a cumulative score from worst (–1) to best (+5). Readers can then filter out comments below a threshold. The system keeps the worst comments from being visible, but I noticed that some of the most informed comments were also hidden. This rush and slash effect privileged comments that were written within the period that most people were likely to rate them. Because those who were likely to rate comments were the most active users, they typically did this within hours of a story’s posting. After that, the raters had moved on. I found that the average age of a comment with a rating of “4 or higher” (where I set my reading filter) was just over an hour and that I typically would not see any comments older than eight hours. Early comments often received more attention than they deserved. 2 Reading the Comments • Reading the Comments 7. Bemused: “WTF!” This rush to post an (often slapdash) comment is related to a widely observed phenomenon: preferential attachment, or the idea that “the rich get richer.” For example, when new users look for a blog or podcast to subscribe to, they are likely to select (or attach) to those that are already popular. (Because of this, the social media marketplace is characterized by firms getting users first and worrying about profits later.) This is not to say that first mover victors have no merit, but equally compelling competitors who were late to the game might suffer because of their tardiness. Similarly, in the context of comments, early posts are likely to attract a disproportionate number of responses and votes. Early comments can also bias what follows. In a 2013 study, researchers took over a hundred thousand comments during a five-month period and did one of three things to each: they rated the comment up (positive) or down (negative) or did nothing (control). Although the researchers’ down votes tended to be countered and neutralized, an initial up vote increased the likelihood of a subsequent up vote by 32 percent. In some conditions (such as on political and social topics), this positive “herding” increased final ratings by 25 percent on average.2 © 2012 xkcd.com/1019/ CC-BY-NC 2.5 Because preferential attachment fosters the dominance of early movers, we now also look to who is trending. Unlike a fixed number (such as two million readers), trending indicates how quickly something is gaining attention (for example, twice as many readers as last week). This, like nearly 3 Reading the Comments • Reading the Comments 7. Bemused: “WTF!” everything, can be gamed. For example, the Web app Thunderclap allows social media campaigns to organize their supporters to post a message at the same time, “spreading an idea through Facebook and Twitter that cannot be ignored.”3—because such a message will appear to be “trending” with a stunning growth rate. These first-mover advantages can also be seen in the increasing dominance of Amazon Vine reviews. Select customers are given “new and pre-release items” for free if they quickly post reviews, which then have a disproportionate standing. For example, the first four most helpful reviews for a popular laser pointer are all Vine reviews that were posted within four months of the products’ availability.4 Vine reviews might be expected to be dominant for a new product, but this laser pointer has been around since 2009 and has over six hundred reviews (averaging 4.5 stars). It seems unlikely that the most helpful reviews really are those that were posted within months of being received by people who got it for free. There are obvious advantages to priming the pump. In earlier chapters, I address how comment in the age of the Web can inform, alienate, and manipulate us. The example of “First!” shows that these messages also can be confusing and amusing: we are bemused. Online, this is often expressed via the textual exclamation “WTF?” (what the fuck?). This acronym has become a part of the lexicon through which commenters express their surprise and befuddlement. In this chapter I explore this bemusement through various examples. And while I began with those that shout “first,” I will conclude with those that whisper. But, first, I consider comments that are confusing, funny, and surprisingly revealing of our biases. Perplexing People: “Saved Our Son’s Life? 4/5 Stars” A digital bit can represent two states: true or false, 1 or 0, like or dislike. Between the single bit indicated by like and the verbosity of prose sits the constellation of five stars. Although we might appreciate the stars’ ability to illuminate, they also can befuddle, such as a review of a carbon monoxide alarm entitled “Saved our son’s life—4/5 stars.” A screen capture of this review went viral, and comments at the discussion sites Reddit and Imgur revealed varied responses to online ratings, including questions of expectations and competency. People found this 4/5 review to be a perplexing example of the inscrutableness of others. One commenter quipped that “some people are just impossible to please.”5 Is this the case? (And is it even a genuine review?) After some searching, I found that it was indeed a real review on a Canadian housewares site by user KayBe: 4 Reading the Comments • Reading the Comments 7. Bemused: “WTF!” This morning my son called me at work to tell me the alarm was going off.… I called my husband (who luckily was not far away) and he headed home. He checked our furnace … and discovered the burner was “carboned up” so it wasn’t burning properly.… If he hadn’t caught it and cleaned it the CO would have built up and our son might not have woken up in time. Scary thing to have happen but so glad this unit did it’s job!6 Based on her other reviews, KayBe was not impossible to please. In her four reviews on the site, she gave five stars to a nutritional scale and a paraffin bath, used to soak sore hands or feet. Nonetheless, her review of the carbon monoxide detector sparked parody and complaints. Some (humorously) took the four stars as a reflection of KayBe’s lack of fondness for her son: “If it would have been our favorite son, 5/5 stars,” and “Yeah, sure, it saved his life, but is he really that great of a kid?” Other comments sarcastically implied that some products are inherently more worthy than others: “You know, it was pretty good and saved my son’s life and all, but let me tell you about my new Revlon Paraffin Bath!!! It’s amazing!”7 In reality, KayBe would likely give five stars to the idea of the gas detector as well as its performance but felt that this particular detector fell short. What might be to blame? Her four-star reviews reflected a concern about quality and durability. Some thought this was trivial compared to saving a life: “Plus—saved son’s life. Minus—appearance and quality could use a little work.…”8 These parodies likely arise from our (often confounded) assumption that others have similar expectations and competencies.