We're Replacing Comments with Something Better - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/im-on-twitter-too <comment><USER4> A fellow IRC moderator once warned me:

"Carefully handle your "troublemakers". They're both the bane and life of your site."

In other words, it's often your outspoken (and sometime inappropriate) members that are driving the most interesting discussion. I see this on Facebook quite a lot (I moderate a very large group) where the people who are often stirring up trouble in one thread are also generating a very lively discussion in another.

It's hard drawing the line sometimes between what seems like a vehement disagreement in opinion and insulting of someone else, and a tap on their shoulder to "hey, just keep in line please" can either set them off, or defuse the situtation.

But either way, it is difficult. Too heavy-handed in moderation and you drive them off the site, leaving a lot of silent people sitting around with little discussion, and therefor, little reason to stay. Too little moderation and your comments and threads become a cesspool, eliminating any beneficial conversation and catering to the lowest common denominator.

I don't blame Vice for finding this difficult, and really, I'm not sure I'd prescribe a solution for them. I agree with them in the sense that it comes down to their resources and best use of their time, and given that they produce their own content (and not reliant on their members to do it as in other social forums) then it may be better to dispense with them altogether.

But dispensing with a forum is a sort of "scorched earth" policy of eliminating an out of control board, a "nuclear option" when you're just finished with it all. It'll provide some relief, but they lose at the chance of growing something better in the end.

<comment><USER5> > In other words, it's often your outspoken (and sometime inappropriate) > members that are driving the most interesting discussion.

I disagree. I'll admit that I haven't done any kind of exhaustive analysis, but every now and then I'll click on the profile of an obvious troll on HN or Reddit. 9/10 times they are consistently trolling and contributing nothing to the community.

<comment><USER6> Sure, but I think what ckozlowski was saying is that even though these particular users may have no value in themselves and their (lack of) discourse, they bring attention of other well-mannered users that then get into intelligent discourse.

Trolls are a bit like political extremists: if they weren't here, you wouldn't talk about the ugly stuff so much and make sure it's kept in check.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > _" What percentage of comments on any site are valuable enough to be > published on their own? One percent? Less?_"

What percentage of "articles" on the web are valuable enough to be published on their own? One percent? Less? Most sites, including HN, I visit because of the comment sections. Many times the comments are the most insightful part of my interaction.

<comment><USER8> On HN the comments are the product. On Vice the content is.

<comment><USER9> I agree with the OP. Vice is pretty much a trash site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I remember when people would post stuff on their website and people would respond by posting their own retort on their own website, linking to the original article. Then there might be another retort back, or others would chime in on their own websites...

And it was great! People took time to formulate arguments or counterpoints (this didn't guarantee they were correct or even sensible) in a long form that actually contributed to the discussion.

If you want to troll people in response to a post, it meant you had to do it on your own website!

I hope we go back to this. It's dirt cheap now to get a wordpress blog or similar. I wish wordpress came with comments disabled by default and all that pingback and RSS stuff would get more attention. It was a much more interesting time to read on the web.

<comment><USER11> Have you taken a look at Tumblr? It's almost exactly what you are describing.

<comment><USER12> Not really; tumblr makes reposting too easy, not requiring any effort to do so, therefore it's not as it's described.

[http://indiewebcamp.com/webmention](http://indiewebcamp.com/webmention) is the one you're looking for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Andrew Sullivan's blog The Dish[0] did this for its entire existence. It was a driving point of the site's culture, to the point where certain topics gained frequent contributors that were probably better recognized because of the advantageous signal-to-noise ratio.

Many sites seem to be turning toward a manual moderation model now. This doesn't seem too whacky as a next step for many of them.

[0] [http://dish.andrewsullivan.com](http://dish.andrewsullivan.com)

<comment><USER14> And to pursue this point, one person greatly influenced by Sullivan was his ex-colleague at _The Atlantic_ , Ta-Nehisi Coates (who just won a MacArthur fellowship).

Coates had a very well-policed comments section, which for several years attracted some high-quality comments and really excellent exchanges - <USER3> equal of anything here on HN within its chosen domain (essentially, race and history). Coates is black, of course, so there was a _lot_ of moderation needed. It proved unsustainable and his posts don't have comments any more.

This retrospective article sums up the trajectory of a lot of high-quality comments sections, like Sullivan's and Coates': [http://blog.longreads.com/2015/02/04/its-yours-a-short- histo...](http://blog.longreads.com/2015/02/04/its-yours-a-short-history-of- the-horde/)

Basically, it needs organic growth and a lot of personal attention. And it seems to have a finite lifetime.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't 'do' Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, so those contact options are out.

Your editorial email address will be swamped for a while until people get bored with the lack of near-realtime debate.

"...our readers are best served by dedicating our resources to doing more reporting than attempting to police a comments section...".

That's why you appoint trusted moderators. Anyway, your 'resources' are now going to be split between processing email, visiting Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn...

We'll see.

<comment><USER16> > people get bored with the lack of near-realtime debate

You're making the assumption that people want this.

They don't.

<comment><USER17> Agreed.

16 people post the same comment 45 seconds after the article goes online (without reading it properly).

8 people post more thoughtful but identical comments 15 minutes later.

I wake up 16 hours after the article goes online and post my tuppence worth into a rely to whatever is at the top. (without bothering to read the other 362 comments).

[Updated to fix rubbish formatting]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> There are similarities here to the adblocking debate, in terms of having to load 3rd party scripts. Disqus, FB etc - load through another request once the page is up and running, degrading the experience. Removing these parts will mean a quicker web, if as others have mentioned, at the cost of less immediate interaction.

Vice seem to have correctly identified that the quality of that discussion (and the branding) was not adding much to their content. Thumbs up for trying something different.

<comment><USER19> Personally, I think third-party comment widgets are a terrible idea: security/privacy issues, page weight, loss of ownership of content, homogenisation, etc.

It's interesting commenting about the quality of comments on a site that is nothing but. Maybe Hacker News, etc. is the future, although I'd like to think that on-site and off-site comments can co-exist (and for 'off-site' read twitter, facebook, etc.) The problem with all the off-site options is that you have to know they exist. At least on-site comments provide a fixed, available 'place' for discussion to take place.

I have a feeling the solution is just better moderated comments sections. Many sites just chuck up a form and auto-publish anything entered into it; that might work at really small scale, but soon descends into chaos once a critical mass is reached. One day, I think, more comment sections will looks like mini- HNs.

<comment><USER20> > _homogenisation_

That one wouldn't be actually bad if people stuck to good solutions in terms of usability. I mean, half of the forum boards on the Internet would be an order of magnitude better if the owners started them as a subreddit instead.

<comment><USER21> Not sure I agree; to be honest I miss old-style discussion boards, since they seem to have phased out in favor of Reddit-style aggregation and comments.

I think there's a place for both, but the Reddit-style boards make _every_ discussion ephemeral. No matter how interesting the topic or diverse the discussion, it's gone and forgotten in 2 days at most. On old-school boards, a major thread of discussion can last for months, or longer. Plus there's something to be said for a chronological presentation of posts. Yeah, trolls get more exposure, but it also means everyone sees every view (up to whatever the moderation policy of the site is), so you don't get the Reddit hivemind effect nearly as much.

<comment><USER20> I think I agree with your sentiment. I should have been more precise; I don't think all discussions should be done in an ephemeral, upvote-based format, but _threaded discussion_ would be a big improvement for most of the old-style boards I participated in. Also, Reddit UI strikes the right balance between simplicity and functionality. Most boards are overloaded UI-wise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Mistake #1: thinking reporters should be moderating comments (see quote below). Mistake #2: Sending their readers elsewhere on the web to comment on stories. Media outlets are looking for a revenue stream/value-added features. Web companies are all about engagement. What an opportunity they are missing! Why? Because they are scared of a little honest feedback?

User-generated commentary can be done right. it can be done in a way that minimizes trolls.

"I think that our readers are best served by dedicating our resources to doing more reporting than attempting to police a comments section in the hopes of marginally increasing the number of useful comments."

<comment><USER23> Part of the problem is that many people don't have (or want) any reputation on most sites they might comment on and creating accounts is generally trivial.

I tend to worry, though, that what people label as trolling ranges from the idiots who spam bigoted nonsense to anyone who doesn't believe what the moderator does. I think it's better to moderate only incivility, bigotry and the like, as bans on "trolling" appear to have morphed into bans on dissent at some point, possibly due to some corollary of Poe's Law, even though what used to be labelled as trolling is still just as present and obnoxious.

I say that as someone who moderated quite a lot of different forums and who has banned all manner of spammers, flamers, etc., but I'd never ban someone for expressing, in a civil manner, why they did not agree with me and I've been left feeling in the minority in that regard.

<comment><USER24> Since bigotry lately means "anything the person that call the other bigot don't likes" it is still quite broad.

A direct insult is easier to enforce.

The reason trolling succeeds is that it is extremely easy to induce powerful cognitive dissonance into people with strongly held unprovable beliefs. (Human life has value, god exist, humans are equal and the likes) And the only answer is aggression. The right are as easy pray as the left - mostly because there are large logical holes in any ideology.

That is because we use some axioms when we build our social order - but any attack on the axioms leave us unsecure and that the virtual tribe is under attack.

The more a person has allowed himself to degrade to a single identity - <USER3> powerful the potential blow is.

Probably one of the best (unintentional) trolls I have done is reducing old communist to tears by stating the rumors that Che was betrayed by Fidel with Raul as the organizer of said betrayal.

<comment><USER23> I go by the 'hate' metric. The more someone is motivated by hate, the less I tend to agree with them.

I'm sure someone might say, "what if I really hate Nazis?" in reply to that, but then I'd have to point out that the Nazis hated others to the point of mass-murder, which is a lot more than they're hated and say that I balance things out that way.

In other words, some hate is just blowback and how willing you are to harm others for disagreeing with you is something to take into account when figuring out what people to socialize with.

<comment><USER24> Well if someone says that he really hates Nazis and is younger than 60 years, he is probably not the sharpest knife in the drawer... which is a huge red flag. Same with loving them - both require some form of temporal closeness.

Edit: Hating or Loving the Nazi ideology is another beer - ideas are immortal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Great example of innovation from Vice. If only those starchy ol' newspapers could have thought of something like a 'letters to the editor' section... What? Oh.

In all seriousness, it's probably a good move for Motherboard to do this. By and large, comments sections are kinda terrible, but this appears magnified on Vice Network sites in my experience.

<comment><USER26> >Great example of innovation from Vice. If only those starchy ol' newspapers could have thought of something like a 'letters to the editor' section... What? Oh.

The very first sentence of the Vice post:

>As a kid, whenever I'd get some BMX or car magazine in the mail, I'd always dive in first to the letters to the editor.

<comment><USER27> You failed to see the sarcasm ;)

<comment><USER28> yohoho22 was disarming the sarcasm by specifying that the article already made the point literally.

<comment><USER25> How could anyone fail to see it? I still wanted to include it in my point. Not a lot of disarming to do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I know I know, comments 99.9% of the time are non-constructive; but goddam it, I enjoy reading them. Sometimes they're good, but most of the time just a laugh. I like you're attempt to try something new (old) but as others have said, I don't do social media other than Twitter which is just too restrictive for decent comments. Its ironic though that I'm using HackerNews to comment on this. I'm a big fan of building a community who can self-police comments. It may be a pipe dream to be full proof that a bad comment will be down voted enough to remove it completely, but I really think there's a better way than resorting to email and social media.

</comment><comment><USER17> I think this is a matter of value. If someone puts work into an article, then it must be disappointing to find credit being given to a pile of dross attached to the bottom, by people who can't be bothered to think before they type.

I notice theregister.co.uk has shoved comments off onto a separate less important page. So you only follow the link when your blood is really boiling (and put yourself into a self-selecting group).

Comments work for the www.dailymail.co.uk because their articles are generally written to bait their readers, and drivel in the comments is how they measure success. Stories are marked up with how many thousand comments they have generated. The real challenge is to get your comment to the top of the "worst" rated category.

</comment><comment><USER30> Why not both?

The comments section is where the errors and baiting and propaganda gets called out, which has exploded with click-revenue media. Plus you can get a feeling for different community viewpoints.

'Tis a shame.

<comment><USER16> Like YouTube?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> User engagement will drop. But again, open standards to the rescue. RSS and pingbacks were meant to solve this very problem at first place, but since content creators are focused on "impressions", they are unable to take advantage of it.

<comment><USER12> [http://indiewebcamp.com/webmention](http://indiewebcamp.com/webmention)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Couldn't agree with this more. Comments in my experience have been so spammed to death with bots that the benefit of a comments section is diminishing when valued in terms of time spent moderating vs. value added to the reader experience. Social media has effectively superseded the need for comment sections in my humble opinion, providing a similar experience.

</comment><comment><USER33> > In the end, we just want to hear from you.

No, you most obviously do not; Otherwise you wouldn't remove comments sections.

<comment><USER34> "We want to hear from you and use your material if (i) you take the time to actually email us; (ii) you do so with a coherent and well-thought out response to one of our articles; (iii) you decide to do this even though there is likely little prospect of us publishing your email; and (iv) if we do publish it, cutting and highlighting your material in a separate article from which we can make ad revenue."

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Why not create a comments section that runs split testing on the comments? So you enter a comment, and that comment will be randomly shown to a certain percentage of others. Based on up/down votes and response count, eventually the system could deduce the most relevant comments without moderation.

<comment><USER19> I like this idea. It's a _bit_ like how slashdot works: random moderation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I really like contextual discussion, specifically what we're doing here. The article is linked to on Hacker News, and then we return to Hacker News to discuss.

The same thing happens on Facebook. Slashdot has discussions on Slashdot; and then they link to sites on their Facebook page. Another discussion happens on Slashdot's Facebook page.

What's interesting about contextual discussion like this is that the flavor changes quite dramatically. Slashdot's discussions are a bit more lively... Hacker New's discussions are a bit more, uhm, "grown up." Sometimes, an article linked to on Hacker News has a much better discussion on Hacker News than whatever is on the article's message board.

</comment><comment><USER37> A blog I frequent has more interesting thoughts on disabling comments: [http://prog21.dadgum.com/57.html](http://prog21.dadgum.com/57.html)

<comment><USER12> I could also add this: [https://www.hughrundle.net/2014/02/27/why-i-moved-my- blog-fr...](https://www.hughrundle.net/2014/02/27/why-i-moved-my-blog-from- wordpress-to-ghost-and-why-i-turned-off-comments-along-the-way/)

<comment><USER14> Both this and your other link are nice summaries of the problem. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Why something better? The title (of the article) should read "we close comments, write an email if you really need to".

And being a Linux nerd who uses a lot of "old tools" like vim, grep, etc. I still can't understand why people switch from any communication technology X to email nowadays. Email is slowly dying, no reason to jump on that train if you don't have a lot of fancy configs/setup/knowhow in that area already.

<comment><USER4> "Something better (for us)".

I'm gonna take a stab at this and say that I think what they're banking on is that the added effort needed to compose an email (and the lack of a public audiance) is going to raise the barrier of entry and lower the potential payout to eliminate all of the "low-quality, impulse commenting" they felt they were getting flooded with.

And that they're basically equating email to writing a letter in magazine days says a lot about the state and view people have of email, in line with your point.

</comment></comment><comment> chestnut-tree The BBC news website used to do something similar. You could submit a comment below an article but it would be up to their editorial staff to pick which comments would be published. In typical BBC fashion, they would try and publish equal numbers of consenting and dissenting views. Later, they modified this practice so that _" The comments published below reflect the balance of views we received."_ (their words).

Naturally, this method of commenting raised the ire of many who accused the BBC of 'censoring' views. Now anyone can comment on BBC news articles and, in my view, the comment sections are of such low quality, they are completely unreadable.

So in a way, _as a reader_ , I preferred the old practice of publishing a selection of comments (a bit like sending a letter to the editor of a newspaper), because what was published was varied, generally well-composed and of managable reading length. But as _a user commenting_ I can see how frustrating it would be to repeatedly submit comments that were never selected for publication.

</comment><comment><USER39> >"What percentage of comments on any site are valuable enough to be published on their own? One percent? Less? Based on the disparity in quality between emails we get and the average state of comments here and all over the web, I think the problem is a matter of the medium."

The problem is not the medium, the problem is sites seem to expect the medium to be something it isn't.

Vice seems to consider it an obvious flaw that most comments aren't publishable as standalone articles, as if users should be expected to run every comment through several drafts and past a copy editor before posting, and yet comments by definition tend to produce low quality content, because they're discussions between individuals, or between an individual and the site. The immediacy and lack of polish is the feature, not the bug. Do you want your community to be a tavern or a symposium?

Focusing on the comment as a standard of quality is understandable for a site which is using comments as an easy way to drive engagement, but I think doing so disregards the actual purpose of the medium. If what you want from a comments section is a steady stream of high quality, long-form content you can control then what you don't want is comments, what you want is to crowdsource copy writing without compensation.

Even on HN, which is obsessed with "quality" above all else, most comments are worthless on their own, but in aggregate the entire conversation has value. And yes, comments can be full of trolling and bigotry and stupidity and chaos. Hacker News has its share of that as does any active forum. But that has to be the price you're willing to pay, even with moderation, to have an open community. Many sites are discovering the return for the amount of effort required to maintain even moderate civility is not worth the effort.

</comment><comment><USER12> Not all the things need a comments section. I welcome this change and hope it will bring good.

</comment><comment><USER9> I see a number of websites that don't have comments. I also notice that when an article is controversial, sometimes a site that usually has comments has them turned off for that article. I think this is a kind of censorship. Newspapers used to do this by taking letters to the editor, but carefully selecting the ones they wanted to print. Obviously, every website owner has the freedom to choose to have comments or not - I hope that things don't shift that way though. One of the great things about online comments is seeing what the public thinks vs. what the media is portraying.

<comment><USER40> I used to think that was a great thing about comments. Now I quite like websites where they're switched off, because comment communities can be easily dominated by a small number of stupid or malicious people who drive out more thoughtful or nuanced commentary that doesn't suit their worldview.

So often you're not really seeing what the public thinks, you're seeing what particular interest groups think, and if comments are dominated by bitter fights between adherents of, say, different political parties then a lot of people will just check out because there's no point in trying to have a civil discussion in a roomful of screaming ideologues.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I am a big fan of letters to the editors in my local newspaper. I try often to send in my opinions. (though they rarely get printed)

But that is the only NewsPaper I consume and my relationship with it is way more personal than any online portal.

All websites that I visit are based on links shared via my friends on FB, people on Twitter and Discussions on HN. I really have no personal connection with any online content platform.

So unless Vice has a captive audience that visits it religiously and has that personal connection, I am not sure how this section is going to help.

It is pretty much the same as stating that "Comments are Turned off. Period."

</comment><comment> tefo-mohapi More and more publications are giving serious thoughts to user engagement. Some have gone with forums, some slack groups for readers and I like the letters (e-mail) by Vice. Better quality, definetly.

<comment><USER42> >some slack groups for readers

Could you name some publications that do this? I miss IRC. I know it's still around but Slack could be a better implementation of it, with the file sharing.

<comment><USER43> Most IRC clients support DCC file transfer.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Client-to- Client](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Client-to-Client)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> It's not Vice. It's just Motherboard, Vice's tech and science site. Every other Vice site except Broadly (the newest) still has comments.

</comment><comment><USER45> So you are saying broadcast TV media had the right idea all along and communication should be one-way.

I think not.

Basically you either build a community for two-way discussion from the start or instead you end up with a blog that tries to tack on discussion later on and end up "surprised" that there aren't quality comments.

</comment><comment><USER46> When Reuters did this (shut down comments), I wanted to chide them for giving up, yet I couldn't disagree with the rationale. Tough call.

</comment><comment><USER47> What I don't like:

 _Filtering of comments that may be valid and important critiques of the work published as well as the publisher / online venue. The thing I like most about the Internet is that many to many communication mode. Basic things like fact checking and or just awareness of something not being inclusive are powerful things. They force authors to really think hard about what they write.

Obviously, there is a lot of noise too, and that's the standard excuse for strong moderation, but it's really difficult to understand when the moderation is strong in the sense of promoting signal and demoting noise, and when it's censorship or manipulation.

Frankly, I'll take the noise because I would rather determine this myself, or at least have the data needed to make that determination.

Traditionally, it's been an editorial thing. Major news outlets have been in the position to manage questions related to their product as well as themselves and aren't comfortable with the masses feedback. Though the noise level was high, it was also possible to see manipulations and just general lack of accuracy or inclusive commentary and reporting too. Net good, for those who went looking.

This also brought bloggers and basically anyone really interested in something on par with the majors. One guy who really cares can make an impact and fact check the biggest of the big. It's important we continue to make this a reality. We may not like it, but we need it.

The other bit that gets broken here is dialogs. People just saying stuff is kind of noisy. But where the moderation encourages dialog, that dialog can often have as much or more value than the effort being discussed does. Of all the things I appreciate about the Internet, having conversations with people all over the world is right there at the top! If anything, we should be finding better ways to have conversations. Efforts like this do not do that.

I also suspect the strong desire to do that will see some corrective type service or norm that the conversations will move to. Maybe back to critical blogs again? Something else? For sure it's not gonna be Facebook. At least not for me. FB is a raging mess. Useless for this.

Having a large degree of free speech online means our speech does bring others speech in response. So there will almost always be haters, but there will be validation and recommendation and augmentation in there too. We want this. It's important that we don't create a place largely filled with walled off, largely one way, broadcast type efforts no different than the already lame broadcast type, one way efforts that dominate so much media now anyway.

Really, I've sworn off most traditional media for this reason. It's much more informative and inclusive to seek it globally, get various perspectives and see those be critical as well as affirmative._

What I do like:

 _Low noise. Maybe comments are just doomed. In some places they aren 't, but in many they are just crappy. Perhaps it is time to turn off comments, but what then? I really don't feel good about a "best of" type action where they pick some they feel are representative.

If they offer up something here, it could be meaningful. I have no idea what that would look like though. Here's to hoping...

To a degree, discouragement of hate and or just a lot of ugly speech. Many comment sections are filled with some vile stuff that does not add value, other than to remind us that a few too many of us do not get the basics of being a good quality human yet._

As for Sullivan, yes he did not allow comments, and I never did think much of his site for that. Mostly, I ignored it and read through the lens of other places, who would cite him, and then critical dialog could be incorporated as part of the experience. To me, this is vital. It's not that I didn't necessarily like Sullivan. It's more that I saw his work as a platform for discussion, not primarily consumption.

I really don't like one way productions for that reason.

This site is a great example. We link to a lot of stuff that may or may not allow comments, but then we enter into what generally is a pretty great dialog. There are lots of points of view, people adding value with other references and thoughts of various kinds, and fact checking happens fairly consistently. Additionally, as I get to understand others here better, that dialog improves in value. Sure, we've got some biases, but the dialog is constructive enough for it to work well anyway. Very high value here, and that value comes from "the hive mind" where our collective responses actually augment the piece and give us food for thought about that piece. Overall, given people actually do read and interact some, it's a great bull shit filter as well as a path to a more inclusive perspective.

Maybe people don't understand the value in that, or maybe worse, people aren't able to, or simply do not desire that value. I harbor hope the former is true and we can get more people there more of the time.

For me personally, it's just not acceptable to read and not go seek the thoughts of others related to some material I find online. I've simply lost the trust in the vast majority of cases related to media organizations. I do continue to trust individuals and some organizations that are focused in some way or other and who do not derive primary income from publishing.

Vice is a cool platform, and they offer up some frank commentary and news. I've enjoyed a lot of what I read there. Maybe they can replace comments with something that works and that I can trust. Hope so.

<comment><USER48> I agree with you ddingus. Even if a comment section is flooded with nonsense the chance to read an insightful or funny comment still exists, and I'd rather be the one who decides what adds to the conversation.

Whilst I'd be interested to know how this experiment from Vice plays out, the main concern I have is over editorial bias. Sometimes interesting ideas are expressed poorly, do these make the cut, and is it the substance or the way in which they are expressed that gets commented on? Also, will we lose out on some of the funny comments that are only funny in context? Will have to wait and see how diverse the feedback section turns out to be.

<comment><USER47> Yes, exactly.

I have a love hate with editors these days. Back when communications were largely broadcast, and largely one way, editors really mattered. We needed them to make some sense of the limited resources, and we were in a more firm position of forced trust.

Think national TV anchor in the 60's kind of thing, though many examples abound.

Today, it's much different. We don't really require standards and news has gone to a for profit, entertainment model. I would reluctantly argue that is a good thing, but not by much, and only because we also got the Internet. The Internet brought checks and balances to the political dialog.

Say a cable host just isn't based in reality somehow. Doesn't matter who. Just that they are. Today, that's not hard to find out, unless one is tuned into just a few one way channels. Then it's a bubble.

So there is that.

Of course, the other bias is that commentary critical to the entity itself. Big companies are crappy at owning errors and failure. They just don't do it. When is the last time you got good, solid reporting on the FCC and whatever decency or other rules it may be contemplating, for example. Net Neutrality as another one?

People to people, largely driven by people who really cared and took the time to help others understand well enough to care, and John Oliver who is awesome, got the latter out there. John with, "cable company fuckery" and HBO who really only cares about profit seem to work. But the major news outlets don't seem to work.

Vice runs a lot of material that people would want to comment about, and I fear that bias may actually not bring us real commentary, and that would be a shame because Vice seems to be about real people, events, places, news, issues and also appears willing to cover things most other organizations will not touch at all. (and good for Vice on that)

And here is where my argument is subtle: I want that stuff Vice covers to not only inform, but generate conversations. Good, critical ones. I think we need it, and a filtered representation of comments might not get us there.

But, to be fair to Vice, maybe they actually can't get there themselves. In my experience, many organizations just don't seem to get it, or have attracted the masses who just vomit online too. Those that do seem to attract niche demographics who can actually carry on a conversation.

It may be that we continue with a model where majors produce stuff we talk about, but we never, ever talk about it there.

This would be kind of broken in that they can live in the glass house speaking with relative impunity. You all know a few of the types. Might I suggest David Brooks? He's in that position, completely isolated, able to write stuff that he really should have to experience some feedback on, yet he's where that will never happen.

So we talk about Brooks in other places, but not enough places for it to be meaningful in terms of Brooks actually experiencing what others may think of his speech. There is no shield in the First Amendment, however some of us do have an effective shield in this way, and that's not really what the First Amendment is about.

Maybe that is as good as it gets. Maybe Vice brings us an alternative that is better somehow. Maybe Vice has balls, in other words. We shall see.

Back to editors for a moment. They still do what they do well, and we still need them, but the nature of the need has shifted some with the Internet, and that's good as we see more kinds of speech compete out there for mindshare.

I find this important and high value, even when it can be very difficult to read or contemplate at times.

<comment><USER48> I agree with you again.

Out of interest, who is David Brooks and why do you believe he could use some unfiltered feedback? I've never heard of him.

<comment><USER47> Brooks is s political pundit writing for the NYT. [http://www.nytimes.com/column/david- brooks](http://www.nytimes.com/column/david-brooks)

He often writes everybody is bad type columns that present highly questionable political conclusions and that contradict his own works from the past..

And he's insulated to a degree where nobody will actually call him on any of it. And it's not like he is alone in that either. He is one that I find particularly painful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Closed comments on a website are clear sight that the editorial staff can't take public criticism.

<comment><USER50> Or simply that they feel low quality comments detract from the site relative to whatever engagement/informational value they add. Some types of sites in particular (consumer gadgets for example) seem to attract lots of warring fanboy-ism without much in the way of signal. Yes, turning off comments is something of a nuclear option but you can't chalk it up purely to blocking criticism.

<comment><USER51> Why not both?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Seems like a huge step back.

</comment><comment><USER53> What we really need is a nice and cosy safe space.

Throw Web 2.0 right into the trash.

</comment><comment><USER54> Will they also be replacing writers like these [https://archive.is/cEGD4](https://archive.is/cEGD4) with something better?

I think that's the far more urgent task.

<comment><USER55> That is an absolutely pathetic article...

Edit: And after reading it closer, it seems to be from someone who doesn't understand how neither reddit nor food work. I wonder why they felt the need to print it.

<comment><USER56> While that was a pointless article to write anywhere outside of reddit itself, as it is in essence just a reddit rant, it is actually spot on imo. /r/food is parody of a food blog by people who are either in on the joke or, due to heart disease, won't live long enough to get in on the joke.

The description of your average reddidiot was also accurate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> And that is how only favourable and aproved comments will be shown. No more diversity of opinion.

<comment><USER58> Not necessarily. Newspapers have been doing this for years, and (the quality ones at least) frequently show letters that disagree and point out errors.

If vice.com wanted to show only comments that agreed with them, they could do that already.

<comment><USER57> And most sites (cant speak for these ) mostly do it alreadyly. Try saying that eg:wage gap doesn' exist and link some articles by economists - 9 out of 10 times such comments get "moderated".

<comment><USER59> I like how you have created a throwaway to express your opinions on commenting

<comment><USER51> These days anything coming close to controversial on the "wrong side" requires it.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


My Incredibly Important Thoughts on OccupyWallSt and its Spawn - <AUTHOR> http://idlynx.com/wordpress/2011/10/11/important-thoughts-on-occupywallst/#.TpSBSPVmxN0.hackernews

<comment><AUTHOR> The startup community has a responsibility as the go-between for the corporate world and average man. We have the luxury of identifying with both groups in certain ways, and thus we can play a pivotal role as intermediaries. What are your thoughts?</comment>


Substandard crypto needlessly puts Evernote accounts at risk - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/03/critics-substandard-crypto-needlessly-puts-evernote-accounts-at-risk/

<comment><USER2> MD5? Unbelievable. I was relieved when I read salted and hashed on Evernote's blog post, but trying to sell MD5 as even remotely secure is actively idiotic. I'd rather get a "yeah we fucked up on the whole password storage thing" than "yeah MD5 is secure". Give me a break...

<comment><USER3> I was particularly impressed that their Android client uses the ultra secure XOR crypto scheme.</comment></comment>


Microsoft .NET Apps on OpenShift - <AUTHOR> https://www.openshift.com/blogs/microsoft-dot-net-on-openshift

<comment><USER2> Makes sense. But Cygwin SSHd in 2014?

I know Red Hat own Cygwin! but Windows Ops people want a native shell, not bash - Red Hat should get a Powershell Server license, or write their own replacement.</comment>


San Diego Investors and Startups - <AUTHOR> Looking to connect with SD investors and investment opportunities in the San Diego area. There are a lot of startups here, but the community is very fragmented. Currently affiliated with a couple local organizations and actively seeking opportunities to invest and contribute to the success of companies in the area. Currently active in a diverse portfolio of 70+ startups. If you are working on anything interesting and in the area definitely reach out. <comment><USER2> I work with a group called TopicQuests, whose founder lives and works in the San Diego area. We are an AI platform that is utilizing an advanced database architecture. We have a lot of use cases and a lot of plans. If you are interested, reach out to me at firstname.lastname@example.com.</comment>


NZBMatrix Shuts Down Citing Piracy Troubles - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/nzbmatrix-shuts-down-citing-piracy-troubles-121209/ <comment><USER2> Here is a link to the discussion concerning NZBMatrix.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4894401>

It is currently on the front of HN</comment>


Show HN: My newest startup, Kiveve - <AUTHOR> http://www.kiveve.com/webmasters Hey guys! Im so happy to announce the launch of my new startup, Kiveve.
Kiveve is a traffic exchange network created to help quality content bloggers and webmasters increase their traffic and therefore their revenue.
We are at our very early stages and we are now open for website application to join our network
I'd love to know what you think about it! <comment><USER2> These are some of the most obnoxious headlines I've read in a while.

"If you are like Sweeet... Tell me more! Click Here" "Fancy Pants Algorithm" "Ninja Time Analytics"

I suppose there's a demographic that responds positively to that type of diction. If that's the case, you've done a good job of narrowing your target market.

Also, use more text and less text-images!

</comment><comment><USER3> How can you send 2x traffic back to every site? Is this a click-based ponzi scheme

<comment><USER4> From the about page[1]: "For every click you send, we will send you back up to 200% the amount of traffic you sent".

That line is misleading, agreed.

[1] <http://www.kiveve.com/webmasters/about/>

<comment><USER5> It does sound like a Ponzi scheme, but even then, not even Madoff could do 200% so kudos if that's for real.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Feedback:

\- Typos: "Kiveve is a traffice exchange platform. Basically, a way for you to multiply your sites visitors. That means, everytime you send us a visitor, we'll send you around twice as many back. We multiply your traffic. Free." - 'traffice' -> 'traffic' and 'sites' -> 'site's'. Remove the comma after 'that means'. 'around' -> 'about'

\- After the "We multiply your traffic. Free" bit, it would be helpful to know how. Right now, my response isn't, "wow, tell me more!" but instead, "Free? Bullshit."

\- text encoding issue in the next paragraph: I'm seeing "Kiveve�s" on OS X 10.7 w/ Safari.

\- "Ninja Time Analytics" raises my hackles for the same reason that descriptions of developers as 'ninjas' or 'rockstars' does.

\- "from the day 1 you put our widget in your site." -> "from the day you add our widget to your site." Also, make "add our widget" a link to your signup page.

\- "Stay tunned to future upcoming features" -> "Stay tuned for updates."

Net net: I am skeptical but intrigued.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! Hey, whenever you need help with your spanish homework let me know! I feel like I owe you :)

<comment><USER6> _Lo lamento no hablo español_ and _donde esta el baño_ are the only two phrases I've ever learned, sadly :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The first two sentences I read ended in ", huh?" It's very disorienting and feels unprofessional.

<comment><USER8> Completely agreed - that was my first reaction also, but I would give them a little slack because my guess is that they aren't the greatest at English because they are in Paraguay

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> To learn more about us visit <http://www.kiveve.com/webmasters> or visit our blog <http://kiveve.tumblr.com>

<comment><USER9> My first gut reaction is: this sounds wrong. I don't understand how you're sending more traffic, although your intentions may be altruistic (solve the major problem of how to get people to test your site out). If you're just trying to convince people you're going to dump traffic on them, I believe those businesses already exist in the form of link/traffic exchange networks. And those are not interesting to me at all.

But if you're saying I can get some more beta testers who won't trash my site, I'm interested. Can you explain how exactly that works in as plain English as possible?

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thank you guys for all the great feedback. I really appreciate it! We apologize for the typos. English is not our first language eventhough that is not an excuse, we'll fix them right away! I know at the moment everything seems a bit abstract but we are working to make everything clear and transparent.

</comment><comment><USER10> Lots of typos on the front page.

Also, bad math. 28638 received over 23634 sent is a 200.03% return rate? No. "Sent" and "received" are already very ambiguous - is "sent" what I sent you or what you sent me? But either way, it doesn't work out to a two-fold return.

</comment><comment><USER11> Login link is broken. Good luck with the project, though! I'm viewing in Chrome and there are a lot of font spacing issues, and the "About" page looks like Times New Roman which I am assuming is unintentional.

</comment><comment> mkr-hn What does the widget look like? Is it customizable? "Quality site" and "concerned with how new gadgets look/behave" tend to go together.

</comment><comment><USER12> The form on <http://www.kiveve.com/webmasters/start/> isn't working.

<comment><USER12> Never mind, it sent the data correctly, but it displayed an error page upon submission.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This reminds me of LinkExchange (Tony Hsieh's previous startup). Is it any different from that ?

</comment><comment><USER12> Love the website design.

<comment><USER14> Me too but those fonts should be embedded.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you guys! THANK YOU. Yeah, we are working on it... It will get better, I promise ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> beautiful website. I see an font error here though. on chrome in lion

<http://imgur.com/CS6C8>

</comment><comment><USER16> 28K->23K. How the hell is this a 200.3% return rate? More like a -17.9% return rate.</comment>


Rack Mount Mac Pro Available - <AUTHOR> https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/mac-pro/rack <comment><USER2> Im curious who is buying these? They're so crazy expensive.</comment>


Great Wall Motor unveils $9k electric urban car with nearly 200-mile range - <AUTHOR> https://electrek.co/2018/12/27/great-wall-motor-ora-r1-all-electric-urban-car/ <comment><USER2> 35kWh on a boxy vehicle? As mentioned in the article, more like 150mi range on the standard the US uses to calculate range, and a smaller battery than some Zero motorcycles.

Not tiny, but it's not exactly a slippery vehicle; low mass could help it do better than a tesla-type car at lower speeds, but worse at higher speeds, I imagine.

Charge to 90% and you're at 135mi range, leave a safety margin and now you're looking at 100mi real world. Not bad for most day-to-day, but when you look at real world usage and the safety margins most drivers like to use, it starts getting dicey.

Been in a Great Wall or two. Fine cars. I wouldn't want to crash in one, but they're engineered to a price point.

<comment><USER3> > I wouldn't want to crash in one

This is what is keeping my wife and I from getting her a Nissan Leaf. She drove a Nissan Versa (basically the same platform but traditional gas engine) until she was hit by another car. The accident was caused by a person in the oncoming lane not seeing her and turning left, striking her driver's side door. The other person was in a mid sized SUV (first gen Jeep Liberty) and was only going about 15MPH when she struck my wife's car, but the force pushed my wife's driver side door all the way into her seat and against her hip. The Versa was severely frame damaged and not driveable; the only damage the Jeep sustained was losing the bumper cover.

Thankfully my wife was not hurt apart from some bruising and soreness on her hip, but if the other car had been going faster (say, at an intersection) she could have been seriously hurt or killed. She is now driving our Crown Victoria, a full frame vehicle with five star crash ratings all around and reinforced doors due to being a former detective's car. Her fuel economy sucks, and she was just moved to a more remote office at her job which makes the Vic a very expensive commuter car now, but we're leery of getting her a subcompact (gas, hybrid, or electric). It's probably an irrational fear; such an accident is probably a once in a lifetime thing, but traffic is insane where we live and work so we both feel much safer with her in "The Tank".

<comment><USER4> What are the crash ratings all around on the Versa? I feel you are not being very scientific on this. She wasn't injured in her wreck, you are extrapolating that she would have been, but you don't know that. Bigger is not always better with crash safety, I see this idea espoused a lot. The old huge rigid cars from back in the day are actually death traps because they don't have crumple zones and the frames are too rigid, transferring all the force to the occupant in a crash. That's why demolition derby contestants always get those old full frame cars from the past, they don't crumple and they transfer force to the other vehicles, but also to the driver.

If the modern crown vic is 5 star rated this may not be a problem, but the rating probably came before they added the door supports for the police, so the car may actually be more unsafe now.

<comment><USER5> The crown vic police interceptor (which is likely what the op is talking about) is a fairly "modern" vehicle; it was the go-to vehicle for police departments across the country. Detective versions typically were white or black only (not "cruiser" decorated), and usually lacked the interior cage and hose-out rear seat. Other than that, they usually had the full interceptor package (unless the dept cheaped out for the detectives, I suppose, and just bought standard crown vics).

I'm not sure when they stopped making them, but it had to be sometime in the early-2000s, maybe a bit later. I know that a lot of PDs went to an SUV platform, or other vehicles.

The one potential issue with a crown vic that would make it more dangerous that other cars is that it had a saddle fuel tank. Ford did not learn the lesson of their Pinto. Rear-end accidents with a crown vic had the potential to turn in to fiery death-traps. It wasn't until a police detective here in Phoenix got horribly injured (but survived) did they make modifications to police fleet vehicles (I think they put in a racing fuel bladder or something like that in the tanks). I don't believe such modifications were implemented for standard civilian crown vics...

Regardless, the crown vic isn't the same as much older vehicles. While it likely isn't up to modern crash standards, it is still a fairly new vehicle that does have crumple zones and such, and won't spear someone thru the heart with the steering column in a front-end collision.

<comment><USER3> > The crown vic police interceptor (which is likely what the op is talking > about) is a fairly "modern" vehicle

Yes, it is.

> I'm not sure when they stopped making them, but it had to be sometime in the > early-2000s, maybe a bit later.

The CVPI (Crown Victoria Police Interceptor) and the Crown Victoria itself were retired in 2011. Their immediate replacement from Ford was a Taurus based Interceptor sedan and SUV. Most officers I know derided the new Interceptor platform for having less acceleration and smaller interior space than the old CV platform. Where I live, the Dodge Charger police vehicle became much more popular after the CVPI was retired.

> The one potential issue with a crown vic that would make it more dangerous > that other cars is that it had a saddle fuel tank. Ford did not learn the > lesson of their Pinto. Rear-end accidents with a crown vic had the potential > to turn in to fiery death-traps. It wasn't until a police detective here in > Phoenix got horribly injured (but survived) did they make modifications to > police fleet vehicles (I think they put in a racing fuel bladder or > something like that in the tanks). I don't believe such modifications were > implemented for standard civilian crown vics...

This is correct. The last revision of the CVPI (2004 to 2011) had a ton of safety improvements, including to the gas tank.

> Regardless, the crown vic isn't the same as much older vehicles. While it > likely isn't up to modern crash standards, it is still a fairly new vehicle > that does have crumple zones and such, and won't spear someone thru the > heart with the steering column in a front-end collision.

It's still one of the safer (for the driver) cars on the road today, though its weight and bulk make it more likely to cause the most damage to other vehicles in any accident it's involved in. And you're exactly right about the steering column, it's a breakaway design. I know this because I've had to replace a dash component that required unbolting the steering wheel and column.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Something that keeps me from getting an hybrid or electric vehicle is that I can no longer fix them. My '01 Subaru is a simple machine. When something goes wrong there are only a few potential issues and usually it is either something I can do myself or something my mechanic can do for less than $500.

My mechanic won't even look at electric or hybrid cars because he isn't certified. My brother in laws hybrid Nissan had an issue over Christmas. I took a look at it and a mechanic took a look at it (friend of the family doing him a favor). Turned out to be an electronic issue, dealer ended up having to replace a controller that cost north of $1200.

When they diagnosed it I did some research and discovered that I could replace it, but much like the market for HVAC parts, I wasn't allowed to purchase the part...

I will probably ve sticking with my Subaru and get my wife (who is looking for a new car after hers died) an early 00s vehicle that I can still repair for less than ridiculous prices.

<comment><USER4> My understanding is that the failure rates are so low on electric motors, you won't need to fix lots of problems like on an ICE-powered vehicle. As someone that has owned a lot of shitty gas cars and had to repair them myself, I'd relish the chance for an electric.

<comment><USER7> They said the LED light bulbs would last 20 years. Last week I had to replace 5 of them that failed all at the exact same time, 6 month old bulbs. Clearly there was some kind of power surge or disturbance that the power electronics didn't like; but yet here we are.

<comment><USER8> The LEDs themselves likely will last 20 years (though losing some of the brightness). The power electronics that feeds them off 110V (or 220V) is tiny because it has to fit into the lamp's base, cannot be too expensive for pricing reasons, but is still much more complex than the LED crystals. It has a much higher failure rate than the light-emitting parts.

<comment><USER9> I'm sure that electric car manufacturers will have the same things to say when people point to previous claims of extreme longevity.

<comment><USER10> Does that matter if we get off of oil in the interim? It seems the argument should be for continuous improvement in the manufacturing process and a closed loop recycling system for failed components and batteries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have a second car just for doing school runs. Never does more than 5km in a day, never goes over 40km/h. Still it requires expensive maintenance. I have long said I should replace it with something more like a golf-cart or electric bike with kids in a trailer or something. This kind of car could be that. I'm happy with a 20km range but it has to be _cheap_. The current car I use is worth less than the cost of its overdue timing belt change.

<comment><USER12> I've long had the notion that we shouldn't drive anything heavier than a golf cart in cities. It would be a lot safer for everyone and even teenagers could drive them.

<comment><USER5> Let me know how well that works out for you here in Phoenix during the middle of July.

For some areas of the US (notably the southwest), the summer months are brutal. Air conditioning is virtually a requirement, not a luxury. Unless we mandate that all businesses install showers for employees (and we change as a society and not mind people being sweaty and smelly otherwise).

The majority of power used in a car during the summer months - beyond moving itself and passengers - comes from the AC system. These systems can sometimes exceed the BTU output of a house AC unit, mainly because they are fighting the heat input from the outside constantly, due to the lack of insulation in an automobile passenger cabin. So they have to be more powerful to offset that. Which means they need a power system to keep up, and historically that has been an IC engine. I'm not sure how an electric vehicle's AC system fares during a hot summer day, or how it effects the battery charge, but I'd expect it to be fairly heavy on that front.

Could we do as you suggest? Certainly we could; we did something similar (more or less) for hundreds of years before automotive AC was a standard item (in fact, the automobile was around a long time before AC became a readily available option). At the same time, though, certain social standards were different, plus there's the argument that cities weren't as built up or as dense (heat island effect), making them (marginally) cooler than today.

Here in Phoenix, though - it starts to become a furnace around the end of May, and continues until about the end of October. There are nights where it never falls below 100F at times; most of the time it never falls below 90F at night. There isn't an easy solution for comfortable personal transportation in such conditions, except for the automobile as we currently know it.

<comment><USER13> Maybe my car's AC is underpowered, but I get much sweatier from a 15 minute drive in my car with the AC cranked if my car's been sitting in the sun (with black paint, black leather, moonroof) than I do from a 15 minute walk in the same sun.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Ignoring whether this is a great engineering accomplishment or not:

> In addition, the big data cloud that is created as the result of the > information collected from the ORA app, the ORA shopping site and the Tmall > e-shop opens the way to the development of multiple scenarios for offline > sales

I don't see that much discussion about this trend, but I consider it a threat to security as well as just plain bad UX. All these UX gimmicks and "features" I already loathe in web apps, I really don't want them in my car. Pay to unlock, tracking, remote control, AI. Sure, it's comfort, but what is the price? At this point I prefer a 90's car where you just turn the key and it works or don't.

Is this just "get-off-my-lawn" thinking?

<comment><USER15> I think one trend we've seen emerging in markets everywhere is that despite competition in the market there isn't significant differentiation. So you'd think great, we've got this tech and I'll go with the company where I pay a little more and don't have to give up all my privacy. But instead what we end up with is 90% of companies bundling in all the privacy invasion stuff (because they like the new revenue stream or the share holders demand they follow the trend or they simply can't make the margin on the product) and then 10% of companies go right to the top end, and whilst you get your privacy you're also paying for massively premium products.

I see this in the smart home devices - you can trust NONE of them, with the exception of a tiny minority like Apple who also then charge a fortune extra because they're trying to sell a premium product for other reasons. So in the end you're not overwhelmed by choice, you're railroaded.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Does anyone know the $$ hidden in the phrase "with incentives". If there are 20k of incentives, this press release is much less impressive than if there are $2k of incentives.

Personally, I am very bullish on electric cars, and am hoping this is the start of a lot of other automakers releasing affordable (to little ol me) electric cars.

<comment><USER17> This article explains it well but it's complicated. Around $9k or $7k

[https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/comparing-u.s.-and- chines...](https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/comparing-u.s.-and-chinese- electric-vehicle-policies)

"The subsidy program was renewed again in 2016 - up to RMB 55,000 ($8,736) for each BEV and up to RMB 30,000 ($4,765) for each PHEV. It will decrease by 20 percent in 2017 and 2018 based on 2016's standard"

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is "Great Wall Motor" a name that's supposed to appeal to English-speaking audiences? It's not my first language, but even to me "Motor" sounds just wrong, it should be "Motors". No matter how often I read it, it still seems wrong.

Sorry for bikeshedding, but I don't drive a car :P

</comment><comment><USER19> Keep in mind this is with significant subsidies. A 33kWh battery pack alone costs more than that retail. You can make anything cheap to the consumer when you funnel tax money into it.

<comment><USER20> Like "cheap" energy from carbon emissions from coal, oil, and gas? If you mention subsidies for EVs, must mention the MUCH larger and historically MASSIVE subsidies all polluters have been given by dumping their garbage into our atmosphere for free.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Between the Chinese price competitiveness and the vulnerability the car faces vis-a-vis 3 ton roadtrains ("Fords" and "RAMs")...

... we can be sure the US will do lots to ban importing these.

<comment><USER22> Indeed. The free market is a concept only applied to other countries, never to the US.

<comment><USER21> As an American, I've been thoroughly and continuously shocked to see how roughly 50% of voters seem very devoted to supporting mercantilism and cronyism, as if this somehow makes their lives better.

But then again this is also the same demographic that lines up to pay $50,000 for a truck that delivers marginal value compared to a $6,000 used Nissan or Mitsubishi.

Especially when the majority of truck owners don't haul anything heavy (concrete, tile, metal).

<comment><USER23> > seem very devoted to supporting mercantilism and cronyism

America was arguably made great via the free markets and market forces. People know this instinctively. However, these same firms now push this idea to become rent-seekers, and I don't feel like we've seen an adjustment from the left of politics to counter this, or point out economic market failures.

cf: safety regulations. Seen as hurting business. Yes, they stop individual companies making super-normal profits. But that's because they're stopping these same companies from selling the common good for profit.

Wildly off on a tangent, I wonder if we're not going to see someone running on an anti-corruption platform at some point soon, where corruption is explicitly inclusive of: lobbying, rent-seeking, gerrymandering, and so on.

<comment><USER21> I hope someone does run but I'm not optimistic they would deliver.

I am biased. I hate regulation because it isn't applied fairly.

My gf's parents had their dry cleaner business shut down by NY state, who fined them $50,000 for allegedly failing to dispose of chemicals. They never paid, NY state never sued.

However, Lawrence Aviation Co DID dump chemicals in NY state that permanently destroyed the water supply in Port Jefferson NY.

The owner was fined $100,000, a small percentage of his networth compared to my gf's parents who are paycheck to paycheck.

He served 1 year in prison despite potentially poisoning the 100,000 people who were on the local water supply.

<comment><USER22> American-style democracy aka managed democracy aka inverted totalitarianism

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> $9k? That's less than a Tesla battery pack.

 __checks specs __

62mph top speed, 33kwh battery, 150mi real world range, looks like the size of a smart car. Yep. No surprises here.

I bet the fit and finish is worse than a Ford Ranger

</comment><comment><USER25> > In addition, the big data cloud that is created as the result of the > information collected from the ORA app, the ORA shopping site and the Tmall > e-shop opens the way to the development of multiple scenarios for offline > sales and services as well as new transportation services for both drivers > and passengers."

In other words: a vending machine calling itself a car.

</comment><comment><USER26> Interesting vehicle, but the design is such a rip-off. Honda Urban EV in the front and Smart forfour in the back.

It would be interesting to know what the unsubsidized price is and if it ever comes to the west.

The e.Go Life has a similar concept but does not seem to be able to compete on price or battery capacity.

</comment><comment><USER27> This actually has almost the same range as my petrol car - it's a terrible Kia automatic with a microscopic gas tank that gets 225 miles on a full tank. I suppose these won't be sold in Europe because they don't pass safety standards?

</comment><comment><USER28> How do these do in a crash test?

<comment><USER29> We get a fair few of them (edit: Great Walls, not this new model) in Australia, and they're pretty universally considered utter crap. From reliability to crash tests, they consistently just don't live up to the marketing and hype. Sure they're cheap, but this seems to very much be a "you get what you pay for" cheap, not a "great bang for buck" cheap.

Personally I've only been in 1, one of the newer utes, and it felt like a 15 yr old base-model rental, despite being brand new and spec'd out.

Few examples of previous models bombing their testing:

> The budget Great Wall Steed ute has scored a shocking two stars in the > latest round of ANCAP crash testing, against the 2016 ratings criteria.

[https://www.caradvice.com.au/545184/great-wall-steed- flunks-...](https://www.caradvice.com.au/545184/great-wall-steed-flunks-ancap- test-with-two-star-rating/)

> Chinese Haval H9 SUV slammed in world first independent crash test, > conducted in Australia

> [...]sales of Chinese vehicles have almost come to standstill in Australia > after safety recalls of Great Wall Motors utes due to asbestos components > and poor crash test ratings of earlier models in recent years.

[https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/motoring/chine...](https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/motoring/chinese- haval-h9-suv-slammed-in-world-first-independent-crash-test-conducted-in- australia/news-story/6adc49925357489ddea1a4ea88ff2427)

<comment><USER23> > they're pretty universally considered utter crap. From reliability to crash > tests, they consistently just don't live up to the marketing and hype

If I remember my history correctly, this used to be true of Japanese exports too (and Taiwanese, and Korean, et al). Hopefully the Chinese will improve with time, and start to be known for high-quality exports!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> there is one more reasons why electric cars are popular in Beijing or shanghai, good luck getting license plate for gasoline engine and license plate itself will cost almost as much as this car

if you would have to pay free thousands euros just for license plate and even to get it you would have to win lottery, most if the people would think twice about buying gasoline engine cars

</comment><comment><USER31> If your definition of eletric car is just car with a battery and engine then...

[https://twitter.com/GeorgStieler/status/1075195222953349120](https://twitter.com/GeorgStieler/status/1075195222953349120)

</comment><comment><USER32> Wish we could get cheap cars in the U.S. Our prices are crazy.

I recall hearing the smart car could be sold cheaply in its original country, but after importing it and meeting all U.S. requirements, the price quadrupled.

<comment><USER33> > Wish we could get cheap cars in the U.S. Our prices are crazy.

They are actually lower than in Europe, mind you.

The Scion iM a.k.a. Toyota Auris _starts_ at ~$17k. in Europe to give an example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Is there some rule somewhere that electric cars have to be fugly? (with some notable exceptions obviously)

</comment><comment><USER35> Without AMP (actually works in with noscript): [https://electrek.co/2018/12/27/great-wall-motor- ora-r1-all-e...](https://electrek.co/2018/12/27/great-wall-motor-ora-r1-all- electric-urban-car/)</comment>


Thoughts on the Go Programming Language - <AUTHOR> http://hoisie.com/post/my_thoughts_on_the_go_programming_language

<comment><USER2> The environmental variable issue is quite minor, as are the three steps, and the architecturally-specific names of the compilation parts.

The semicolon issue is not really confusing--it says in one of the early pages that it is to be used as a statement separator, not as a statement terminator.

The exception mechanism isn't totally ruled out--they might do it, but it sounds like they well might not. And they have good reasons for not doing it.

The point labeled "Ambiguous assignment" isn't really ambiguous, it shows three ways to do the same thing.

I agree with the conclusion here, that many of things mentioned are likely to evolve.

</comment><comment><USER3> the environmental variables make it convenient to cross compile, or so I've heard</comment>


Eliminating Distractions from Social Media, Email, and StackOverflow - <AUTHOR> https://mtlynch.io/eliminate-distractions/ <comment><AUTHOR> Author here. Happy to answer any questions or hear any feedback about this post.

<comment><USER2> I actually finally made an account here just to tell you I really enjoyed the article. I have been in the process of managing my social media better for a while now and I appreciate a lot of your ideas. I totally agree that finding out the specific things you want from an app and tailoring it to just that thing is the key to healthy habits. Thanks. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for reading! I'm glad that it resonated with you and that the ideas were helpful.</comment></comment></comment>


On increasing productivity - <AUTHOR> https://www.stavros.io/posts/on-increasing-productivity/ <comment><USER2> you're just digging yourself a bigger hole.

"I am writing a blog post in reply to a blog post i still refuse to read... "

are you serious ?

go read the the blog post. you can do it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Go read my comment. I did read the post. It didn't change my opinion on anything.

<comment><USER2>
      I went back and read it, I agree with most of what he says (and my original comment wasn't very relevant to this particular article), I would just add "don't stress about productivity, most of the time it's fine to just do what you like".

I told you you would agree with most of what Sam said. Your opinion didn't need to be changed. doing what you like is the most important part of productivity according to you and Sam, and me...

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure what your objection is. Did you want me to not write my post, or what?</comment></comment></comment></comment>