Forums / Discussion / Q & A

I've seen more and more pages recently on KYM with comments sections entirely disabled for no apparent reasons, like this page :
https://knowyourmeme.com/editorials/guides/why-is-corridor-digitals-so-called-ai-anime-video-so-controversial-heres-how-the-rock-paper-scissors-animation-became-one-of-the-biggest-viral-debates-surrounding-ai

I could understand why a nsfw page could have its comment section disabled, but it also happens in some random pages on the site.

an explanation for that ?

I am guessing they want you to comment in the main page about it the ai anime controversy…but I am really not sure lol

Some arguments got a bit too heated.

In the past, commenters would have the same argument on like 6 or 7 different pages related to a single topic. No!! is right in that we'd prefer it if the flame war happened in one place only – at the very least so it's easier to moderate.

Of course, we'd prefer it a lot more if comment sections didn't have these problems at all and remained civil.

Flame war is kind of an excuse to disable comments. A classic excuse.

Same as other sites
users views don't matter

I thought it was due to the spam bots.

I've only seen comments disabled on Editorials. Comments on Editorial Guides are disabled for what seem like controversial posts, but not always. What Is 'A Girl's Perspective' By Nevarky? The Lewd Animation Meme Explained allows comments but this one, about Less Wrong forum memes, has comments disabled. Maybe Mods know what gets people stirred up from past incidents? I'm glad that Editorials with inline URLs to non-editorials DO allow comments there, e.g. Less Wrong Roko.

Comments have gone away a lot since 2010-era Web 2.0. It's reasonable to herd threads on the same topic to one place. Discontinuing all comments everywhere would be sad for a meme site. Sorry this is so long.

Editorials are managed by the admin staff, not moderators. We have no idea what the justififcation for allowing or disallowing comments on some of these pages is (very likely a checkbox that admins sometimes forget to click). Also, certain types of admin content (such as the "meme explained"-type videos) get comment disabled to ensure they show up high on search engine results without user content risking it being flagged.

As for entries, we have a general idea of what gets the users going in the wrong way. Topics that invite sexism or homophobia – especially around certain topics like muh vidya games – are frequent offenders. We get that users like to engage in politics (like the dissenters in this thread, with the suspensions to prove it), but we try to keep them localized to forum megathreads because it's a pain in the ass otherwise. Large topics like the 2020 election and Gamergate were quite literally more comments than the mod team was able to read.

Or, y'know, we're evil tyrants.

side tangent but seeing people going "BAWWWWW MODS ARE EVIL TYRANT" because mods don't want comment sections to completely turn into shitslinging fest will never not be funny

Apparently it seems to be random, cause I noticed on this page the comments section is disabled for no reason, even though all I was gonna comment was that I got something to show my therapist.

There's probably some correlation with the admin writing the editorial and whether or not comments get locked, but beyond that who knows; it could just be them rolling dice or messing with us for fun.

TY Doeoeod for the explanation! I get curious, and you explained really well with lots of details.

Y'all aren't evil tyrants! Others in this thread who feel oppressed maybe haven't ever commented on an MSN news story. Everyone has to use l337 speak to get anything past the censors, even for non-political stuff.

With the current stream of news I predict more locks will be coming lol

And yet another one with comments section disabled. For…no reason. There's no reason to lock comments section for "troon" entry.

When the admins make an entry that goes near the spoooooooky topics (traaaaans, US politics, muh vidya, any woman who streams etc.) the mod team has this sort of moment. We know the comment section is going to descend into a mentally ill carnival of comment chains. Sometimes it's a slow buildup where all the big politics orange circles vie for top comment. Other times it's a real flash in the pan; one moment the entry is blank, next it's top of trending and we've banned 11 people. It happens every time, we all know it's going to happen, but we tell ourselves "surely this time will be different." Surely the same community that needed 27 pages for Bridget can handle it THIS time. One day this community will prove us wrong by behaving for once and you'll get to make a whole big thread about it and rub in the mods' faces how mean and evil we are and that none of this needed to happen.

Not today though. The comments were open for hours. Hours. That's how long it took for someone to decide "yeah I'm gonna talk about mass shootings hee hoo me clever". I don't know what compels users to click that comment button and just undo years of therapy, but until they stop doing it the comments are probably going to stay locked.

I'm real sorry if this is frustrating. We know there are good behaved NORMAL users who just want to say normal things. You didn't choose to share a website with the undiagnosed. But right now the choice is between letting every entry have a shit flinging contest on it, or the mild inconvenience of making users click the "forums" tab.