-By Warner Todd Huston
This month the blog commenting system Disqus changed its system with neither a warning nor an explanation, eliminating the ability of page visitors to see the tallied number of down votes to any of the comments. Apparently the blog service felt that Americans were getting their feelings hurt so badly by a down vote that it had to eliminate the capability. And thus the feminization of America continues.
Previously, the Disqus commenting system featured a way for other page visitors who had opened an account with Disqus to either up vote or down vote comments by clicking on a green arrow facing upward or a red arrow facing down. As each visitor clicked on the arrows a tally of how many votes the comment received was displayed.
But now, when someone tries to click on the down vote arrow it neither displays as red for other commenters to see, nor is there any longer a tallied number. The up votes, however, still show a green number tallying upward as each up arrow is clicked.
So, now no one knows how many down votes a comment is getting.
In fact, this change makes every comment into a “good” one. How? By only showing the up votes. So, a comment may have gotten 300 down votes and only 100 up votes, yet since only the up votes are tallied and displayed, the comment will look like everyone loved it.
Yes, America, we are all wilting flowers who cannot withstand a red arrow pointing down.
Apparently, Disqus felt that so many Americans were getting their widdle feelings hurt that they had to take measures to return everyone’s self-esteem to tip top condition. Yes, America, each and every one of you are wonderful, smart, and gosh darn it, people love you and Disqus is going to make sure you don’t get your delicate mental balance upset.
Feel free to go through life with your badly spelled, idiotic comment forever emblazoned across the Internet tubes and given the Disqus seal of approval. You aren’t a brainless racist, a grammatical moron, a pointless troll, a dimiwtted liberal, or a knuckle-dragging conservative any longer. You are a shining light driving the world to truth, justice and the new American way where no one gets their feelings hurt.
Needless to say, this new move is a gut wrenchingly stupid move. Not only is it turning us all into spineless, feminized, children, it has also eliminated information from our lives.
After all, the up and down vote used to be a way to understand what sort of community the page catered to. For instance, if someone’s comment was made up of conservative or Republican sentiment and it got a million down votes, it was easy to understand quickly that most of the folks that visit the site are liberals.
This worked in a myriad of ways, too, not just politically. If someone said they hated a movie and got slammed, the site was filled with fanboys. Etc., etc.
Unfortunately, now every comment looks to be loved. It’s all honey and roses for Disqus, and that easy way to grasp the leanings of the community has been eliminated.
Granted this change eliminates the many thousands of jerks–called Internet trolls–who just simply down vote everything without having any logical reason and presumably that is the reason Disqus abruptly changed its system.
But what is this really? It’s just another example of the feminization of America. Oh, we are all just too delicate to be faced with dissent, too mentally unstable to be forced to find that not everyone thinks we are all special little snowflakes like our doting mommies think we are.
Disqus is here to save your self-esteem, America. And not a moment too soon, apparently. We all need a break from this harsh world, don’t we?
The truth is, it would be better to have no comments at all then to have… this.
Screw you Disqus. I got yer down vote right here.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, Wizbang.com, among many, many others. Huston has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, and many local TV shows as well as numerous talk radio shows throughout the country.
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