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Comment by aschlafly | Hacker News Reader

Somewhat unrelated, but has anyone noticed the appalling quality of the FT's comments section? You'd think that the leading financial paper would be able to stop people from flaming each other in the comments. In their recent AUKUS coverage as well, there were commentors cheering on the idea of war.

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As a long-time FT subscriber, I and others have noticed a very steep decline over the last year or so. Before, I didn't always agree with the comments, but they were usually at least somewhat insightful. Some readers suspect an organized incursion of state-sponsored malefactors. One certainly notices more of the bile on certain types of subjects (Russia, China, internet, US political system) than others.

I think this is a general problem with comment sections. It seems to be both a symptom and a major cause of the decline of civility in the 21st century.

HN is /very/ unusual.

Indeed! Any good writeups on what makes HN work like it does?

I think - good written policies, excellent moderation with a light touch, and a smart crowd that votes up interesting stuff and votes down the yokels.

See the HN guidelines, and dang's/pg's writings. Most of the magic lies within.

comment sections on news websites are consistently so bad, to the point where a lot of them don't even remove strange MLM spam I think it's just better to turn them off tbh.

Yes, disappointingly bad across the political spectrum.

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