Posted 11/18/09 at 06:21:26 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Many online commenters try and compensate for their lack of insight into the subject at hand by summoning their ability to enliven even the most vapid discussion with a highly stimulating cocktail of profanities. But not everyone can fully relish this amazing ability as not everyone possesses it. The practitioners of this colorful art are often persecuted by the prim archpriests of insipid internet discussions.

An anonymous commenter paid with his job for what was an earnest attempt to breathe some life into a discussion on a newspaper’s site. Last Friday, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch published a blog post titled “What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever eaten? And did you like it?” One anonymous user replied with “a single word, a vulgar expression for a part of a woman’s anatomy.” But his terse reply was deleted within one minute of being posted (probably for being way too brief). The obdurate commenter returned to repost his single-word comment, only to have it deleted once again.

But the paper’s director of social media, Kurt Greenbaum, who had posted the concerned article, managed to track down the anonymous poster using the WordPress e-mail alert that accompanies every comment. The alert included the commenter's IP address, which was found to be from a local school.

“About six hours later, I heard from the school’s headmaster. The school’s IT director took a shine to the challenge. Long story short: Using the time-frame of the comments, our website location and the IP addresses in the WordPress e-mail, he tracked it back to a specific computer. The headmaster confronted the employee, who resigned on the spot,” Greenbaum wrote in a blog post on Monday. Was it right on the paper’s part to pursue an anonymous commenter? If yes, then what is the point of allowing anonymous comments? Have your say without the fear of getting fired.

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Posted 10/16/09 at 03:23:20 PM by Bart Salisbury

For some unknown reason YouTube has decided to make possible real-time searches of comments. Seriously? Comments are the thing you avoid on YouTube, expressing either gross immaturity or venting some real, and ofttimes inappropriately placed, anger. If there is a good thing about YouTube comments is we’re subjected only to a few of them--and they are easily ignored.

So why do this? Marshall Kirkpatrick, of ReadWriteWeb, suggests that companies might find it useful--to track the things that people are saying about them or their products.

After reading some of searched comments I’m not so sure companies would want to know what people are saying. Not the people posting on YouTube anyway. Give it a try. Type in any innocuous term. Count down how many entries until you read something obscene or vulgar (or worse). In my few searches I didn’t get past the top five.

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Posted 09/24/09 at 09:34:56 AM by Pulkit Chandna

The world’s leading search engine has made a fresh addition to the Google Toolbar. Called Sidewiki, it is a universal commenting and annotation system. It is meant to supplement, and not supplant, a website’s existing commenting system. Online denizens can freely drop and post comments on any website of their choosing using Sidewiki.

It appears in the form of a window on the left side of the browser. Spam and indecorum are two of the biggest problems afflicting website administrators and readers. The search engine giant firmly believes there is an algorithm for every problem tormenting humanity, including the above-named issues.

“I’m sure some publishers will have some objections to something like this but (at the same time) many traditional publishers also objected to blogs,” Aseem Sood, product manager at Google, told PaidContent.org. He believes Sidewiki will lead to an increase in return visitors to a particular site and so website administrators have nothing to fear from it. He also added that his company has no plans to taint its new comments system with ads. “Right now, our goal honestly is to increase the engagement of users on the web.”

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Posted 07/07/08 at 09:14:54 PM by Norman Chan

Recovering after a three days of barbeques, fireworks, and general July 4th weekend shennanigans is never easy. But somehow we managed to arrive to work on time today to bring you the news and a couple new features. The things we do for you faithful readers. If you missed out on news posted over the weekend, here's a quick recap. 

• Adobe works with Yahoo and Google to make Flash moves more searchable
• Asus EeePC 904 won't use Intel's Atom
• Virgin ISP won't disconnect file-sharing subscribers
• Google Street View at the center of UK privacy dispute
• Hackers to flock to Taiwan for annual Hack Day convention
• Your LCDs may be hurting puny Mother Earth 
• What's the world like without Windows XP?
• Obvious: Answering spam is a bad idea
• Solar powered LCDs of no use to basement-bound gamers
• 5TB hard drives in 2010; digital hoarders salivate
• We unbox the NZXT Khaos
• More of the pants-shattering Dream Machine is revealed
• 16-layer optical disc will store 400GB 
• Microsoft wants to give away 5000 gallons of gas
• Build a Budget Badass for $1320 -- we show you how!

And yes, the MaxPC birthday cake was both delicious and moist, even after being left out in the open the entire holiday weekend.

Tonight's discussion topic: How much hard disk space do you currently have in your rig? Would you ever upgrade to 5TB drives? And if so, what would you fill it with?

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Posted 07/02/08 at 09:40:03 PM by Norman Chan

We’re getting closer to July 4th, AKA Independence Day for those of us in the States. Is anyone planning on celebrating with booze and a barbeque, or is the long weekend just a good excuse to start a marathon session of Team Fortress 2? Fellow nerds, the correct answer is obvious. On to the news recap:

• AMD adds three new CPUs to its Phenom lineup
• Supercharged ATI RV770 card will only go to OEMs
• Asus stuffs an EeePC into a budget monitor
• Feisty Toshiba may challenge Blu-Ray with new DVD player?
• Your browser’s expiration date has long passed
• Quantum computers are a Trekkie's Trekker’s dream
• Microsoft buys a company that’s not Yahoo
• Adobe Reader 9 released, supports embedded Flash
• Intel tells devs to plan for more cores
• Both Intel and AMD made market gains in past year
• IE page frame vulnerability demoed
• We undress Maxtor’s new networked-storage server
• Leadtek’s launches new ExpressCard TV tuner
• TSA approves X-ray friendly laptop case designs
• WoW dongle even nerdier than the gamers who’ll use it

Don’t forget to download our latest podcast, located in the post right below this one! We shared our thoughts on the Diablo III announcement (spoiler: not all of us are enthusiastic), debated the merits of Vista 64-bit, and caught up on a lengthy backlog of listener questions.

Hit the jump for tonight’s evening discussion topic.

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Posted 07/02/08 at 12:43:19 AM by Norman Chan

We’re officially through half of 2008, and it’s also been one week since the new website was launched. Hope you’ve enjoyed your stay so far. You’ve been pretty vocal about the change, with both positive (“more content is awesome!) and critical (“the color scheme burns my corneas!”) feedback. Either way, keep the shout-outs coming – we want to hear more from you. And one place you can definitely do that is in the comments section of each article. In fact, this post is a great place to do it. Every night, we’ll be running a recap of the news from the day and give you a chance to talk back (or is that back talk?) to us and fellow readers in a friendly discussion. Want to play an impromptu game of Team Fortress 2 or talk about a movie you saw recently? This is the place to do it. But first, the news:

Configuring your own Dream Machine? OCZ wants to burn a hole in your pocket with their new “low cost” SSD drives aimed at consumers. They’re still pricey, but you might be able to afford them with money saved on Gainward’s ATI 4870 videocards. The Nvidia add-in board partner is sharing the love with AMD with high performance cards that’ll give you great framerates on high-resolution widescreen monitors – even those with 16:9 dimensions. A killer PC gaming rig is going to get hot, so you’ll want to check out miniature refrigeration tech being developed at Purdue University. Also pretty hot is our new guide to Slipstreaming your Windows XP Vista install, but what’s definitely not is AT&T’s $700 price tag for off-contract iPhones. That kind of pricing is almost criminal.

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