A few days ago I bought some beer from Trader Joe’s called The Hemperor, and I found it absolutely nauseating. It’s an IPA brewed with hemp by the New Belgium Brewing Company, and it tastes like a dirty hippie’s van seat. I’m not a beer snob, or a beer nerd for that matter, but this is the only beer I’ve ever thrown away.
I became curious if other people found this beer to be as disgusting as I did, so I went to a site called BeerAdvocate.com, where people rate, and occasionally write impassioned and Aspergery reviews of various beers.
The Hemperor, to my surprise, received a “Good” rating of 3.69 stars out of 5, but that’s beside the point.
I have noticed many mainstream media sites, CNN, FOX News, the Huffington Post, ESPN, and many others have recently done away with the comment sections which used to follow their articles.
It’s not difficult to realize why, the comments were often incredibly unproductive and filled with racist and sexist vitriol, many of them the work of trolls. Even attempting to moderate the comments for these sites became an exercise in futility, prompting the entire feature to be eradicated.
Many sites, such as the New York Times and the LA Times still feature a comment section for the time being, but I fear they too may be forced to get rid of their comment sections.
This is unfortunate, because I always enjoy reading what real people think about a given topic. Often times a commenter will contextualize the material better than the person who wrote the article, or have an opinion that I would not have considered.
The problem is the trolls. That’s why I found a certain feature on the BeerAdvocate to be so fascinating:
Every user on BeerAdvocate is assigned a number which shows how negative or positive their beer reviews are compared to the mean number. Meaning, if a certain user rates beers at a much higher number than the average user, he will have something like a +23% on his profile. If a certain user is a huge hater and just trashes every beer that he rates, he might have something like -19%. The person most in touch with the average reviewer would have a zero, and this person would likely be the most fair and rational reviewer, neither loving nor hating every beer he tastes.
What a fantastic system.
If we applied it to sites like CNN, or even to social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook, we would be able to single out the trolls who just visit a site to irritate or gaslight people who are genuinely concerned with forming an informed opinion. A troll, someone who seeks out material they don’t agree with and then writes negative comments, would have a rating of something like -90%, whereas a Trump sycophant (or bot, or paid shill) would have something like a +90%. You’d be able to tell that each of these people were more or less bogus users without having to read all of their stupid comments.
Reddit has a system kind of like this, in that users can vote a comment “up” or “down.” The comment with the most “up” votes (often the most useful or informative) will be displayed at the top of the comment section whereas the worthless trolling comments will get a lot of “down” votes and be relegated to the bottom of the section.
Still, I think the number rating system is much better. If you have a site that is neither aggressively liberal nor conservative, such as MSNBC (MSNBC is not a liberal site. Calling out Republicans for their lies, misinformation, and ties to the Kremlin is not a liberal attribute, they’re mostly reporting facts) then the most rational user, in theory, would have a rating close to zero.
Or, take a site such as Twitter, where basically all points of view are represented. You would be able to tell the miserable asshole or kiss-ass based on their rating. It’s literally a rating of how positive or negative a person is, and I think we need that context when we look at their comments or tweets or Facebook posts, or whatever.
I really think this system could lead to much more civilized discussions on the internet, and as far as I know, BeerAdvocate is the only site which incorporates such a system.
So, CNN, the Huffington Post, Fox, Twitter, Facebook, the Daily Mail, basically any site which has or had a comment section, should adopt this immediately.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go write a scathing review of The Hemperor on BeerAdvocate.com and find a way to work in my Obama is a Muslim theory.