“It seems that Kakao has decided to adhere to giant agencies’ and organizations’ decisions to act up against malicious comments online. On Friday, October 25, Daum, one of Naver’s biggest portals, announced that they will terminate the comments in the entertainment news sections.
In a press conference, Kakao CEOs Yeo Min Soo and Jo Soo Yong announced this news, which is timely given the intensified talks about hateful comments on social media against celebrities and non-celebrities and also given the unfortunate passing of the actress and f(x) alumna Sulli.“As we could see from recent events, many people say that the level of insults and abuse directed towards the characters of the celebrities involved in entertainment news has reached a point of damaging the health of the public sphere,” he stated.”
This should be a consideration on Viki also…at least the timed comments. I have watched these get more and more hateful with more and more foul, disgusting langage day by day. It seems all the timed comments are either spouting seriously nasty stuff about the actress or actors looks, tearing apart the writers (who do not always have much control anyway) or just spewing hate at the overall drama. (That’s when they are not whining about subs or asking technical questions…so dumb.) With a comment section in each episode of a drama where there can be a DISCUSSION, timed comments are totally unnecessary and just another source of cyberbullying. There are several people I see who are truly sick.
Actually would not bother me to get rid of comment section altogether. No one discusses the dramas anymore, they just whine about subs or Viki or VikiPass episode after episode.
Actually, we do discuss dramas. I would point you to a particular one called The Story of Ming Lan, where we had some of the most amazing and profound discussions in almost every episode. Truly a wonderful experience.
As for removing comments in general from many if not all sites, I think that would be the last resort.
The first option would be to demand the commenter to identify themselves with correct and verifiable first and last name. Instantly the hate would quiet down, because that would mean your grandma or your boss could find those public comments of yours and read them. The reason why some portals choose not to follow this option is because its expensive. It’s much cheaper to shut down the whole comment section.
There is also something sinister in NOT allowing people to comment on public issues. It borderlines with repression of public speech.
To the issue of comments on Viki. Timed comments on Viki can and must be moderated. If you find particular dramas or individual episodes disturbing, please contact the nearest moderator or CM. All have access and right to directly delete instantaneously the nasty stuff.
I LOVE timed comments, sometimes they are hilarious. This said, you will never find anything nasty in shows where I’m in the team. I mercilessly zap not only swearwords and subs requests but also anything overly sexist, ageist, lookist (new word, LOL) etc.
Moderators should be more responsible and do their job. This IS part of their job, as stated in the Volunteer roles section of Help. But many are not doing it.
While the drama is airing, I have to go through the episode more than once, until the episode is fully subbed, for the sub whining timed comments. They crop up and multiply. Once the drama is fully aired, once again for good measure, but just with keywords this time.
Yes, after a drama has finished airing, after months, one or two years, some of those can crop up again. Not the sub-whining, but the swearing, the inappropriate sex-related ones and the judgmental on the actors’ look. They should be visited once a year or so. I recently re-did the whole of Where Stars Land and I did find quite a few.
But the bulk of this kind of discussion happens while the drama is airing or just after. And they feed off each other, so a new person who won’t find such stuff is not encouraged to add to it.
By the way: I’m all for bashing the writers when they write clichés, k-drama tropes like amnesia/prosopagnosia, met as children, time-gap for studying abroad/getting cured with zero communication, things that make no sense etc.
Even if it’s the producers that make the writers do that, if someone reads these things, they will understand that at least the international portion of the public is sick and tired of those things and they should get some fresh ideas. Timed comments, comment section below, Soompi comments, wherever. We should give a loud and clear message that these things have to go!
I know I’ve replied about this same topic on another thread dealing with timed comments, but I just want to say that yes, timed comments can have dirty language, but other times they are helpful in some forms. If I am watching a scary drama, I like to have the timed comments on because I feel that other people are watching with me. Other times, they point my attention to a little detail that I otherwise wouldn’t have noticed.
Like irmar said, there just needs to be control of the timed comments by the moderators to make them an enjoyable experience.
I also think that the comment section can be an educational experience as in Goodbye My Princess, where several watchers (myself included) were having extensive discussion about the last few episodes and the characters’ decisions…
but there will always be those party poopers who ruin the show with their untimely timed comments
As a matter of fact, although I’ve never posted a timed comment but I do love that they exist. Whenever I turn them on, I enjoy myself (ignoring all the nasty stuff there), there are people who make me laugh, and recently, there was a comment that helped me understand an episode that I’ve watched three times trying to get it and couldn’t. It’s also very nice in almost-abandoned dramas (because they have the fun without the distraction).
Regarding the fact that the moderator has to go through all the timed comments to eliminate bad ones is just too much work.
The only solution to this (the idea is not originally mine, I just can’t remember who posed it, I’m sorry) is to put an easy to find, easy to use flagging button next to the comments up there.
All the good people around here are going to flag the inappropriate comments, spoiler comments, and any faithful fan would flag the hateful comments. But if this also needs moderation, then just maybe regularly notifying either the Viki staff or the moderator of the flagged comments to see if they really should be flagged or not. But that’s in fact not very necessary.
But eliminating the whole feature just because of a few nasty comments here and there is, from my humble point of view, not a very good idea.
Oooooo! Love the idea of flagging. Might not do anything internally, but just the satisfaction of being able to press a button…ahhhh…
The language of some posts is one thing and…yes…you will find some drama episodes where there are great discussions. HOWEVER…trying to find those discussions by having to plow through all the (sub- and Pass) whinings can be extremely time-consuming on some shows, especially if you wait until everything is loaded and marathon. IDK how our seggers and subbers get through a drama, let alone an episode of a drama, knowing that a lot of entitled people will complain, no matter how good or how fast they are. If it’s irritating to me, it must be excessively irritating to the people it’s directed at…or do you all take valium before starting…ha, ha, ha!!! Thanks for letting ME whine a bit!
It IS irritating, but they usually don’t watch the video. They watch it while subbing, from inside the Subtitle Editor (where comments do not show). They know these comments will be there, but they don’t get to see them. And, of course, if someone takes care of deleting them, if they choose to re-watch the episode in its entirety as normal audience, they will be zapped by the time they get there.
Exactly. i don’t even look at the comment pages anymore. Just go to the Editor and do my job from there. Luckily there are no complaints for my language, but seeing the comments for the main team is also frustrating to see… so better to pay no attention to it at all
Seems like I’m the only one who uses sub complaints to measure the interest of my language’s viewers… When I find lots of sub complaints, I put that drama as the priority and do it first because more people are waiting for it.
The timed comment actually has a good attention, but people abuse it and use it in the wrong way just to complain about subtitles and Viki pass, or even show hatred toward characters just because characters’ tempers are not likable. Some people even assume that main characters are stupid, even when the story of the drama has just started. I saw a lot of nice comments related to dramas & movies but the problem is that rude comments are more popular than polite comments.
