Something's rotten on the vine

To be totally honest, the more I click onto Newsvine's homepage throughout the day, the more I come to believe that Newsvine's community, given that great metaphorical blank space of a giant wall and some cans of spray paint, is sadly choosing the same path that those rock-wall publishers chose.

This is the beauty of the Watchlist. You don't like the news that the majority of Newsvine members enjoy? Put a few select tags on your Watchlist and use it instead of the homepage.

To me, Newsvine's homepage has become a veritable dump of the lamest kinds of content. First, a couple weeks ago, it was the Apple fanboys, out in full force, posting defacto ad after ad after ad for the computer maker.

There was big news from Apple, and generally this excites people into reading and writing about it. When big events happen (ie. 9/11) what did you see on nearly every news station and website? You saw news about 9/11. Newsvine is primarily a technology news site (at least for now), and so big tech news is obviously going to be the most prominent.

Then there's the third outrageously stupid 9/11 conspiracy story link in as many weeks. That may not sound like a lot but it's oh, let's see, ten million times more frequent than I've noticed that type of item on so called "mainstream" media sites.

Other mainstream sites have editors - Newsvine doesn't. If you, and many other Newsvine members, vote up every article which interests you, then the problem will work itself out.

In the end, Newsvine most likely won't be like all the other mainstream news websites. Newsvine is for the people, by the people, more so then any other popular site. They have taken the Digg system and cleaned it up tremendously. If you are looking for mainstream news, then go to a mainstream site, turn on the TV and go to CNN, or read a newspaper.

Two words

"Private Beta"

I do have to agree with you about the quality of many of the seeds here. A lot of them are subpar or redundant. At this point, I have yet to seed an article. I've come across 4 or 5 stories I was about to seed, but a quick search of Newsvine turned up pre-existing AP stories or seeds from other people covering the same material. Rather than post identical content, I voted the existing stories up and joined in the discussion on them. As for the Digg/G4/TWiT crowd, I admit that I heard of this site via Leo & Amber's Inside the Net podcast. At the same time, I realize this is a news site and, quite honestly, I come here to get away from the mundane techtalk found on sites like Digg, and to a lesser extent, Slashdot (though I still prefer /. for my tech news and discussion). And I don't care for the Leo/Dvorak/Apple gushing that pops up every few days (even though I like them and their products--I just don't need to be inundated with them). I only hope that the Newsvine team comes up with some decent filters for the users to apply at some point. Till then the watchlist does a decent job.

I mostly enjoy coming to Newsvine to comment on the "real" news from AP. Sometimes there's some good stuff that other people submit, but like you said, it's the same ole' stuff that can be seen at a bazillion other sites.

Taking the risk at sounding like a grumpy old man, which I am according to my drivers licence, I hav to agree. There's alot of pure @!$%# around here. Reminds me of "the good old days" of Indymedia back in the year 2001. Right wing nutters and conspiracy theorists, and a @!$%#ing lot of them.

On the other hand there are some pearls as well. I think you shouldnt be to hard on sites like this. I mean, we are brought up not to think. That's the main objective. (I suppose it's even worse in the US). Still, if we abandon hope, then what is there. I come to think of Derrida's writings of l'a venir (the coming, the thing to come). And that is radically different from the future, he says. I think I agree. I hope I agree.

Quote by Mike D.:

Thanks for the bucket of sunshine there Jason.

LOL

Jason, I have been testing NV against other news sources like Reuters and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and there is noting missing... only alot more. There are articles here that I wouldn't see elsewhere.

Granted, there is some cruft, like anything by Full Throttle or JL_VP, but it's a democratic media (small 'd'), so what do you want?

So far, so good.

I'm going to go ahead and half-agree.

But I'm thinking about how to fix it before I post a rant.

I'm not sure why you would complain about posts about Apple products or seeds of Dvorak columns. Are you saying they shouldn't be there because you personally dislike Apple/TWIT?

I agree with you on the 9/11 thing. I watched the Loose Change documentary, and it's pretty well-made as far as an amateur film goes, but unfortunately it's rife with inaccuracies, incorrect assumptions, logical fallacies and paranoia. Newsvine doesn't have a co-authoring feature, does it? I'd love to get together with a few people and address the claims made in that documentary with facts and real evidence. I know from experience it's not difficult to get sucked into believing lies among well-crafted rhetoric, and I mostly just find it sad that the Newsvine community is falling for it so readily.

Danny, can you give your definition of "rife", and give some examples from the doc?

Look to me that it's quite straightforward.

Two quick responses:

1. @Mike D. - Way to take the offensive of sorts there. It's refreshing to see someone in a position like yours make the effort to stand up for the core concept behind their brainchild (including specific examples which directly counter a somewhat slanted criticism) rather than saying something like, "Thank you Mr. sort of Customer/Client/Patron/Visitor Person, we appreciate your comments and will take your point of view under advisement," or some other mind numbing thing like that.

2. @Jason Clarke - I think the high incidence of Apple and other tech stories can be easily explained away given the demographic makeup of the specific subset of people involved in this private beta. And I think it has been a number of times already. And I think the virtues of a system where as much information as possible is made available and then specific bits of info are given prominence based on various measures of the community's interest have been widely and successfully explained, as well. And, as far as 'conspiracy theory'-type stories go, I can understand your concern, but I think it's necessary for those stories to be part of the overall din of what we call news (which isn't necessarily the case with the mainstream sites). Sure, it's important to know which stories get top billing and which stories the conventional or mainstream media are covering the most thoroughly. But I think there's also something to learn from the undercurrent, the ideas bouncing around just below the surface noise. If only anthropologically.

Personally, I've found just over the last few days that, without my even knowing it, Newsvine has drastically altered the way I consume news specifically and the internet in general. In much the same way that I find myself getting frustrated with printed books and magazines and the like because I can't hyperlink from one bit of information directly to other, related bits of information, I find myself much less interested in information on the web which I don't have a convenient way to respond to or discuss with other people. I don't mean to gush, but I'm thinking more and more everyday that a site like Newsvine has a serious chance to drive the internet to the full realization of its potential. Geez, it's like I'm writing their damned marketing materials.

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On a very loosely related note (I'm sure I should write my own post about this or something, but for now I'm saying it here):

Newsive people - have you thought about a way to 'rate' or 'vote up' or something the comments on Newsvine? It seems that a lot of valuable information comes out in the overall discussion of articles and occasionally in particular comments from particular commenters (or commentators, even). And, in fact, I find myself putting more effort into commenting (or, if you prefer, blathering on, as I am now) on existing articles than writing or seeding my own. It seems that there should be a way to, I dunno, reward or distinguish particularly effective commenters as well as writers and seeders. Just a thought.

I love how I said, "Two quick responses." What an idiot.

I agree completely with Mike D. about the top news stories observation between Newsvine, CNN and MSNBC. In fact, I posted to my blog this afternoon about how ridiculous the national media apparatus gets when they get swept into their own stories (e.g. Dick Cheney did not go through the White House press corps / national media when he accidentally shot his fellow hunter and now we are going to whine about feeling left out). After watching Meet the Press and finally turning off The Chris Matthews Show half-way through this morning, it boiled over into my blog.

My final point was that while the traditional news media is making a big hubbub over feeling left out of the loop and is planning to spend a another wasteful week letting their talking heads go on and on about it, real stories are being shoved under the rug.

Newsvine, as a community, does have to work through the "graffitti-like" seeds left by some members. I suppose, as more people come to see Newsvine more as a provider of news rather than cool or random links on the internet (like Digg.com), we will see increased numbers of higher-quality seeds that provide more fact and less editorial.

Mike D. wrote

I think there's a difference between "falling for it" and just "thinking it's really interesting and entertaining".

If you read the comments on the 9/11 - loose change article I think it's pretty clear that some Newsviners "fell for it" (C.A. Cook being one example).

And to the person who suggested writing an article refuting the claims made in the video, it's already been done at PopularMechanics.com.

I agree with some of your points, like the flood of TwiTs, the kid posting links to his own blog, etc.

Danny, can you give your definition of "rife", and give some examples from the doc?

Look to me that it's quite straightforward.

I'd love to address some of its more convincing arguments, but I'd prefer to do more research first and post it as its own article. I was surprised by how well and how thoroughly it produced its evidence (I was starting to become convinced, until I did a little of my own research after watching it). It was much better than 911: In Plane Sight, as far as not appealing to ignorance and the like. I think it deserves better than a simple, hand-waving dismissal, and I hope to give it that sometime in the near future. I'll let you know if/when I do.

Right wing nutters and conspiracy theorists, and a @!$%#ing lot of them.

Hey, now, Newsvine is an equal-opportunity site. We have plenty of left-wing nutters and conspiracy theorists as well! You probably don't notice them as much because they don't get your goat so readily, but I assure you that they're there.

P.S. (Sorry for the double-post.) You can start by reading this Popular Mechanics article, which addresses some points of the Pentagon issue and the seismograph reading, among other things: http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/defense/1227842.html

Kris: I doubt that the ratio of people who believe that film to those who don't is much different here than it is anywhere else.

I wasn't trying to suggest that. From your previous post I got the impression that you thought newsviners weren't "falling for it" but rather just "finding it interesting."

I guess I'm just resigned to the right hand column of the home page being a pean to apple fanboyism.

What kinda concerns me is that the left column, the place where I keep expecting to see news, seems to be almost entirely devoted to sports lately.

Hey, it isn't as if there aren't any news stories to report. True, the top of the page story is usually an update on cartoon riots or Fuddgate, but the rest of the left column seems devoted to sports, or even worse, gossip about sports figures.

Hey, now, Newsvine is an equal-opportunity site. We have plenty of left-wing nutters and conspiracy theorists as well!

I was talking about the the right wing nutters who were commenting posts on Indymedia (Indy is a grassroots media, and therefore necessarily leaning to the left since there by definition cannot be any left wing corporate media): I do agree there are some of them on the left as well, but that is an entirely other debate. If you didn't jump as soon as you saw the term "right wing nutters" you would have seen this ;)

since there by definition cannot be any left wing corporate media

You underestimate the media. There's plenty of left-wing or left-wing-leaning media, corporate or otherwise (NPR, for instance). But I'm not sure how being grassroots is "necessarily" leaning to the left.

I guess the thing with "citizen's media" is that it is going to be made by motivated citizens. And motivated citizens are usually those with an axe to grind. And citizens with an axe to grind are usually very political... and we all know how Democrats and Republicans alike are adept at making decisions without letting the facts get in the way and can readily ignore inconsistencies or flaws in their own candidates or causes while exposing them in others. In other words, Newsvine is the kind of site that attracts wackoes of all kinds.

Eh, that's politics.