Sister blog of Physicists of the Caribbean in which I babble about non-astronomy stuff, because everyone needs a hobby

Friday, 3 March 2017

No commenting unless you take this short quiz

This is an interesting idea which should probably be extended to elections as well. Every time there's a vote you have to take a short quiz with a mixture of questions about the issue in hand but also general politics. That way your vote would not only be informed but it would be hard to cheat by cramming for that specific issue. But of course that would go against democracy because will of the people idiots blah blah blah.... .

The tech section of its site, NRKBeta, is trying a simple experiment. You can't leave a comment unless you've read the story. How will they know? There's a test! "If you spend 15 seconds on it, those are maybe 15 seconds that take the edge off the rant mode when people are commenting," suggested the site's editor, Marius Arneson, in Nieman Lab's interview.

It's only being trialled on a small number of stories at the moment - typically tech stories that have broken out into the main news agenda. The quizzes are written by the reporters, and the questions aren't too taxing, just enough to show you've at least glanced at the text before rushing to the bottom. "We thought we should do our part to try and make sure that people are on the same page before they comment," said Stale Grut, one of the site's journalists.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39137193

5 comments:

  1. It's an awesome idea for news sites. But if used in voting, you must know the questions would slowly turn into something to stop pesky lefties and poor people from voting.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The sort of thing I (not entirely seriously but not entirely jokingly) had in mind would be, say, 5-10 questions of very basic issues. Like, "Who is the Prime Minister ?" "Who is the leader of the opposition ?". The sort of indisputable facts that couldn't be corrupted, but that anyone who couldn't answer at least 70% correctly should in no way be allowed near a voting booth of any kind. At least, that's my not entirely serious (but not entirely jocular) suggestion...

    ReplyDelete
  3. #gaysfortrump
    This would only chase people away.
    Voting is a private and solumn Act.
    So if I don’t answer (your) questions “correctly”, you may discount my Vote.
    That’s what it sounds like to me.
    Why are Democrats so Autocratic!
    Stop telling people how to live.
    Stop looking for how to always control people.
    That’s not Democracy.
    All I hear are sore losers with no gentlemanly sportsmanship.
    Your hatred are why I switched to Republican 2 years ago.
    And tinted people are waking up now too.
    And thanks to that ancient Polosi bitch, you will continue to lose.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ian Rawlings#gaysfortrump
    Blunder or not, I know what you LOSERS are up to.
    You love CONTROL.
    You’ll never get it.
    TRUMP2020
    Nikki Haley2024

    ReplyDelete
  5. It's my fault for linking this on one of Jenny Winder's very similar recent posts. I didn't actually want to re-open this, I was just doing an "I told you so", as is my occasional want. There ought to be a way to automatically mute threads after some time though.

    I have neither the time nor inclination to debate with utter morons so I've blocked David Bell. I'm muting this thread, but leaving comments open. Will close them if requested by any sensible human being.

    ReplyDelete

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