I started reading Jezebel.com when they reported on Terry Richardson‘s bad behavior, earlier this year. I was really impressed by the muck-raking spirit of the writer, who followed the story with several updates.
One was about how awesome Tavi was to openly condemn Richardson on her blog. I wrote to the author to whine that I had blogged about Richardson weeks before Tavi did, but she graciously ignored me.
I wanted to at least get in on the comment action, so I typed into the comment box, innocently thinking that mere mortals could state their opinions. But no, far from it! I’ve been meaning to share this discovery for ages, so here, let Jezebel explain it to you in their own words:
How do I get approved to comment?
We only approve the comments we love–so make sure you’re adding something of quality to the post. Stay on-topic and seek to further the conversation. Leave us a juicy story on the #tips page or throw your hat into the ring of our open forums.
If we approve your comment, your username and password will be activated and you’ll be able to login and comment freely from then on (or at least until you get banned).
Do you have any tips for auditioning?
Leaving multiple high-quality comments on different threads with your newly created account increases your chances of getting approved.
Show your stuff–make your audition a worthy addition. “Firsts!”, “yays” and “nays” will be summarily ignored. See Lifehacker’s Guide To Weblog Comments for suggestions on how to begin.
We value intelligent contributions, respect for community etiquette, good grammar, and not feeding the trolls. Proper use of punctuation, capitalization and time taken in typing will earn you extra points. Ignoring any of the above will subtract considerably.
Whoa! Life is too short to spend time auditioning to comment at Jezebel, don’t you think?
Well. That’s certainly a way to foster an open, welcoming, diverse community. *eyeroll*
when i discovered this i was disappointed to. i’ve left some knowledgeable comments and still no love! i think the time i called a writer out on her shoddy article probably didn’t help…
sorry i should mention you can still create an account and comment, it’s just it can only be seen if you click ‘show all discussions’ at the bottom of the article page – you’ll be able to see my posts too, so we can chat it no man’s land =)
um….can i say um instead of yays and nays????
Ughh Jezebel. Don’t get me started. I started reading it about a year ago when it was a bit better and now every post makes me so angry! You can’t say ANYTHING truthful or even your own opinion.
Everything is fat acceptance this, health at every size that, no body-face-dress-sense-snarking, no talking about anything whatsoever unless you’re gay, disabled, female, black, poor, ugly, fat, uneducated, a rape victim, and trans (preferably all of these things at once), or you’re simply “privileged” and have no right to an opinion. Everyone obese is healthy, weight has no correlation to diabetes or high blood pressure. NO JOKING, no humour, no snark, no criticism or you’re kicked off or everyone gangs up on you.
Plus the rules change constantly and every post is more hypocritical than the last. The comments are the worst though. WHY do I keep reading it every day?
Anyway my point is that you’d never get a comment approved, SW – it’s political correctness embodied. Not your style (nor mine) at all.
I know. Isn’t this policy hilarious! I could give a shit about commenting at Jezebel. Thank you very much.
I have to laugh at Elle’s comment (and to agree). I don’t think you’re on the fast track for pc approval at jezebel, Sister 🙂
Life IS too short…
I’ve always hated the kiss-ass nature of comments on Jezebel.
They fucking WORSHIP Gabourey Sidibe over there even though she is an annoying twat.
I want to “promote” Elle’s comment though.
Wow. My standards for comments seem pretty low in comparison; they consist of: 1. please read first and 2. please write in English, or at least something which closely resembles it. I promise to correct neither your grammar nor your spelling. All part of the authenticity factor.
Maybe I should rethink.
Wha..?!? AUDITIONING to leave comments? What are they, fucking Stanley Kubrick crossed with Nobel Prize in Literature commission? Don’t tell me people really do it!
Gosh yawn how big for their boots are they – the arbitrators of intelligent comments – oh please give me strength, actually make it a dirty Martini I need to wash away the taste of displeasure. Especially as Jezebel is one of my favourite Betty Davies films, they need to change the name. They have no spirit just sanctimonious standards of their own making – isn’t that censorship?
Are you serious?! You have to AUDITION to comment?
SW, I completely agree that our lives are far too brief to allow them to be spent by auditioning for comments.
I’ve never been to the site but Elle’s comment really made me happy that I haven’t. When a site like that has to screen comments to that extent, the site ceases to become and community and is only and expansion of the original rubbish. How phony.
It’s one thing for a blog to delete comments for whatever reason in secret, but for a site to openly say you have to audition? That’s ridiculous.
SW, as a side note, my friend tipped me off on some picture posted on Gala Darling’s shit list of links this week and I’m curious to know if I’m the only one who took it as a slap in the face.
http://galadarling.com/article/carousel-week-ending-15th-october-2010
“We only approve the comments we love”
And I stopped reading right there. How could it get worse than that?
Did someone say the “C” word?
Censorship.
Erm . . . no, I think it’s the other C word.
Bwahahahah! Uptight martyrs. And I read it for about a week before I got bored and unsubscribed.
I haven’t checked out the blog but I think her snobby rules are kinda funny. sounds like she eats trolls for breakfast.
@elle: Hearted 🙂
Yeah, I totally agree with you, and eh, ‘pc’ is really not my style either. I bite my tongue a lot.
I guess I still hang out there for the occasional sex/dating stuff, more than anything, as those are the kinds of conversations I’m most likely to participate in.
I think i’ve left maybe one comment on jez which had to be approved before i could get username etc. It was something pretty uninspiring like “Great article, I totally agree”, and i was approved in like ten seconds. Pretty easy to ace that audition when you’re a brownnoser like me!
But the moderators and writers are infamous for destarring and banning commentors who disagree with them. If you’re interested you should check out stfu jezzies, where jezzies congregate to talk shit about the writers and jez trolls.
I think it’s mighty funny that they consider relevant a comment coming from a 14 year old about pornographic pics of Terry Richardson, that she’s not old enough to look or to be outraged about.
So Sister, I’m not surprised they ignored you and they want everyone to perform a little dance before letting people post, it’s all part of the same thought process.
What? That sounds nuts. All I did was create a user name and started commenting. No biggie Sister Wolf, try it out!
As a former Gawker intern (for the Kotaku site), I’m quite familiar with the comment approval process. Having starred, or approved, commenters helps the sites promote thoughtful conversation about the posts, and saves time for the author of each post as they trawl through the list.
Basically, here it is from a writer’s perspective: After writing your article, you routinely check the comments. There will be starred comments, regular comments with white backgrounds, and comments with pink backgrounds (at least on Kotaku) which mean they are new commenters or as of yet unapproved. I could choose to approve pink backgrounded comments I liked, add “stars” to white comments I liked, or “unstar” starred comments I didn’t like. (Once I accidentally unstarred a person for no reason and they got REALLY mad!)
What’s the positive of this? It keeps writers from having to read hateful or unhelpful comments (I deleted plenty of those.) What’s the negative? The obvious censorship for one, but there IS a payback for Gawker. Legally, when a blog begins to control comments and has a history of deleting comments, they become responsible for comment content and can even be sued for an opinion written there. Not a problem for smalltime bloggers like us, but apparently something Gawker takes very seriously.
It smacks of cake and eat it too if that’s the case with Jezebel, surely – lets protect ourselves from being sued – whilst at the same time asking commenters to “leave us a juicy story”. Feckwittery.
Natalie – Well, you read the “guidelines”, I could never have made that shit up. Back when I wanted to comment, I tried twice: both normal and supportive comments, I think. Never appeared. My comments just weren’t Loved.
you are pathetic sister wolf
Anywhere you have to audition to comment is not worthy of your opinion. I don’t read that site. I find it boring/lowest common denominator.
I don’t know where you guys get that whole “Jezebel wants you to accept all atmosphere” because unless your white, feminist, and saying the right things (saying you accept all but not believing it is totes okay on Jezebel), Jezebel has no problem silencing anybody. Jezebel is well known for censoring everybody, especially people of color (and its not too good with trans issues either), so I’ve long since quite giving a shit about it.
I honestly don’t get why you’d want to comment on Jezebel. There is way too much ass kissing and psuedo-acceptance going on around there for my liking.
I am glad to see other are also annoyed with Jezebel. I started reading it awhile back and now I just skim because I find it sanctimonious and quite frankly little interest. Yawn. What a bunch of wankers they are!
I don’t read Jezebel, or any of the Gawker sites, any more (aside from the comment censorship, which pisses me off, too) because their new comment format makes each article load like molasses slowly pouring into my browser. Then, if (perish the thought) I actually want to read the lowly unstarred comments (which I do) and reload the post, I can go make a cup of coffee while that slowly comes up. And this is on a high-speed connection. Life’s too short.
No, sorry, I just have so so so so so much internet-hate for Jezebel and any of the Gawker sites. There is one opinion that you can have. There is a right answer for everything. Just looking at one of their posts and looking at their defensive response to any criticism or someone pointing out a factual error – because there IS a factual error – it makes me seethe. It IS lowest common denominator, boiling down white feminist you-can-get-offended-at-everything-with-these-simple-rules crap into slop for the masses.
This post made me gleeful enough to delurk. Love you SW!
Elle nailed my thoughts on Jezebel. I gave up reading all the Gawker properties last year (it was my New Year’s resolution) and my life is much better without all that poison in it. I made an exception this past week for a list of people’s disgusting stories on Jezebel, which was a good thing because they made me laugh so much I cried.
I like Gizmodo.
Elle’s comment made me laugh so much. I f**king HATE ‘jezzies’ bleeeeeuuughhh….and I must hate myself because I used to read it just to make myself angry (ok, and avoid doing any work).
But seriously, can you imagine being friends with any of those types of commenters in real life? Laugh a minute that would be.
“without airbrushing”, huh?
Way to Open Source a Community Jezebel
Seriously, I feel honored to be picked on the Sister Wolf Team. That’s enough for me xx
That’s just ridiculous. I hate it when i can’t leave comments on a blog . . . but have to AUDITION to leave comments?!! that’s even more outrageous.
Hilarious! Its like me talking with my friends and then asking them for opinions, HOWEVER if their opinion is different to mine or I dont like it, then I can boot them out of the conversation and tell them to try harder next time. The 10 grossest stories though is quite funny in a sick way…
Also, if anyone cares to have a look: http://stfujezzies.tumblr.com
Jezebel’s comment “auditioning” really turned me off too. For serio.
Ugh, I tried commenting once and was also repulsed by the whole auditioning BS. I wonder how many comments they get along the lines of, “Take your auditions and your site and shove them up your ass.”
their site takes too long to load, and they are just pompous asses.
Audition my ass.
Piss off Jezz
Wtf is a ‘high-quality comment’? Is it judged based on how eloquently it’s written, or on whether what you have to say contributes to the discussion in a direction that reinforces what Jezebel said? I can understand them deleting comments based on the first one, but the second one by its nature is completely against the nature of an open forum.
See, that’s the eloquent version of what I wanted to say. The GIM version is that they clearly have sand in unfortunate places (or difficult crevices, as a friend once described them) and are so hypocritical it makes my brain hurt. Ugh.
Lauren – that’s really interesting! Didn’t know that a large site can be responsible for comment content too, though I suppose if it controls the comments they indirect become site content. You learn something every day.
^ a “high-quality comment”, the kind that gets the commenter ‘starred’ needn’t necessarily be of any quality at all- if you say something the editor/s agree with and they notice, poof! you’re starred. Conversely, if you dare to question them/call them out/say something they don’t like the sound of , poof!! you can be unstarred, too. Of course, there are plenty of nice, articulate commenters on there too, but recent months have seen things turn into wank aplenty. And their commenting/criticism policy is BS.
Yes! I agree with this whole-heartedly! I have been reading Jezebel for a little while and only recently tried to comment. I was shocked at their audacity to require ‘auditions’ for commenting. That’s one of the most absurd things I’ve ever heard! It makes me want to give up on that place, especially considering many things others have mentioned here, i.e. ass kissing, prejudice, hypocrisy, etc. That place is chock full of faux-feminists who think they are intellectuals.
Elle, you deserve a hundred gold stars for your observations. I couldn’t have said it better myself and I’m glad I’m not the only one to think these things!
I’m glad I’m not the only feminist who thinks Jezebel is a crock of shit. The commenters on there are the most judgmental, immature, rude, hate-filled, elitist bitches I have ever encountered. They remind me of those pathetic, bitter people who were fat & ugly all through school, but who go on talk shows after getting a ton of plastic surgery or becoming strippers just to show the people who made fun of them how “great” they turned out.
I’ve watched Jezebel devolve from a fun site with relevant articles & intelligent discussions to a total joke. Now, it’s just one article after another about fashion, how much men suck, how being fat is healthy & beautiful, how wonderful islam is(which I find ABSURD, why would a feminist website promote such a misogynistic religion?!), or how everything in life is racist in some way. There’s no more intelligent discussion anymore either- it’s just page after page of ‘Jezzies’ agreeing with each other, and patting each other on the back FOR agreeing with each other. I comment there quite regularly & I find that I have to censor myself or word my opinions very carefully just to avoid being ripped to shreds or banned entirely. The basic vibe there now is; if you’re not fat, ugly, gay, non-white, or extremely left-wing, you’re not welcome & you should really just shoot yourself cause you’re an abomination. SO ridiculous. I’m by no means right-wing, I’m a left-leaning Independent but even *I* get shit for some of the things I say.
And I really don’t get why they make people audition to leave comments on their PUBLIC website. I remember when they first rolled out the new comment rules & I was flabbergasted. I wanted to be able to comment so I started leaving gushing, ass-kissing comments & luckily that worked. Now I sometimes leave obviously fake, moronic comments & sadly, those are “hearted” more than my real ones. *sigh* And sometimes I like to approve comments that I know will piss everyone off, lol… I just don’t get why they don’t make the site private & invitation-only though if they only want people they ‘love’ commenting. It doesn’t make sense. Such elitism, it makes me sick.
Yes Jezzies, please just STFU.
Mila – I like your subversiveness! I want to try that ass-kissing stuff just for fun. I wasn’t aware of the over-the-top pseudo-political correctness, but it sounds awful. I’m going there to investigate.
This is really helpful. Thanks for sharing this information. Special thanks to the people who came up with cheatsheets.
When I first read about the comment policy, I thought, “sure, that makes sense, they don’t want spammers!” So I left a comment. Then a couple of days later, another. To date I have left at least 15 comments, none of them less than less than 3 or 4 sentences. Most of them are in direct response to a question posed by another commenter about something I happen to have knowledge about. None of them have been negative in any way (not that that should matter). I’m still not an approved commenter. So yeah, I call BS.
I am so glad I found this site.
I had been reading Jezebel for a while and started to comment and could not begin to comprehend the nasty, vile, love in system them have for comments. I got approved no problem but then realised that getting a star (and thus being deemed “good enough”) to comment on their wonderful site could take a year. The best I heard of was taking four months to get a star, but average at the moment is about a year.
The site reminds me of some crappy boyfriend who promises he will be nice to you if you do enough humiliating, nasty crap for him.
I found it really bad for my self esteem. I know that sounds ridiculous but I’m a writer and a feminist and prepared to put time into things and I realised I was not going to be good enough for them.
The site is vile and full of bile. People joke about the site being anti- man but I disagree and think they have an equal ops policy on who they are nasty to.
I have to admit to being pathetic enough to hunt around for other people who feel the same way so that I felt better about myself and how Jezebel left me feeling. But you know what? It helped.
If this was Jezebel I would now press submit and wait, wide eyed to see if anyone thought I was good enough to promote.
It’s typical of feminist sites to exclude opinions they don’t agree with,at least these ones are being honest about it!