MyBB deleted all my Disqus comments

Johnatan56 said:
I don't really mind the article, I just find the title misleading. I'd also be interested how returns are handled afterwards, do I put it back in the container? Article needed a bit more substance.
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How is it misleading? "I ordered a hard drive" (HOW) "to a Makro locker" (WHERE) "- this is what happened" (WHAT). There is nothing misleading about that except if you see "this is what happened" and in your twisted mind read that as "here is the awful thing that happened" (but then that's a reflection on you amirite).
 
I do think the MyBB team needs to go off and do some introspection with regards to their business. It is obvious that an initially (I am talking 5-7 years back) tech-focused web-site has transitioned into a purely commercial entity. Critical articles are published as long as they do not upset/offend advertisers or partners - the one ISP with a massive security vulnerability will go unmentioned whereas the other will be held to ransom. Certain stories (such as the credit card leaks with two big banks and the other where an "unidentified" device was connected to a switch in a tier1 data-centre) never make the headlines.

A former pure tech publication is nowadays posting about the "all new Nissan Navara", pushing a certain political agenda with a high degree of bias and promotes specific companies in the ICT industry favorably.

No-one is forced to participate here and I am sure if editorial policies classify certain opinions of members as "trolling" or "not fitting the culture/purpose of this community" that those people critical about the censorship will move on to other platforms. I doubt that MyBB understands that they will never be a HuffingtonPost or can compete with unique content (Mashable, TechCentral, Engadget etc) and it is quite bizarre to see how the change of direction in business is isolating a strong commumity base in favor of a pure commercial model. Skin away the partner content, advertorials and the user-contributed stories and you are left with a bulletin forum without much value proposition.
 
Foxhound5366 said:
How is it misleading? "I ordered a hard drive" (HOW) "to a Makro locker" (WHERE) "- this is what happened" (WHAT). There is nothing misleading about that except if you see "this is what happened" and in your twisted mind read that as "here is the awful thing that happened" (but then that's a reflection on you amirite).
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The title when you click on it is: I order a hard drive to a Makro locker -- this is what happened...
You could have said, "Makro new delivery system, good service received" which would have made you know what you're expecting when you click on the article.
 
Johnatan56 said:
The title when you click on it is: I order a hard drive to a Makro locker -- this is what happened...
You could have said, "Makro new delivery system, good service received" which would have made you know what you're expecting when you click on the article.
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Why? The title said exactly what was on the tin: I did this, and this is what happened. You click on the link if you want to know what happened, not necessarily because you already know the punchline of the story. The title caught people's interest and generated this discussion, so it has clearly done its job. If you want boring headlines that don't encourage at least a little curiosity, I think you're arguing for something counter-productive. As it is, you got exactly what was promised so that's a fair delivery (a description of one person's experiences when ordering through Makro).

No story is THE definitive story, or completely unbiased. There are entire journalism theory classes around exactly that principle: no matter how unbiased you are as a journalist, you still need to choose whether to photograph a riot from the point of view of the rioters or the riot police. You're just being unreasonable here.
 
MagicDude4Eva said:
I do think the MyBB team needs to go off and do some introspection with regards to their business. It is obvious that an initially (I am talking 5-7 years back) tech-focused web-site has transitioned into a purely commercial entity. Critical articles are published as long as they do not upset/offend advertisers or partners - the one ISP with a massive security vulnerability will go unmentioned whereas the other will be held to ransom. Certain stories (such as the credit card leaks with two big banks and the other where an "unidentified" device was connected to a switch in a tier1 data-centre) never make the headlines.

A former pure tech publication is nowadays posting about the "all new Nissan Navara", pushing a certain political agenda with a high degree of bias and promotes specific companies in the ICT industry favorably.

No-one is forced to participate here and I am sure if editorial policies classify certain opinions of members as "trolling" or "not fitting the culture/purpose of this community" that those people critical about the censorship will move on to other platforms. I doubt that MyBB understands that they will never be a HuffingtonPost or can compete with unique content (Mashable, TechCentral, Engadget etc) and it is quite bizarre to see how the change of direction in business is isolating a strong commumity base in favor of a pure commercial model. Skin away the partner content, advertorials and the user-contributed stories and you are left with a bulletin forum without much value proposition.
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If it wasn't in the news how did you hear about such :wtf:
 
Pho3nix said:
If it wasn't in the news how did you hear about such :wtf:
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Errmmm..... there are news which never make the news - for various reasons. I am just pointing out the fact that publications knew about those incidents and decided not to report on it - this was not due to adhering to journalistic ethics and standards. We can all agree that people calling themselves "journalists" lack the basic writing skills, ethics or understanding on how to report on a story. The reason why we have bait-articles are purely commercial and when appropriate those very same journalists hide behind the "but I am a journalist reporting a story"-excuse to avoid accountability for some often reckless and rushed reporting (i.e. lack of fact checking). I still maintain that some online publications very liberally "disseminate" user information for various purposes a user has never agreed to :whistle:

Back on the topic: Perhaps I missed the part why Disqus comments where deleted. But let's also appreciate that Disqus allows anyone (i.e. non MyBB members) to comment on an article. It's a true problem for MyBB as they don't really own the content of those comments or can monetize it.

@OP: Can you go to your Disqus profile (i.e. https://disqus.com/by/YOURALIAS/) and then check if comments are awaiting moderation or have been deleted and post a screenshot? I just noticed that several of my comments have been marked as spam, some have been deleted and some have not been approved. Sounds like censorship to me.
 
MagicDude4Eva said:
the one ISP with a massive security vulnerability will go unmentioned whereas the other will be held to ransom. Certain stories (such as the credit card leaks with two big banks and the other where an "unidentified" device was connected to a switch in a tier1 data-centre) never make the headlines.
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You have my e-mail address. Please send the details of these stories to me and I'll investigate.
 
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Jan said:
Such articles don't exist. You are tilting at windmills.
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I am not sure what is on dstv tonight. Can you perhaps write an article and provide me with suggestions please.

Thanks Jan
 
Jan said:
You have my e-mail address. Please send the details of these stories to me and I'll investigate.
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Thanks for the offer, but there is no merit in doing this - you can not expect people to provide you with fully researched content so that you can just push the "publish"-button.


Jan said:
Such articles don't exist. You are tilting at windmills.
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BTW: When I had an excursion into journalism many years ago, we labelled the editorial style of the likes of MyBB "yellow press" - that was way before the time when fake news, clickbait or posting articles from "experts"....
 
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MagicDude4Eva said:
Thanks for the offer, but there is no merit in doing this - you can not expect people to provide you with fully researched content so that you can just push the "publish"-button.
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That's not what I was asking for.

As you have pointed out in one way or another throughout this thread, journalists are just human beings. We are not clairvoyant.

It's a tad hypocritical to expect us to write about something only you, and I expect only a handful of others, know about, but refuse to tell us about, no?

It is also misleading to say we ("the media") had the details and chose not to write about it, when we clearly didn't.

MagicDude4Eva said:
BTW: When I had an excursion into journalism many years ago, we labelled the editorial style of the likes of MyBB yellow press - that was way before the time when fake news, clickbait or posting articles from "experts"....
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Uh, OK. Thanks for the history lesson, I guess?

I would like to reiterate my offer of using my email address. Somewhere between when we reported on you disclosing the City of Joburg security vulnerability (in 2013 - not aeons ago) and today, we seem to have wronged you in some way. Please drop me an email as I would very much like to make amends and begin restoring the relationship we had.
 
Jan said:
I would like to reiterate my offer of using my email address. Somewhere between when we reported on you disclosing the City of Joburg security vulnerability (in 2013 - not aeons ago) and today, we seem to have wronged you in some way. Please drop me an email as I would very much like to make amends and begin restoring the relationship we had.
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The CoJ case has absolutely nothing to do with regards to my sentiment and my constructive criticism. To be a good journalist does not require one to have crystal ball. It merely requires the capability of being able to research, fact check and then apply a good portion of journalistic ethics. I fully appreciate it that your staff will sometimes lack the in-depth skill/knowledge to properly report on some stories and you can then at least fall back on the very community which built your business to provide you feedback. At times your journalistic effort seems to be driven by the "Need to publish XX exclusive stories or have XX views / comments per published content to maintain advertising rates". I think everyone will also accept and understand human error and an occasional lapse in judgement.

While I appreciate it how responsibly the CoJ story was reported and how the story resulted in many security activities hardening corporate systems, your reporting style and business transformed over the years to carry a strong flavor of sensationalism, baiting and lacked IMO the journalistic integrity (i.e. get the story out to be exclusive and completely overlooking anything else). As a responsible news platform it is my expectation of you to also educate and mitigate and sometimes hold off on reporting if such news will cause more harm. You are also your own enemy as you set high standards during your MyADSL times being a consumer-activism site and true news-portal in those days - hardly anything of what you once where is left in your current business (perhaps the ideals are still lingering, but commercializing your platform has visibly eroded those ideals over the years and it has become more apparent as of late)

Quite a few people on this forum and within your team have very well knowledge of what I hinted about and I think I would be reckless disclosing it as it serves no real purpose, but for clarity it needs to be mentioned that a number of ethically questionable decisions have been made by your team and moderators which clearly violated ethics as well as current law. I have proof of it and have no inclination to use it as it would be self-serving and cause more harm than good and affect many people's livelihoods. I do however think that people are fully aware of what I am talking about and it would be a good time to introspect and course-correct that moral compass.

In closing: While I fully understand that you have to apply editorial policies and sometimes make decisions to satisfy your business/share-holders and that such decisions will not be agreeable with your user base, we would all respect such decisions and your acts more if it came across as sincere and transparent.
 
This is just falling on deaf ears.

All I see is justification and denial.

I guess anybody who has a legitimate issue with the content will be regarded as a troll, very sad.
 
Foxhound5366 said:
You were hoping for remorse and prostration? I think you'd need to pick a better fight than a harmless story about a Makro delivery locker for that.
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Yea, maybe I should have selected one of Kevin's award winning pieces.

The article about nobody wanting him on Tinder was riveting. Move over Snowden.
 
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