Teo Degas' Books & Decks

"Reading the Comments" is an exploration of online comments, of their nature, their authors, what is good, bad and funny about them. Reagle shows how comments inform (reviews), serve to improve your own works or projects (via feedback), can be manipulative and serve to alienate people (through abuse and hatred), and shape how we see the world and ourselves (via quantification and social comparison). Reagle uses a humongous amount of data, using the main platforms generating comments:Amazon, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, fiction writers communities, and personal blogs.

The book poses and answers intriguing questions with a more or less degree of success:
> Why do people like disclosing info about themselves in their comments?
> Is society more narcissist today as a result of the Internet?
> Is anonymity the mother of all problems in abusive comments?
> Is fakery the exception or the norm in review?
> Who is writing false reviews and why? And what is being done to counteract it?
> Who are those creating sock-puppet accounts?
> Why do review sites benefit from your comments?
> How do Facebook and Google+ use your profile and contact list every time you rate a product?
> What is the difference between a comment and a review?
> What is the key to providing a good feedback that is useful to the author without hurting their feelings?
> Is a bullied person bullying a person as bully as the bully?
> Can good communities, in self-defence, morph into what they try to avoid?
> Do the gazillion comments processed during the day affect our ability to concentrate and our well-being?
> Is the pervasive rating and ranking of people and services dehumanising?

The book is divided in seven chapters:
1/ Comment, offers a contextualisation of comment, of what makes people comment, interact or to look for another place.
2/  Informed, is an introduction to reviews, ratings, unboxing videos and other informative commentary on the web.
3/Manipulation, is about the use of fake reviews and online fakery in general.These manipulators are fakers (those who deceptively praise their own works or pillory others), makers (those who do that for a fee), and the takers (those who avail themselves of such services).
4/ Improvement, deals with feedback: peer feedback, feedback in formal writing communities, and feedback in communities where the line between feedback and collaboration blurs.
5/ Alienated, describes online trolls and haters, bully battles and  misogyny, and tries to frame this "culture" with what we know about the effects of anonymity, deindividuation and depersonalization.
6/ Shaped, poses the question of how this infinite stream of information, status updates, and photos affects self-esteem and wellbeing and our view of ourselves.
7/ Bemused, focuses on the puzzling aspect of commenting as comments can be slapdash, confusing, amusing, revealing, and weird.

 I found this statement one of the most interesting in the book:

All forms of writing that have gone before are present on the Web— and at a very large scale. These types of comment existed before the twenty-first century, but never were they available in such great numbers or were they as easily accessible as they are today.

I love the historical contextualisation of commenting, and to learn that many attitudes we find online nowadays were very much alive in the past, and that well-known writers, philosophers and artists of the past were involved in actions or activities that are today found online. I found really good the section on feedback and the section on trolls very exhaustively informative. When you provide with historical antecedents for online behaviour that are rooted in morphed off-line behaviour, we can have a mini-epiphany because then, some behaviour and attitudes are not only contextualised but can be tackled in different ways. Reagle's analysis on quantification or rating, which are more relevant by the day in our times. was also really good.

I agree with Reagle about the search for intimate serendipity being one of the reasons why some people aren't in big social sites or social networks in general, they join when they are small and quit then when they become too big, too popular or the first scum appears, or they don't allow comments on their personal sites. That is my case, and that is great putting a name to what I do.

I really loved some of the comic strips from The Geek & Poke, a German nerdy comic-strip, reproduced in the book, which are really relevant for some of the matters discussed in it. I especially feel connected to the the one below, but this is precisely one of the comments I get most often from people I don´t know or have interaction with me, and the other one, that "the free gift" (above) use preached by corporations, major social networks and dot com start-up companies and geeks.

Reagle clearly mentions at the beginning that the book isn't about the future of online sites or of commenting online. This being the case, one of the most interesting and controversial aspects of commenting is hurdled over, which is very disappointing to me. In that regard, the book scratches the top layers of the subject, leaving many of the issues associated to commenting just described. Which is not bad if you want a comprehensive analysis of the subject without digging down.

Although I enjoyed the book, Reading the Comments is a bit a sum-up of things and research found in other works, and Reagle  does not always expresses his opinion on important matters; for example, how would he tackle some of the problems he describes? However, he does give his honest opinion other times, as when he says that he doesn't think anonymity is the problem for the state of the online world. In fact, some of the most abusive people I've come across online had their real photo and name displayed. I always appreciate solutions, or at least proposals on how to change things online, especially when an expert is writing. Reagle is, after all, an academic, an expert on communication and on the Internet so I expected more prognosis, diagnosis or  even personal involvement.

The book reads well as a course for students, where his students would learn about things and the teacher wouldn't always need to express his views upfront unless questioned. That is OK for a course, I expected more on bleeding matters: like sexist misogynist comments, the level of verbal aggression thriving online, why does trolling occur beyond those groups who made an entertaining of doing so? In that regard I found Sarah Jeon's book necessary to read after this, because she digs on the subject and provides readers with personal answers and solutions on how to turn things around. Both books complement each other quite well.

The book is wonderfully edited. I didn't notice any typo, the reference system and endnoting are flawless, something that, as a reader, I always appreciate.There is always a lot of work to get to that point, and you cannot take it for granted. I think the first chapter should be called Introduction, because that is what it is, and where the author mentions what he is going to do and describes the subjects discussed in each chapter.

The rendering for Kindle is excellent except for the index at the back, which isn't linked for Kindle, therefore, worthless. I always feel cheated when this happens.

IN SHORT

The book reads really well, is engaging, entertaining and digs on many aspects of the web that aren't well known to people who don't live on or research the Internet. Three and half stars rounding to 4. That is why the five-star-rating system sucks...