Speak Out: Speak Out 12/26/18

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Posted by Dennis Smith on Wed, Dec 26, 2018, at 7:27 AM:

No. 1 traffic light

The best traffic lights in Cape Girardeau is at Mt. Auburn and Hopper Road. If you are making a left turn onto Hopper Road, you don't have to wait by forever like at other lights. If traffic is slow it will change to give you a green light.

$5 billion

Just think what $5 Billion would do towards building roads and bridges for the entire country if Trump pushed improving infrastructure that is failing across the U.S. If we are going to mortgage our children's future, at least spend the money on things the country needs instead of giving billions of dollars to third party immigrant jails and the new generation of Halliburtons, Blackwater and other corrupt insider companies owned by the DeVos, Prince, Mercers and other gazzilionaires. Wasteful and ridiculous.

Shut down

Shut 'er down! Who needs the government to run anyway? If Trump and his supporters want to spend billions on a wall, then they should go kick in some money to the Go Fund Me account for it. But then Trump and his crooked children will find some way to siphon off money from it, just like his crooked charities.

Replies (14)

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    No. 1 traffic light: Glad that you are happy, just don't run any red lights that might injury or kill someone.

    $5 billion: Just think of all the billions saved by having a Wall that will keep Illegals out of the USA and not paying for their free health care and a monthly welfare check. Also, think about your kids that they will not be exposed to all of the drugs coming across the southern non-existent border.

    Shut down: Just like crooked Bill and Hillary did with their pay for play Foundation scam. Also, don't forget Obama sending $150 billion in cash in the middle of the night to the terrorist Iran regime. Did Congress vote on this "payoff" - no....and before anyone has a spell that money was not Iran's but was a freeze of Iran's assets during the Iran hostage situation. Just as now when we place sanctions on Russia or any other country they don't get any money back.

    And that's the way it should be according to Schaefer's World....Wednesday December 26, 2018.

    -- Posted by Dennis Smith on Wed, Dec 26, 2018, at 7:49 AM
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    The Google god didn't like me using an adjective to describe what kind of spell in the last comment - now that's censorship.

    -- Posted by Dennis Smith on Wed, Dec 26, 2018, at 8:09 AM
  • West/East Germany proved positive walls don't work , I'll stay with Reagan's thinking . The Great Wall of China proves positive a wall will keep bad People out but it also proves walls keeps Communism/Socialism in too , same as Korea's DMZ .

    Re Iran : It's still building and working on nukes and missiles after all the tough tweets , both Obama and Trump failed this test . What's the word on North Korea , the biggest threat to the world ? Does it still have missiles that can reach the USA and nukes too ? Another Trump failure , more tough talk Social Media tweets that amounted to squat .

    -- Posted by Rick Scaggs on Wed, Dec 26, 2018, at 9:30 AM
  • This is a test of the Emergency Uncivil Comment Warning System. Had this been a real violation, you would not be told what was uncivil or who's feelings were hurt.

    -- Posted by R. W. Bess on Wed, Dec 26, 2018, at 11:46 AM
  • It's the dissonance

    -- Posted by Rick Scaggs on Wed, Dec 26, 2018, at 2:21 PM
  • -- Posted by Rick Scaggs on Wed, Dec 26, 2018, at 3:17 PM
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    -- Posted by R. W. Bess on Wed, Dec 26, 2018, at 11:46 AM

    OJ: Very true, it's the Google god's way or the highway.

    Schaefer's World

    -- Posted by Dennis Smith on Wed, Dec 26, 2018, at 3:50 PM
  • "It's the dissonance"

    Cognitive Dissonance (Leon Festinger) According to cognitive dissonance theory, there is a tendency for individuals to seek consistency among their cognitions (i.e., beliefs, opinions). When there is an inconsistency between attitudes or behaviors (dissonance), something must change to eliminate the dissonance.Mar 31, 2018

    I think the word that made my last disappeared post go away still fits.

    Posted by David Schaefer on Wed, Dec 26, 2018, at 3:50 PM

    I read all the fine print again and still don't see anyway to know what all is against the rules or why.

    -- Posted by R. W. Bess on Wed, Dec 26, 2018, at 6:35 PM
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    OJ: It's just certain words that sets off the Google god. Just go to a blank comment screen and type in a word that might be uncivil and then "preview your comment"....you will see by the Google god if it thinks your comment (word) is uncivil. I've done this and have a bushel full of words that it doesn't like.

    Schaefer's World

    -- Posted by Dennis Smith on Wed, Dec 26, 2018, at 7:48 PM
  • Is this the Google Gods or just the SO editors .

    Try those words in Google and see if there's any warnings or they disappear .

    -- Posted by Rick Scaggs on Wed, Dec 26, 2018, at 7:55 PM
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    Is this the Google Gods or just the SO editors .

    Try those words in Google and see if there's any warnings or they disappear .

    -- Posted by Rick Scaggs on Wed, Dec 26, 2018, at 7:55 PM

    Rick: As far as I know Google doesn't have any public forums except for their Help ones, so there would be no censorship.

    Schaefer's World

    -- Posted by Dennis Smith on Thu, Dec 27, 2018, at 8:05 AM
  • I guess I'm mixfused again . If Google has no public forums , how is it running this one .

    -- Posted by Rick Scaggs on Thu, Dec 27, 2018, at 10:12 AM
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    Rick: This is the Google god that I'm referring to:

    Jon K. Rust is publisher of the Southeast Missourian and co-president of Rust Communications.

    Southeast Missourian joins Google in test to elevate civility

    Wednesday, November 14, 2018

    The Southeast Missourian will be participating in a pilot program with Jigsaw, a division of Google's parent corporation, to test whether technology can help elevate online community discussion. Your participation and perspective will be vital. Together, we have an opportunity to shape future online commentary not only locally but across the country (and world).

    Is this project important? Yes. The recent tragedy in Pittsburgh, where a crazed anti-Semite was revealed to have egged himself on via an extremist social network, underlines the danger of toxic commentary. It also underscores the trend for people to huddle within groups of the like-minded, creating echo chambers, which turn differences of opinion into tribal warfare. Newspaper commentary zones are an anti-thesis to the echo chambers, because they exist for the broader community and not just for specialized interests (or self-selected "friends").

    The challenge is to create a robust, inclusive place for the free exchange of ideas, which elevates community discussion without egregiously limiting it. One of our questions in this project is determining whether lowering the obnoxiousness of comments broadens and increases participation. (Confession: 19 months ago we removed anonymous commentary from semissourian.com with the goal of elevating comment quality. The identities of commenters are now verified and comments must be "signed". Fewer people are commenting.)

    Is this project complicated? Yes. There are many people who are concerned that big technology companies -- let alone media organizations -- are biased against their perspective. To combat suspicion, we are going to be fully transparent about what we're trying to do. Meanwhile, the Southeast Missourian has to do this all in a way that is sustainable -- which can live beyond a pilot program. For example, some digital sites retain a large staff to review commentary before it is posted. That's not possible for us. It would cost too much. Instead, we are going to rely on Google's technology and you to help us weed out uncivil comments. We appreciate Google providing this technology, as well as a grant to offset programming and personnel expenses during the trial.

    As background: Semissourian.com already looks to our community -- you -- to help police comments. If a reader comes across something objectionable, if registered, he or she can alert a review team to inspect the comment for removal. The drawbacks of the current system, however, are many, including: 1) If no one reports the objectionable content, it can sit on our site for hours or longer, infecting the flow of the discussion. 2) The review team does not work 24 hours a day, so, even if something is reported, it might be several hours before it is reviewed. 3) Only those registered for commentary can report content, something that was implemented after more than a few online users abused the alert function by reporting comments they disagreed with, but which were not toxic. 4) Our biggest accountability tool is banning users who flagrantly (via a single incidence) or regularly (via constant pushing of the envelop and thus sapping our attention) violate community standards, which in itself is a blunt instrument.

    Here's the plan.

    Starting today, we are turning on Jigsaw's technology (called "Perspective API"), which will internally rate comments on a continuum of civility from non-toxic to toxic with "uncertain" in between. Upon completion of a comment, before it's posted live online, the commenter will receive feedback. Comments that fail community guidelines (defined by us through interaction with our user community and not by Jigsaw) will be rejected immediately. Those in a questionable range will be posted for others to see but at the same time be immediately forwarded to an expanded review team. Meanwhile, we very much want users to continue to use the "report comment" button to let us know when they see objectionable content. This will allow us to review how the technology is flagging content. Lessons we learn will be shared with Google.

    Finally, if you make a comment that you feel is within community standards or otherwise worthwhile, but which is disallowed, we'd like you to send us a note about that, too. Understanding "false positives" is a key aspect of the test.

    Launching in a few weeks, we'll also test the technology on our sports-focused semoball.com site, which still allows anonymous commentary.

    Over time, on semissourian.com and semoball.com, we will tweak thresholds to determine how such changes affect participation. Important to us with this whole project is elevating commentary style -- making it more civil -- while not limiting commentary topics or perspectives. The exceptions: Comments under news articles are meant to be germane to the story content so, if notified, we're more likely to remove comments that belong elsewhere even if they're within community standards. More freewheeling discussions are encouraged to take place in the forums. We also reserve the right to shut down and ban users for obscenities and other violations of community standards, including racist comments and charges of racism. Decisions about these exceptions remain the purview of Southeast Missourian staff and not Google's technology.

    Let us know your thoughts. Try out the new commentary tools. And send feedback to commenting@semissourian.com. We're looking to learn along with you.

    Jon K. Rust is publisher of the Southeast Missourian.com

    Marc, Google's technology helps flag terms and combinations of words. It's a tool to help us be more effective and quick in moderating. The decisions, for the most part, about what content to remove remains with the newspaper. The exception is at the "high toxicity" range, where we've set up our system NOT to post those comments until moderators have reviewed. Here, understanding false positives will be important. As for your comment about impact of going away from anonymity... I'll be writing about that more in the near future, along with results from a survey we conducted prior to launching with Google. Thanks for your input.

    -- Posted by Jon K. Rust on Wed, Nov 14, 2018, at 11:25 AM

    Schaefer's World

    -- Posted by Dennis Smith on Thu, Dec 27, 2018, at 4:41 PM
  • Wow , didn't know this .

    Thnx for the link .

    -- Posted by Rick Scaggs on Thu, Dec 27, 2018, at 5:00 PM

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