Speakers Corner

What's peoples opinion of the standard of writing in speakers corner these days. The last dozen I have seen have been infantile beyond belief considering what a debate/discussion is meant to be. Things like "I think terrorism is naughty" and "If supermarkets were less crowded then loads more people would go there" or whatever hardly inspire me with confidence to read there much which is a shame as it could be an interesting corner of the site. Also many of the posts are about twenty lines long, good i write comments longer than that!!! Any thoughts anyone?

Yes I have thoughts on it. I really think from talking to Jill who was guide in this area that they do not want speakers corner to take the same route as ciao cafe. They want serious topics. If I read anything less than sensible, I tell them as politely as I can, explaining what would help their argument. I think that if people do realise that every area of the site is a paying area, unlike on ciao, that raters should also bear in mind, it is not length of review, but fullness of information that matters. I have downrated a couple of "Handbag" ones cos they were lists. On ciao, you get community points which is silly of course, but on dooyoo, it's different and people get paid. The more honest the ratings, the more the likelihood that people with passion will write there on subjects they feel passionate about. Jill wanted members to suggest categories that were serious ones that could help consumers, and members of the public and I started some, and asked on a thread for people to think about what subjects would be good for this area.

Thanks for the mini-history lesson. I think a lot of the categories headings are fine its just some of the attempts to debate/argue the subject. maybe it is indicative (ohh good word, must make a note to use that more often)...errm...indicative of the general standard of peoples rhetoric and debating capabilities these days, after all with the Mail, the Sun and Chris Moles Radio Show being most peoples only brush with the real world, i guess its only to be expected. ......harumpf...

I get frustrated too but only by commenting can people learn anything. I never rate em and walk away cos you may actually teach someone the art of debate and thats a wonderful thing.

Whats also frustrating is that someone can write ten lines of childish bollocks that they have lifted from the Sunday Sport and they get really good ratings for it. You read something along the lines of "going to war is naughty" or "isnt it unfair that we have to pay all of these high taxes" and its recieved like the lost teachings of Thomas Aquinas.

yeh that's where readers relate to a problem, rather than reading the review.People say petrol prices are high and it's disgusting, but they don't look at the wider picture. People see it, agree and rate VH. A fact of life really.

The hard thing on speakers corner is how to rate peoples opinions in e.g. the general category where the author answers loads of questions-unless theyre one word answers you can hardly say-SU because you havent put this in-its an opinion

surely rating a cohesive argument is similar to rating a product review, both contain a mix of fact and opinion and are subject to much of the same criteria, although i'm not really sure what you mean in most of what you have just written, sorry.

Its speakers corner though, people should be able to say anything[within the riules..) without critic. No ones right or wrong; its opinion.

Cerberus wrote:

Its speakers corner though, people should be able to say anything[within the riules..) without critic. No ones right or wrong; its opinion.

Nope, sometimes opinions need to be properly backed up.

It could be someones opinion that all mugging/rape etc is carried out by ethnic minorities. Now that, would be a contentious issue, and would need to have sommit to back it up (not that I think it could be)

(p.s - that is just an example, and not something I am proposing!)

Doesnt bite...

I think Speakers Corner should have lots more challenges in it that would raise the level of writing, I miss the good old days of Whats in my Bag? A true classic.

Today I have mostly been drinking vodka.

I'm just reviving my normal moan as the recent posting in speakers corner have just hit rock bottom. Most of the recent topics have been homelessness (which seems to be their own fault for being lazy) and foxhunting (which should be outlawed and the fox hounds all destroyed). I know everyone is entitled to their own opinion but a large percentage of the recent ones posted seem to be based on a childish naivity reserved normally for Daily mail readers. Two lines of "I think something should be done about this but I dont know what" and half a paragraph of "isnt the world unfair" is just wasting everyones time....rant over...for now.

Okay Dave, taking into account everything that everyone said about the way in which people review, let's try and look at it a different way. Imagine Dooyoo as a newspaper stand. On it you get The Sun, The Times, The Beano, The Dandy, (ok so I am showing my age here). But the biggest thing you get is choice. Read it, don't read it. I suppose that's one way forward. The other, as in life, is writing to the editor and telling em why you don't like it and hoping upon hope that they change, though they seldom do. I actually look forward to finding a treasure amongst the arguments for and against issues and in the light of the lesser well argued reviews do occasionally find one and think "yes !" so I suppose that unless you have bad and good, you have nothing to measure each against. From a user perspective, sure it's easy money writing unconvincing argument, just not my style or yours, so like the newspaper stand, we can chose, and let's face it badly argued reviews are easy to rate !

Thingywhatsit wrote:

Okay Dave, taking into account everything that everyone said about the way in which people review, let's try and look at it a different way. Imagine Dooyoo as a newspaper stand. On it you get The Sun, The Times, The Beano, The Dandy, (ok so I am showing my age here). But the biggest thing you get is choice. Read it, don't read it. I suppose that's one way forward. The other, as in life, is writing to the editor and telling em why you don't like it and hoping upon hope that they change, though they seldom do. I actually look forward to finding a treasure amongst the arguments for and against issues and in the light of the lesser well argued reviews do occasionally find one and think "yes !" so I suppose that unless you have bad and good, you have nothing to measure each against. From a user perspective, sure it's easy money writing unconvincing argument, just not my style or yours, so like the newspaper stand, we can chose, and let's face it badly argued reviews are easy to rate !

Stop picking your own mushrooms for breakfast!

I like mushrooms.

Rachel, I fully understand what you are saying, but we are all entitled to moan about mediocrity even if we can't change it. The trouble is, using your scenario, the newspaper stand is selling twenty copies of the Sunday Sport to every one copy of the Telegraph.

Yeh I know what you mean !!! Believe me ! By the way did you know that people who don't have o levels cannot do it with cream ?

and that was one of the more coherent reviews

We get some beauties don't we. One thing I did notice though today was that some of the people that write what we consider SU reviews do actually go around the site reading and that was nice to see.