I Will Not Love You Long Time T-Shirt: The Digg Response (Newsvine isn't as bad as you think.)

Yes, yes. I know it's popular to think that the rhetoric on Newsvine sucks. (Sometimes, yes, it sucks.) I even see people wishing for the good 'ol days, and having been here pretty much since it was possible to be here, I often wonder which days those were? There has always been fights, they have always been caused by people on both sides of the fence, and people on both sides of the fence have always ludicrously alleged that it was "the other side" that is most at fault.

With that said, I'm seeding this flickr photo, because it hit Digg, is now at 287,192 views, and the comment thread is a perfect example of the sort of thing I've never seen on Newsvine. This is the sort of vitriol and comment trolling that is worth losing sleep over. This is the sort of overt racism and immaturity that it is worth closing an account over.

When Newsvine sinks to this level, I'll be the first to drop my account, to say I can't handle it anymore. I can assure you that I've seen (and been, in some cases, party to) the worst of Newsvine -- and not one of those instances comes anywhere close to this sort of comment thread, not even from the drive-by trolls, or the long-term asshats.

Yes, rhetoric can get heated, and sometimes even ugly, on Newvsine, but there's always a place to retreat to where the conversations are civil, funny, serious without being mean-spirited, etc.

So, all those who don't like it when people seem like cops for citing the Code of Honor, or who worry too much about those with uneven reporting habits (it balances out) or, in general, those who decry the "censorship" of deleted comments, need to realize that all of those things add up to Newsvine not being your typical community. And yes, all of the "meta" content that you love to hate plays a huge role in that, as well.