Patrick Lagacé's Facebook friends (names blurred to protect the innocent)

Someone’s been busy on Facebook.

See also:

• August 18, 2008 — I have hair too!
• August 12, 2008 — Coiffeur, do your thing
• August 12, 2008 — By-election politicians on Facebook

See also:

• September 24, 2007 — YAGB: Fashion shopping blog
• August 6, 2008 — More traffic to Gazette blogs solves newspaper crisis
• August 2, 2008 — Gazette starting Olympics page, photographer blog

Le Soleil's Richard Therrien

Allow me to add my voice to others in welcoming Le Soleil’s Richard Therrien to the blogosphere. He’ll be writing for Cyberpresse about television, tapping into his freakishly vast knowledge of everything that has ever aired, ever. (He explains his mission statement in his debut post)

Le Soleil, of course, is in Quebec City, so that changes… well, nothing. Unless he’s talking about the local news. Which he should, because local news is awesome for mistakes and stupidity, which he and I both seem to enjoy pointing out.

See also:

• May 15, 2008 — TVA mad at La Presse for suggesting they have managers
• June 22, 2007 — Le Soleil: We don’t outsource (wink, wink)

See also:

• September 23, 2007 — Remparts liveblogging
• August 8, 2008 — MédiaMatinQuébec is dead
• July 21, 2008 — Montreal Geography Trivia No. 29

Look out, ladies. Patrick Lagacé is prettying himself up to be on the teevee.

See also:

• August 28, 2008 — Patrick Lagacé wants to be your friend
• August 18, 2008 — I have hair too!
• August 11, 2008 — Montreal North riot OMG BBQ

Stephanie Myles’s frequently updated Open Court tennis blog is by far the most popular in terms of page views. It’s also by far the most updated (about as much as all the other ones combined).

UPDATE (Aug. 7): Andrew also points out a huge increase in traffic to the Habs Inside/Out blog, which is getting regular updates on the Mats Sundin situation from resident funnyman Mike Boone.

See also:

• March 21, 2008 — Gazette editor-in-chief starting blog
• July 31, 2007 — smyles
• August 18, 2008 — YAGB: Style-spotting

That was also the subject of an interview Pat did on CIBL with Michel Dumais (Mario Asselin has the details) in which Pat totally name-drops me (near the end of the audio clip):

Dumais: … Vous êtes très fréquenté, vous générez beaucoup de commentaires. Mais ça serait pas intéressant pour vous peut-être de commencer à fréquenter aussi des autres blogues et à laisser des commentaires? …

Lagacé: Oui, j’essai de faire un peu. En fait le seul blogue ou je le fait, j’estime que c’est le meilleur blogue de couverture médiatique à Montréal, c’est le blogue de Steve Faguaiylle … Faguy… son blogue c’est Fagstein — qui couvre les médias montréalais, surtout anglo, mais un peu québecois… francophone aussi. C’est le seul ou je vais. Les autres, je sais pas. Un peu de manque de temps, un peu de manque d’intérêt.

(If my blog were a movie, that quote would go at the top of the poster.)

Although the number of comments on Pat’s blog causes a bit of professional jealousy on my part (second only to hair jealousy), it’s very rare that I’ll read the comments attached to one of his posts. Not so much because of the trolling (though it is apparent), but because there’s just so darn many of them. I don’t have time to read all the posts on blogs I’m subscribed to as it is. I certainly don’t have time to read 50 comments attached to each post, especially when they don’t have anything interesting to add.

And then there’s situations when the number of comments simply gets out of hand. The decapitation-on-a-bus story I talked about earlier now has 1,700 comments, most of which are repetitive. Has anyone read them all?

One easy solution is to stop approving troll comments. We set minimum limits (usually legal ones) for the types of comments we approve in moderation, but why set the barrier so low? Why not set them to the same level as we do letters to the editor? Just because there is space for more doesn’t mean we should bury any truly interesting comments in a pile of useless junk.

But even then, the number of comments can still be unbearable in very popular blogs or news stories or anywhere else one might have an attached discussion forum. When that happens, it’s time to start removing comments that aren’t really interesting (comments that simply agree, disagree, approve, disapprove, or otherwise give a comment without explaining it or adding anything new, as well as those that repeat things already said by others).

The standard response to that is: That’s censorship. It’s not though, it’s moderation. Nobody’s stopping you from posting your useless comments about my blog post on your blog or on some other forum somewhere. When I disapprove a comment it’s because I find it of no use to my readership.

But some still think that’s too far. So is there another method to get these runaway comments under control?

Well, Slashdot answered that question years ago with its comment system. The website, whose format looks very similar to blogs even though it predates them, has a threaded comment system, so comments can be traced back to their parents and sorted according to thread. This level of organization (and the ability to turn it on or off as needed) helps a big deal when dealing with a large number of comments.

More importantly, though, Slashdot has a peer moderation system that allows users to rate each others’ comments. Positive reviews increase a comment’s rating, and negative reviews decrease it. The result is that each comment is assigned a numerical rating (from -1 to +5), and readers can filter comments based on that rating. Set it to zero to get rid of just the trolls. Set it to +5 to get only the dozen or so truly exceptional or interesting or useful comments you need.

I’m surprised that every large-scale blogging system ever made hasn’t copied this system in some way. Instead, you see unthreaded comments with no rating system. The only judgment made is whether they meet the minimum requirements for posting, and that’s not good enough when our attention is so limited.

My blog, though it gets quite a few comments, doesn’t get near enough to start implementing stricter screening or peer moderation, but if I had 500 comments a day, I would certainly seriously consider it.

See also:

• August 28, 2008 — Patrick Lagacé wants to be your friend
• August 26, 2008 — Farked.
• August 18, 2008 — I have hair too!

Some of us are working alone in the Sports department late at night, hoping beyond anything else that an announcement doesn’t come out of the blue to screw everything up.

See also:

• February 20, 2008 — Comeback of a lifetime
• February 2, 2008 — More changes at The Gazette
• November 10, 2007 — Habs Inside/Out redesigned

UPDATE: The article has apparently gotten people interested and donating, and he’s already raised more money than last year. I’ll go ahead and take credit for that.

See also:

• August 2, 2008 — Nobody wants to read 1,000 comments
• June 18, 2008 — Another blogger war with the Evil MSM
• May 8, 2008 — Over the top

See also:

• August 14, 2008 — Têtes à claques en anglais
• August 9, 2008 — Near, far, wherever you are (preferably far)
• August 7, 2008 — CBC’s awful hockey theme contest

See also:

• November 29, 2007 — YASTGB: A trip to the Middle East
• August 2, 2008 — Gazette starting Olympics page, photographer blog
• March 21, 2008 — Gazette editor-in-chief starting blog

Just for Laughs Festival is the cleverly-named blog covering … wait for it … the Just for Laughs Festival, which runs July 10-20.

The Ciné Files similarly follows all those film festivals that happen here during the summer. Fantasia, FFM, FNC, Joe’s Super Awesome Film Fest, etc.

They’re both self-explanatory, no?

See also:

• August 18, 2008 — YAGB: Style-spotting
• August 6, 2008 — More traffic to Gazette blogs solves newspaper crisis
• August 2, 2008 — Gazette starting Olympics page, photographer blog

UPDATE: Dave Stubbs has also started a Beijing Olympic Games blog.

See also:

• August 2, 2008 — Gazette starting Olympics page, photographer blog
• August 25, 2008 — Top 10 worst moments of the Beijing Olympics
• August 19, 2008 — This is what I love about the Olympics

Think the CBC is ready to ruin yet another RadCan gem by creating a bad copy of it in English?

See also:

• August 25, 2008 — Top 10 worst moments of the Beijing Olympics
• August 12, 2008 — National humility in contrast
• August 7, 2008 — CBC’s awful hockey theme contest

It varies from other Gazette blogs because it’s personal. Very personal. In fact, you can’t get much more personal than this.

The editor is Jillian (formerly Bill) Page, whose service at the paper is measured in decades more than years, and whose long-time coworkers were shocked to say the least when they got an email one day explaining that Bill was now Jill.

Coming out in this way is a challenge in itself. It’s still a bit awkward for me to override my habits in the use of personal pronouns, and I’m one of the youngest ones there. You can imagine how difficult it is in an environment where the average age is about 174.

As the inaugural post explains, expect the blog to vary between seriously discussing the social, political and health aspects of such a transition and humorously discussing some of the unexpected quirks that sitcom-like awkward situations that arise when you try to get everyone to switch from “he” to “she.”

See also:

• August 18, 2008 — YAGB: Style-spotting
• August 6, 2008 — More traffic to Gazette blogs solves newspaper crisis
• August 2, 2008 — Gazette starting Olympics page, photographer blog

My request was simple: Don’t vote for me in the sad popularity contest that is the Mirror’s Best of Montreal readers’ poll. Instead, it appears, someone did do exactly that because I came in eighth.

I’d say I was honoured, but I placed just below Drunken Stepfather. That doesn’t exactly fill me with pride.

Still, congrats to those who did end up on the list, especially those who didn’t use their blogs to inflate their votes (Montreal City Weblog, Spacing Montreal, Pregnant Goldfish).

I should also point out some other blogs on that list, which I’ve never frequented because they aren’t about the city, but are still interesting:

• Black Sheep Reviews (Hollywood movie reviews)
• Said the Gramophone (MP3 sampler)
• Hastily Put Together (webcomic)

I also think Coolopolis should have been there somewhere, as well as some francophone blogs. But this is about popularity, not quality, right?

No news here

As for the rest of the poll, nothing is particularly surprising for anyone who’s seen BOM results before. Chain restaurants still dominate the best eats categories (McDonald’s is there twice).

In the media categories:

• CKUT won best radio station
• CFCF best TV station (with Mutsumi Takahashi and Todd van der Heyden best news anchors, though the Mirror seems to think the later is the evening news guy, when last time I checked it was 8th-placed Brian Britt)
• K103’s Don Smooth best radio host (the Mirror has a profile)
• Mix and CHOM’s morning shows as best radio shows
• Nightlife Magazine won best magazine
• The Mirror, shockingly, came in first for Best Newspaper, again. The Gazette was second, which I think says something, followed by the three franco dailies, Voir, Hour, The Link, Metro and the McGill Daily.
• The Gazette’s Aislin won for Best Cartoonist, beating ballot-stuffing Radomsky and La Presse’s Serge Chapleau

And Boustan, who also mounted a self-promotion campaign to improve its standing, maintained its dominance in the Middle Eastern categories, improved in others and added two new ones:

• Best Middle-Eastern (still 1st)
• Best Falafel (still 1st)
• Best Late-Night Eats (2nd from 3rd)
• Best Delivery (2nd from 4th)
• Best Cheap Eats (3rd)
• Best Sandwich (5th)

However, people weren’t convinced enough to vote for it as Best Fries or Best Vegetarian.

Elsewhere in the bragosphere:

• Spacing Montreal
• Indyish (Pregnant Goldfish)
• Montreal City Weblog
• Slushblog

See also:

• April 13, 2008 — Best of Montreal: Don’t vote for me

Political journalism is the worst. People take the most minute things in politics very seriously. I got a good taste of that in university covering the Concordia Student Union. National politics is worse because there’s a much larger audience, because it’s professional (people get paid big bucks to be politicians), and because people think that it’s really important.

So you can imagine what happened to The Gazette’s Elizabeth Thompson (an otherwise straight-faced reporter whose copy I have mercilessly slashed to bits lovingly edited with care many times) when she made a few good-natured but insensitively snarky jokes at the expense of the prime minister’s director of communications, Sandra Buckler, who’s having surgery as part of cancer treatment.

Though there was no malice intended, making fun of someone who is being treated for cancer is a bit lacking in taste, the kind of insensitivity I’ve shown myself on many an occasion when I post before I think.

Reading the comments attached to the post, however, you’d think she started cheering for her to die:

• I’ve called the Managing Editor to bring it to his attention, and will be contacting CanWest advertisers to let them know I will be actively boycotting their products.
• Liz Thompson of the Montréal Gazette whose lack of common decency and narcissism has lead the Parliament Hill reporter to refuse to take the high road and apologize for her vile blog in which she defamed the Director of Communications of the Prime Minister
• That is about the worst thing I have ever read.

There are also other (Conservative) blogs that have picked up on the issue and gone so far as to call the paper’s managing editor to express their outrage (another reason I do not covet his job).

To her credit, Thompson apologized to Buckler, and has left (most of) the comments attached to the post, many of which are a bit less hot-headed about her crossing the line.

In the end, hopefully everyone has learned that behind all the politics and professionalism, everyone is human.

UPDATE: Thompson follows up with a heartfelt, honest mea culpa, explaining the lessons she’s learned.

See also:

• October 14, 2007 — Embargo this!
• August 12, 2008 — By-election politicians on Facebook
• August 2, 2008 — Nobody wants to read 1,000 comments

Stage and Page, which I have to admit is a kind of catchy title, is the blog of new “culture critic” Pat Donnelly. Formerly the books columnist, she’s taken over Matt Radz’s theatre beat as well, bringing herself to a level of cultural aptitude that simply puts the rest of us to shame.

Green Life, by reporters Monique Beaudin and Michelle Lalonde, is the environment blog, which was launched last Tuesday as part of the whole Earth Day thing. It’s part of a larger “website” devoted to environment issues. There will also be a weekly column on the environment on Mondays (including a big splash in today’s Arts & Life section on reducing your carbon footprint in 12 easy steps). The column will alternate between the two as they teach us new and disgusting ways to make us greener.

(UPDATE - April 30):

Showbiz Chez Nous, by Brendan Kelly, follows the same subject matter as his weekly column: TV and movies in Quebec.

See also:

• August 18, 2008 — YAGB: Style-spotting
• August 13, 2008 — Hampstead still hates the environment
• August 6, 2008 — More traffic to Gazette blogs solves newspaper crisis

Angry French Guy, aka Georges Boulanger, is a francophone who is trying to explain the perspective of francophones to us anglos.

“Driving a truck is not a healthy lifestyle,” he says. “Getting angry about the reasonable accommodation debate, Jan Wong and other nonsense from home while listening to my satellite radio was putting my life in danger.”

And for that, he’s gotten grief from both sides of the divide, with some fellow francos calling him a traitor:

His response: “Fighting off Barbara Kay on one side and now these clowns on the other. I must be doing something right.”

Anger really is the great motivator.

See also:

• No related posts

Her first post includes a mission statement.

See also:

• September 7, 2007 — Gazette starting music blog
• August 18, 2008 — YAGB: Style-spotting
• August 6, 2008 — More traffic to Gazette blogs solves newspaper crisis