Is Feedbackula no longer needed?

I'd say so.

With the new Gamespot update, part of it increased punishment toward spammers and flamers to make the community kinder. Yet Feedbackula is a series that often depends on these kinds of comments to be funny. At first I found it funny at first, there is a feeling of anger running through it that feels more like low-brow Jerry Springer type entertainment than something a professional established website would do.

There are no doubt a ton of ignorant rude comments out there, but there is really no need to engage them (especially in such a snarky way). It was fun novelty, but truly, Feedbackula, in my view, doesn't belong with a new Gamespot.

So, there was this things the moderators did that always bugged the hell out of me. Someone would make a horrible thread, then a moderator would come along, make that person out to be a f***ing idiot, then lock the thread.

I wasn't annoyed by the fact that the threads got locked, because in most cases the thread absolutely deserved to get locked. What bugged the hell out of me was the fact that before locking a thread, the mods had to take the opportunity to call someone an idiot or try to make him feel like $hit. Oh, sure, sometimes it was FUNNY, but it's f***ed up as hell. We have inconsiderate @ssholes using this site to amuse themselves by being pricks to other users. Part of a moderator's job is to stop that from happening. But then the moderators do the exact same $hit when stopping other jerks. The only difference is that one group has more authority than the other.

Anyway, I agree that making fun of idiots sort of diminishes the appearance of professionalism. If they need to be suspended or banned or whatever, then suspend them or ban them or whatever. Making snide-ass remarks before doing so is just rubbing it in their faces in order to make them feel like morons or look like $hit. And in many cases, that's EXACTLY what those people were doing when they make the posts that warranted a suspension or a deletion or a ban. You'd have rules against deliberately insulting other users, then freaking mods would insult other users before locking a topic on the basis that the original poster was insulting users. That $hit was totally f***ed up.

Exactly. It's not just that mocking dumb comments is immature; it's that the way it is being done is passive-aggressive and Gamespot is essentially behaving just like the trolls they are trying to discipline.

Very inconsistent.

I rather like Feedbackula as it currently is, but there really is no need to put a username up with the comment that will be poked fun at. And I feel that the comments that are moderation-worthy should just be moderated, nothing more.

If Feedbackula were to be completely banished from this "new" site, I would come here less than I already do.

I think instead of mocking those users they should try and engage in a conversation with them, it would be more interesting. Sometimes they make fun of comments that actually make sense despite the poor way they're written.

Ignorant people need to be exposed.

Not needed and not being done well.

You mean they aren't already? They're practically they're own hype-men

nothing on feedbackula is ever actually even approaching something that might be reprimanded if said in a forum setting. not as long as you dont consider the companies the commenters are spewing hate at, as individuals, that is. its all usually just over biased and whinny. statements that were clearly half cooked reactions by their posters. i wouldnt know at all but, its my thought that most are delighted to see their silliness featured there.

i have seen many more complaints about thread defeaters not stating their purpose in caving in a conversation. sometimes even i wonder why certain threads are locked.

perhaps forum whistle holders should be enabled and encouraged to, more often, move threads around if they can, rather than locking them. if closing it is necessary, they could list reason in a detached manner, as apposed to in a personal post. at the end of the thread there could be little flags, like tags of all the reasons it was closed down; each with a link to its corresponding description in the list of rules.

i suspect that feedbackula gets most of its comments from individual topics anyhow, not mod-able, per say, forum posts. if not from there, twitter and youtube will always be there.

Feedbackula needed to go a long time ago.

Grown men, whining about what some 13 year old said in a message forum, acting worse than the 13 year old did.

i'm really surprised that Johnny continued to make more episodes of Feedbackula after what he said in the one about the GTA V review. did he change his mind after changes to terms of use were introduced?

I am sure Johnny is in overdrive this week preparing the website redesign damage control edition of Feedbackula. I am sure he is coming up with all kinds of ways to make all the existing problems our fault somehow.

Well if it is gone, it is a feature I never used and won't be missed by me.

I like feedbackula and I think it's necessary. Idiots need to be called out and made to see how silly they are acting. That being said, I really want them to feature more level headed comments to balance out the show. If people act up on purpose to get featured in the show then putting in good comments will encourage more users to make proper comments too.

@Qixote: no one will want to hear about people whining about how they will be able to whine. i would be really surprised if they made a feedbackula about the forums.

It's the disconnect that really confuses me. The reviewers are moving more toward poetic critical analyses of games rather than just a friendly casual consumer guide. The website design is being upped to something more modern and professional. Yet, Feedbackula is just in the gutter.

There's something to be said for 'naming and shaming', but given it's superficial nature in an online environment that is ultimately anonymous, the shows' presence merely exacerbates the situation by encouraging such [mis]behaviour.

I find the biggest issue with feedbackula is that it was encouraging people to make outragous comments to try and get noticed.

And thats not just opinion, read any comments section on any news story or review and multiple posters pretty much state they are just trying to get the attention of feedbackula.

So it is pretty much a vicious circle that has outlived whatever usefulness it might have once had.

So yes, time for it to go.

Plus, it's good for laughs....

It needed to go, and the host needed to be terminated, after he told the people he relies on for his job, "F*** you."

He didn't bother to debate the point they were trying to make... just dismissed them with a casual obscenity like a spoiled 9-year-old.

I refuse to watch the videos after that. If you want him, and his troll/flame-bait show, gone, just follow suit.

It's a pretty worthless recurring article/editorial (to me at least), I just don't find it very appealing to watch. I don't think it really ever had much of a purpose.

I have mixed feelings about Feedbakula. This last episode I cracked up at the comment narrations. Those are what make it funny to me. On the flip side, it's not professional. It's clearly, yet slyly, making fun of people. And while they may deserve to be made fun of, I don't think it's the job of professional journalists to do that.

It's a hard one. If any late-night shows did something similar, people would eat it up. But those late-night shows are purely entertainment, not journalism.