I'd try to flush the rats out into the open with some bait they couldn't resist.
Something like: "Maple syrup has lost its flavor recently. Amirite, or amirite?"
I can't really give an informed opinion about maple syrup. It's insanely expensive in this region of the country, so we have to make do with the artificial stuff.
Ever notice how CBC.ca doesn't even bother opening up the comments on articles about certain subjects? If they did, it'd just instantly get filled up with the most bigoted diatribes. Honestly, I feel like there'd be no real loss if the CBC people just disabled the comments for good... well, except it'd give the right-wingers more cause to whine about defunding them because 'censorship' or whatever.
I'm going to have to disagree on shutting them down completely. I've had two different accounts on that site. The first was before the "real names" policy came in, and I realized when the policy started that I'd be crazy to use my real name on that site. When you're a left-leaning atheist in Central Alberta and you have the BS!C kind of government we have here now, I'm taking chances just dropping an occasional comment on Danielle Smith's FB page. My own MLA blocked me years ago when I dared let her faithful sycophants know how unethical she was when she was on the school board here and she had no business being education minister. Now she's the health minister and really has no qualifications for that, either.
My first account had over 20,000 posts and over 60k upvotes. My current one has over 20,000 posts and over 70k upvotes. So just at a wild guess, I'd say that some people agree with me there.
The closing of comments first became a thing for two types of stories: Ones about aboriginal/native/indigenous people (the preferred term has changed every few years), and the cow pies hit the air conditioning in 2015 when Justin Trudeau became PM and suddenly his mother (Margaret Trudeau) became a target for every disgusting POS who ever thought it was clever to mock people with mental health issues (she's bipolar, but at the time when she was making bad choices and acting out in public she was undiagnosed). Add to that the ones who thought it was clever to feminize him (calling him "Trudy" and "Justine/Justina"), and that really didn't help matters.
What has me steamed is that the stories about disability are usually closed to comments. Yes, that means the ableists can't comment. But neither can people like me, who can explain to people what it's like to face certain barriers that the "experts" never talk about.
It's also aggravating that we can't comment on Adriana LaGrange and the state of health care in Alberta. When they're "creating" new spaces using tarps and duct tape at the hospital in my city, and sending elderly people who need long-term care to motels with no trained medical help and LaGrange shrugs and says it's not her responsibility and we're not allowed to comment on that... it doesn't actually solve anything. It just creates more anger. It's been years since I last hated local politicians more than I loathe her and the current premier.
Someone on FB earlier tonight mentioned that there's not much to comment on about science, but of course CBC has kept the astrology page. I wonder how they're going to cover the eclipse next month.
But what's really, profoundly aggravating about CBC comments now is that we can't even READ them after 9:30 pm on weekdays. They're blocked after that, and on weekends and stat holidays. The excuse is that it's "too hard to moderate them" during those times.
Well, I'm no 200-IQ person, but I am wondering why articles that are CLOSED for commenting would need "moderating" if all people want to do is READ the comments. All this has resulted in for me is that I'm far less likely to even read the article, let alone any comments.
The people who keep blathering about "defunding" the CBC are people who prefer right-wing rags like Western Standard or the Sun newspapers. Of course you're right to point out that they don't like not having space to rant and namecall and the rest of it. That's par for the course for them anyway, whether it's YT or FB.
There was a time when CBC was part of what held Canada together, keeping everyone in touch with the news and preventing "whistle-stop politics" in which a politician could play to an audience in one city or province and say the opposite in another and be believed in both places. That's not to say it hasn't been tried in recent times, of course. Both Harper and Trudeau (Justin) appear to have forgotten that there are people outside of Quebec who understand French, and so they got busted for saying one thing in Quebec and the opposite in English Canada.
www.forbes.com
