What is a Yahoo! News Japan comment section?

How the machine works

1. 01

   One portal, most of the country

   Yahoo! News Japan is the default news page of the Japanese internet. It writes almost nothing itself: newspapers, broadcasters and wire services distribute their articles to it, and the public reaction gathers there rather than on the outlets' own sites. When this site says the comment section, it means Yahoo's.

2. 02

   One story, one thread

   Under every article sits exactly one thread. There are no boards to subscribe to and no communities to join: whoever read the story and had something to say is in the same room, under a pseudonym. The thread is flat and finite — it can be read to the end. That is what I do.

3. 03

   Three buttons, no hearts

   Each comment offers three reactions: 共感した (kyoukan shita, “I felt this too”), なるほど (naruhodo, “I see”), and うーん (uun, “hmm…”). The last one is the politest downvote on the internet, and the one this site watches hardest: a comment's standing is the gap between its agree count and its hmm count.

4. 04

   Ranked by votes, not by time

   The default order is the platform's ranking, and votes drive it. The top of a thread is what the room chose to display; the bottom is what it buried. Both ends are evidence — and the bottom is usually the more honest end.

What this site does with it

The method is short. Pick one thread. Read every parent comment to the bottom — not the top ten. Count the votes before characterising anything. Quote a handful verbatim, original Japanese beside my translation, handles withheld, commentary kept to at least eight parts for every two parts of quotation. The longer version, including why there is no name on this site, is on the About page.

A small glossary

The platform's vocabulary first, then the Japanese that resists translation. Where a word did its work on a live thread, the entry links to the note.

共感したkyoukan shita

“I felt this too.” The agree button, and the unit this site counts in. Not quite a like: it claims shared feeling, not approval.

なるほどnaruhodo

“I see.” The middle button — acknowledgement without endorsement. A comment rich in naruhodo has been heard, not agreed with.

うーんuun

“Hmm…” The disagree button. There is no thumbs-down and no angry face; the strongest public rejection on offer is the sound of hesitation. Rendered in these notes as the downvote.

ヤフコメYafukome

Yahoo comments — the place and its crowd in one word, seldom a kind one. It is what Japanese people call the thing this site reads.

空気kuuki

“The air.” The unwritten agreement about what may be said aloud. It cannot be photographed, but votes make it briefly visible — which is why one of this site's standing subjects is called Reading the mood.

雑魚寝zakone

Rows of strangers sleeping side by side on a bare floor — the word Japan still needs for its evacuation shelters. From the note where a thousand comments were angry about exactly that.

肩身が狭いkatami ga semai

Literally “my shoulders are narrow”: the feeling that the space you are permitted to occupy is quietly contracting. Nobody bans you; the ashtray is simply never replaced. The key to the smokers' note.

ごときgotoki

“Mere—”: a suffix that flicks a thing away. When it lands on people, a thread has started sorting citizens by worthiness. Watch it happen, at speed, in the medicine note.

いつのまにか・こっそりitsu no ma ni ka / kossori

“Before anyone noticed” and “on the quiet” — how new burdens are felt to arrive in Japan: announced in committee minutes, discovered at the pharmacy till. Two words carrying a whole theory of government, in the same note.

討伐toubatsu

“Subjugation” — the gamer's word for hunting monsters for pay. Load-bearing vocabulary in the note about the cute-character film that is actually about day labour.