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Have Online Comment Sections Become Specious?
christoofar writes "Gawker founder Nick Denton says online comments have proven themselves to be not worth the trouble, a waste of resources, and contribute nothing to online conversation or even capture the intelligence of readers. From the article: 'In the early days of the Internet, there was hope that the unprecedented tool for global communication would lead to thoughtful sharing and discussion on its most popular sites. A decade and a half later, the very idea is laughable, says [Denton]. "It didn't happen," said Denton, whose properties include the blogs Gawker, Jezebel, Gizmodo, io9 and Lifehacker. "It's a promise that has so not happened that people don't even have that ambition anymore. The idea of capturing the intelligence of the readership — that's a joke."'"
I think discussion sections work great in the small and medium scale special interest category. A number of smaller blogs I frequent, the comment section/side forum becomes a good area for discussion... and often times particularly good bits end up edited into the original post.
I certainly think they work much better in small niche interest groups than on general news sites. When you have a small group of generally like minded people with a certain amount of pre-existing knowledge in the topic .. you get a good discussion. When you get the diverse public with dissimilar views and often a very surface understanding of the topic.. you get the type of shit we see on this guy’s collection of sites and on youtube and so on.
I think at least part of the problem is that most comment sections are poorly designed and provide little ability for actual discussion. Many don’t have threaded replies, a simple feature that makes any comment section _way_ more useful in my opinion. You can’t really have much of a discussion if replies can’t easily be tied to each.
Also sorting by most recent (descending) in conjunction with threaded comments (threads which have had a comment recently get bumped up) I think works well to keep people talking. Again, can’t have a discussion if you can’t even find the current discussion(s).
On larger sites, I think the best approach is to have a forum on the side with topics linked to the post. This eliminated a lot of crap as there is slightly more effort in posting to a forum than posting to a comment section. Forum software is also generally much better equipped for real discussion than most comment systems.
Just look below this post..
The idea of capturing the intelligence of the readership was correct! The only problem was the intelligence of the readership...
Comments mentioning moderation usually get modded down (oh no I'm speaking about moderation!)
It's the "information superhighway" and, just like a physical superhighway, everything is impersonal. Somebody cuts you off and drives slow in front of you and you mutter an oath under your breath. Because you don't see a mother and her newborn, you see a big hunk of metal. There is no community on the pavement of the interstates, it's basically every person for themselves. On the highway, discourse is one-way and usually pretty foul. If they had budged in front of you in the supermarket, you might say "pardon me but I'm in line" or just let it go and imagine her life to be a lot more hectic with a newborn. I surmise that bumper stickers are an actual attempt to let someone know you belong to their community -- although with my luck it's always some conservative with a Ken Cuccinelli bumper sticker reminding me of how much I absolutely loathe living in The South (but I digress).
... er ... politician. Discourse doesn't happen without community. Community is protected by moderation (usually which affects visibility). And communities seem to thrive or have a feedback effect when discourse is strong, respectful and healthy. Gawker, Jezebel, Gizmodo, io9 and Lifehacker have none of the above -- and if they have moderation it is heavy handed deletionary censorship. So all they get is drive-by shootings or white panel vans with painted over windows offering free candy.
Similarly, sites without a community are going to have absolute crap for comments. These aren't people trying to establish a reputation in a community. They don't want to help people or take time to share their views and vision. They have something to say -- could be negative or positive -- and they will say it with little disregard for others. It will be curt, it will be one sided and it will most likely be harsh. Communities are as rare on the "information superhighway" as they are on the real highways of America. Very few parts of the country have people willing to let you in and rarely you might feel an affinity with another person driving your preferred make or model of car or displaying your bumper sticker for your preferred asshole
Side note: if you've read this far, you've already exhibited a mild disposition towards a community as I don't think this post (in its entirety) would be read by anyone on the aforementioned sites. If those sites don't establish anything they are doomed to have specious comments.
My work here is dung.
You forgot Google. Burn in hell you heretic!
PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
Denton's opinion tell us a lot about the kind of web site he visits. The internet is a heterogenous place, and this is reflected in the quality of comments posted to various online forums, just like it is in the quality of the content posted by web site editors (CNN.com is throwing stones in glass houses posting an article like this). Look at a web site like Lambda The Ultimate. The quality of posts there is often on par with peer-reviewed journal articles. The Haskell subreddit also often has incredibly valuable discussions, all provided for free by the readers themselves.
....film at 11.
You're good. Comments mentioning comments that mention moderation are generally safe.
Nick Denton is an idiot. He runs Gawker Media, which is itself a joke of a syndication network. He hires wannabe journalists and gives them bags of cash to bribe industry insiders into leaking stories so he can put them on his blogs. Of course the comments sections on Gawker Media sites are stupid. He also dismisses the politically charged and logically sound comments on Jezebel, which I wouldn't call the epitome of intelligent discourse on the internet, but it's definitely heads and shoulders above anything else hosted by Gawker.
Look at the comments on this Ars Technica piece: all topical and useful. Look at this comment thread (particularly this one! one of the most helpful comments I've ever read) about someone learning how to program in Perl.
In TFA, Denton says:
What a prick. Of course he doesn't believe in the democratic power of anything, because he's authoritarian, narrow-minded, grossly incompetent as a "journalist"—and deplorable as an editor, too—and all Gawker media sites (I'd entertain a counterargument defending Jezebel) operate on one rule: feed the trolls. Not all the examples of good comments I gave above have user-moderation systems in place, but the ones that don't just have good content that attracts good readers. Nick wouldn't know anything about that.
Cole's Axiom sums it up. The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the population is growing.
Maybe Gawker, et al, need to come to grips with the terrifying possibility that online comments absolutely do capture the intelligence of the readership.
The ignorant are often more outspoken than the intelligent.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
A comment forum commenting on comments about comments.
So wait, they interviewed a guy from Gawker/Gizmodo as evidence? Their fucking articles are complete shit in the first place, let alone their comments section. That's like citing Fox News as evidence that all TV is terrible and does not work as a communication method.
Comments on blogs and news articles (and youtube videos of course) are almost entirely worthless. Almost no one puts thought into their comments, even when it's attached to a well-thought out article. They don't "capture the intelligence of readers", rather they capture the unintelligence. Another example is twitter. Choose a trending topic, read some of the tweets, and weep for humanity.
On the other hand, forums can be extremely valuable. I'd class Slashdot into that category, even though technically these are still comments on news articles. Forums can be excellent at capturing the intelligence, wisdom or experience of its members. Some examples that come to mind are Whirlpool or XDA-Dev. Of course you still get ill-thought out nonsense, but the format encourages continued participation in the discussion, rather than blogs where people write some bullshit and then move on to the next story.
"A week in the lab saves an hour in the library"
The only thing that keeps me going to my local newspaper's site is the anonymous comment section. While there are some crazy and trolling comments, the anonymous nature of the system leads people to post more provocative points of view (and possibly even more honest opinions, but in any case, many opposing viewpoints are posted and discussed). Sure, there are sometimes personal attacks, but overall it's interesting to read opinions from other local people. There's a minimal moderating system where abusive comments can be reported (and sometimes that system itself is abused by people that want to get rid of opposing viewpoints), as well as a thumbs-up/thumbs-down system.
When another semi-local paper switched to a non-anonymous facebook commenting system, the usefulness of the comments went way down. (as did some of the more extreme views, but I don't mind reading those extreme views, or even wading through a number of useless "first post!" comments if it means getting more interesting comments).
You speak French!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
I'm quite sure Nick Denton doesn't like user comments. Gawker doesn't like opinions that they weren't paid to show on their site. And they REALLY hate it when you tell them their site redesign was awful, or that time-sloting Kotaku was a moronic idea. And they have just about the worst commenting system out there.
All bitching about Gawker sites aside, their comment system was truly abysmal. Anyone can comment, but if you don't create an account your comment goes into a deep hole for potential approval by an unknown entity on the 5th of Never. Then if you make an account, your comment will show but it won't show by default unless it's been "featured" by having a starred member promote it at whim or reply to it. And if you're VERY lucky and catch an author on a good day and agree completely with him, you might even get elevated to a star of your own. And then you get some kind of moderation power, assuming you don't get it removed for not kissing Gawker's ass enough. And before you say it, yes I have a star and no it hasn't been removed (at least until an editor reads this, I suppose).
There is no system for obtaining or losing a star that I can tell aside from author/editor whim. There are no obvious rules for promoting comments. There are no guidelines given if you get a star. The community guidelines are open to potentially abusive interpretation that doesn't always reflect the clear intent. The entire thing is a mystery box that panders to Gawker and censors anything they don't like.
The system here at /. is much more orderly, I can eliminate all the chum comments just by browsing at +1 or +2. And moderation is clearly defined and passed around in time to everyone who joins the club. We have freedom to post, clear self-policing, and even reward consistent quality. Plus, you get similar article quality and policing of content (with its own slant, but then that's what communities are all about).
I do think Reddit has probably the most pure and free-form overall model for generating, filtering, and promoting user-generated content, but the quality mileage does vary and there's practically no fact-checking. Something like a "front page" with editor-approved threads might help the mainstream web surfers more easily accept it.
I just wish I didn't find Gizmodo/Kotaku articles as entertaining as I do. They do bring me bite-sized news with entertaining content and more often than not are teh funny. I can't stand Nick Denton though - he's a greedy shithead whoring out the integrity of his editors/writers with every ad-article, bad design, and site-wrapper he shoves down their throats.
"Not all who wander are lost" -- JRR Tolkien
I agree that's part of the problem. Take the fact that he's the guy who founded Gawker. So you post a story on Gawker about how Jon Hamm Hates Kim Kardashian, and you wonder, "Why am I not getting the most elite brilliant comments in response?" Even sites like CNN are full of trash. How can you be surprised that your comments are ignorant flamebait with no dignity when they're in response to stories that are ignorant flamebait with no dignity?
But also, honestly, if there were an interesting story on CNN, I wouldn't want to bother commenting on it on CNN. I'd wait until it got posted someplace like Slashdot, and then I'd comment there. It's a better audience for my comments, and there's a better moderation system.
But there's more to it than just that-- Slashdot is *where I have my discussions*. If I post on a million different web sites, I can't keep track of who I'm talking to and who has responded to my comment. Even if the people on cnn.com were great and their discussion system was great, I wouldn't really want to post comments on Gawker *and* CNN *and* MSNBC *and* wherever else an interesting story pops up. I'd rather wait until the story shows up on an aggregation service I'm used to, and then comment there. The consistency of having one site (or a couple) to engage in discussions is part of what makes it work.
So essentially, I agree that comments may be a waste of time on Gawker and CNN. It's better to assume that there will be news aggregation and discussion sites (like Slashdot) and people can go there for discussion.