21 min
Why Comments Suck The Social Media Clarity Podcast
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- Technology
Why Comments Suck - Episode 26 Scott and Randy tear into the history and problems of comments on "news" sites, and identify the most overlooked problem. They then talk about current and future solutions (well, other than just giving up an shutting down.)
Show Notes Links Popular Science -"Why We're Shutting Off Our Comments" -Sept 23, 2013
Shadow of the future: "The shadow of the future promotes cooperation in a repeated prisoner's dilemma for children"
Original paper: Bargaining, Enforcement, and International Cooperation by James D. Fearon
How others are addressing comment quality Shutting down onsite comments: a comprehensive list of all news organisations
How the Huffington Post handles 70+ million comments a year
We discussed the history of HuffPo comments with Justin Isaf in Jan 2015
Tablet Magazine:
A Jewish magazine is testing an unusual solution for toxic internet comments After deciding to charge for comments, Tablet's conversation moves to Facebook Improvements along the roads! Civil Comments: Reforming the Trollosphere: Creating Conversation in the Comments Section
The Coral Project:
"We need to change how people are submitting their content and we need to make sure that we're giving them good reasons to behave well." The Coral Project unveils its first product to make comments better New York Times: Quora: How does the NYT determine which articles have comments?
Model & Enforce the context New York Times: A Community Manager Walks Into A Bar:My AMA with Bassey Etim, Community Desk Editor at The New York Times The Engaging News Project:
Journalist Involvement in Comment Sections Comments Are Terrible (But They Don't Have To Be) - SXSW PanelPicker submission for The Coral Project and the Engaging News Project. Additional links Hey reporters: An alternative to #DontReadtheComments: Jump in
Case Study: Yahoo! Answers Community Content Moderation from Building Web Repuation Systems
The Washington Post is using Slack to create a reader community focused on the gender pay gap
Transcript Scott: Hi listeners, in this episode we ask why do comments on sites suck so much, and what can we do about it?
Randy: They're sucking because they lack context, and we'll tell you what that means.
Scott: Now, this isn't a new problem, and many are trying to address it. We'll share their approaches ...
Randy: ... And give our recommendations based on our personal experiences.
Welcome to the Social Media Clarity podcast, 15 minutes of concentrated analysis and advice about social media and platform and product design.
Scott: I'm Scott Moore.
Randy: I'm Randy Farmer.
Scott: We're discussing the problem with comment sections. You may have heard that a number of news sites have been shutting down comment sections in the last couple of years, or generally complaining about the poor quality of comments they receive on their articles, and we think that there's a real simple problem here, and it's the model in that people are presented with just a blank text box with no context about what to say or how to behave.
Randy: Part of that is because we don't know who the audience is. It's not clear from a plain text box who you have in mind when you're writing a comment, and what you're actually writing about. Are you writing to the publisher of the article? The reader? The commenter? The author? It's not at all clear, and I don't think the publishers were even sure. I think they assumed that the post, the content it self, would be a sufficient context for commenting, if they thought about context at all. One way I like to put it is, there's no "to:", expressed or implied, when a visitor creates their own context. Is it to the author? The publisher? The topic? Or a reply to another commenter? There is one context that I like to refer to all the time, which is when you post a public content, it's actually to God, Google and everyone.
Scott: This creates an attractive nuisance. The vicious
Why Comments Suck - Episode 26 Scott and Randy tear into the history and problems of comments on "news" sites, and identify the most overlooked problem. They then talk about current and future solutions (well, other than just giving up an shutting down.)
Show Notes Links Popular Science -"Why We're Shutting Off Our Comments" -Sept 23, 2013
Shadow of the future: "The shadow of the future promotes cooperation in a repeated prisoner's dilemma for children"
Original paper: Bargaining, Enforcement, and International Cooperation by James D. Fearon
How others are addressing comment quality Shutting down onsite comments: a comprehensive list of all news organisations
How the Huffington Post handles 70+ million comments a year
We discussed the history of HuffPo comments with Justin Isaf in Jan 2015
Tablet Magazine:
A Jewish magazine is testing an unusual solution for toxic internet comments After deciding to charge for comments, Tablet's conversation moves to Facebook Improvements along the roads! Civil Comments: Reforming the Trollosphere: Creating Conversation in the Comments Section
The Coral Project:
"We need to change how people are submitting their content and we need to make sure that we're giving them good reasons to behave well." The Coral Project unveils its first product to make comments better New York Times: Quora: How does the NYT determine which articles have comments?
Model & Enforce the context New York Times: A Community Manager Walks Into A Bar:My AMA with Bassey Etim, Community Desk Editor at The New York Times The Engaging News Project:
Journalist Involvement in Comment Sections Comments Are Terrible (But They Don't Have To Be) - SXSW PanelPicker submission for The Coral Project and the Engaging News Project. Additional links Hey reporters: An alternative to #DontReadtheComments: Jump in
Case Study: Yahoo! Answers Community Content Moderation from Building Web Repuation Systems
The Washington Post is using Slack to create a reader community focused on the gender pay gap
Transcript Scott: Hi listeners, in this episode we ask why do comments on sites suck so much, and what can we do about it?
Randy: They're sucking because they lack context, and we'll tell you what that means.
Scott: Now, this isn't a new problem, and many are trying to address it. We'll share their approaches ...
Randy: ... And give our recommendations based on our personal experiences.
Welcome to the Social Media Clarity podcast, 15 minutes of concentrated analysis and advice about social media and platform and product design.
Scott: I'm Scott Moore.
Randy: I'm Randy Farmer.
Scott: We're discussing the problem with comment sections. You may have heard that a number of news sites have been shutting down comment sections in the last couple of years, or generally complaining about the poor quality of comments they receive on their articles, and we think that there's a real simple problem here, and it's the model in that people are presented with just a blank text box with no context about what to say or how to behave.
Randy: Part of that is because we don't know who the audience is. It's not clear from a plain text box who you have in mind when you're writing a comment, and what you're actually writing about. Are you writing to the publisher of the article? The reader? The commenter? The author? It's not at all clear, and I don't think the publishers were even sure. I think they assumed that the post, the content it self, would be a sufficient context for commenting, if they thought about context at all. One way I like to put it is, there's no "to:", expressed or implied, when a visitor creates their own context. Is it to the author? The publisher? The topic? Or a reply to another commenter? There is one context that I like to refer to all the time, which is when you post a public content, it's actually to God, Google and everyone.
Scott: This creates an attractive nuisance. The vicious
21 min