
The place on the web where comments don't suck - sebgeelen
http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/8/5982039/theres-a-place-on-the-web-where-the-comments-dont-suck
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blisterpeanuts
Soundcloud comments seem more like Twitter-style one-liners than an actual
discussion with replies etc. I actually find some of the youtube comments
amusing; for example, the comments following the Russian dash cam videos and
other such weird-but-true slices of life.

Internet communities are a work in progress. Reader comment/talkback/forum
plugins are considered a necessity, and yet much of their content is pointless
and trivial.

Hacker News does a pretty good job, for some reason, maybe mostly because of
the ferocious moderation of anyone who strays from factual and reasonable
sorts of statements into ad hominem or pointless sorts of space wasting.

But most sites are terrible. I guess the only solution is heavy moderation and
a core of reasonable folks.

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JamesBaxter
I would pay for a a news / discussion service that let me go to the post
office and show my driver’s license before I could join. (the payment could
also be used to pay for writers and content creation)

That way the people who want to hide behind anonymous accounts can keep doing
what they’re best at and I can enjoy discussion and news in a community that
understands responsibility.

It might slowly educate people and whilst it’s a shame to have to pay for a
respecting community, the systems required to maintain it and the content it
would provide are not free.

I quite like having my real name as my account name. Maybe I’ll look back and
regret what I’ve said, but I’d like to think I won’t.

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sebgeelen
Why is it so difficult to build a community on the web where people stay
reasonable in their comment ?

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a3n
Maybe people aren't reasonable.

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sebgeelen
It's probable, but in real life people, most of them at least, stay
reasonable. Why is it so different on the Internet? Is it only because of the
social rules that we are gentle IRL?

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a3n
Maybe it's because it's not face to face. Think of how awful people are in
traffic, and many of those same people would never say or act that way in a
movie line or a meeting.

