
Unbreaking comments on tiny sites and tech blogs - estenh
http://estenhurtle.com/blog/2012/3/24/unbreaking-comments-tiny-sites-and-tech-blogs/
======
mcav
In a small community where people collectively want to foster good discussion,
comments can succeed for a while. I think it's impossible to sustain that if
the community grows or if they lose their focus.

No community I've ever seen, apart from MetaFilter, has kept the noise level
low enough that participating in the community is enjoyable. Hacker News was
great a few years back, but it's painful to watch now. Same for every other
site I've known: As the community grows, discussions degrade, and people get
hostile.

People don't have a lot of insight. So when sites open up to comments, the
typical comment — which may be perfectly average for humanity — is trash.
People have agendas and biases. Most people don't see it, or don't care, so
they don't correct for them.

Commenting systems and algorithms can hold back the tide for a while. They can
force out people with a net negative impact on the community. But in the end,
attempting to sustain good discussion is a losing battle. It's so easy for
good discussions to turn bad, for intelligent arguments to become baseless,
for disagreements to become personal attacks. Humanity as a whole isn't
capable of rational, reasoned discussion at scale.

~~~
pagekalisedown
Do you think HN should charge like MetaFilter?

~~~
mcav
Yes. Or require someone to verify a github account with original work or
something.

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DanBC
Firstly make sure that some concept of respect, or politeness, is built in and
applies to every person making comments.

Encourage use of cites; some way of rewarding useful citations might be
interesting. (EG, this post is lousy and only gets two upvotes, but the
citation is great and gets ten.)

Ban out-right some topics; or have very narrow constraints around how they are
discussed. Some topics will instantly explode into heated bitter flamewars
with no possibility of sharing useful information and no chance of changing
people's opinions. They're toxic. Which is a shame, because they are usually
the things where people actually need more and better information, and where a
carefully arranged discussion could shed some light. Obvious examples of these
topics are Palestine/Israel[1], Abortion, Circumcision, etc. (Yes, I know you
posted two examples. I guess you have great users, long may that continue.)

Your idea about collectively owning a site is perhaps useful, but you'll be in
for a rough ride if you need to make changes that your users don't like.
Because you've made them co-owners now, and they have a say, and they are
entitled, and etc.

You do need to find a way to split deterrents for posts that "do not belong
here" and posts that "I disagree with". There's some suggestion that, on HN,
acceptable posts are being downvoted because they're unpopular.

In general, moderation is often awful. You need someone to kill the spam but
after that lots of stuff becomes subjective and thus open to arguments.

~~~
estenh
Interesting about ownership affecting how users perceive changes to the site
itself. You're 100% right on that, hadn't thought about it.

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werg
What I already told Esten on twitter: He outlines some aspects of a method to
keep the 'good contributors' engaged, even if the community grows, by
highlighting their contributions. What interests me is how to scale these good
comments without excessive moderation. And also, even on sites that have
moderation available over time there's again and again this boom-bust cycle,
where comments start out being really insightful when the community is small,
which attracts more people which brings down the quality of comments, making
people less interested in high quality commentary (and also the general
audience less interested in the comments at all).

I think limiting the number of contributors is interesting, but I wouldn't
limit the ability to reach a big audience per se. Precisely the possibility to
reach an audience entices high-quality comments. Possibly part of the real
challenge is actually to keep the non-commenting audience interested in the
comments.

So maybe it's about limiting the number of contributor-slots available in any
given situation, and then of course think of a non karma-whoric way of
assigning those slots... hmm :) Maybe even make it random, so anybody can get
one of those slots, so create a sense of urgency not to blow that chance.
Might work in some situations.

~~~
DanBC
Moderation is just a target for trolls. Meta-moderation-threads can generate
huge angry threads of hate. Meta is death, but meta-moderation is evil slow
death.

Highlighting comments from established contributors is a problem if some of
them are dicks, or some of them occasionally make awful comments. You also
have a problem with "vested contributors" - 'I broke the rules, but I've been
here so long and do so much good that it's okay because you know that really
I'm alright' whereas the newbie just gets banned.

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angry-hacker
Completely off topic, but the site you mention in the post (storitell.com) -
its font rendering is horrible, it almost impossible to read anything.
(Windows 7, Chrome)

~~~
estenh
Hmmm, interesting. Looks great on my Windows/Chrome setup. Mind emailing me a
screenshot at esten.hurtle@gmail.com? Thanks so much!

