5 ms·

I think it's especially hard on HN due to the nature of the site. Since HN is a site dedicated to discussion, it becomes important to ensure that open conversat

I think it's especially hard on HN due to the nature of the site. Since HN is a site dedicated to discussion, it becomes important to ensure that open conversations are happening. Strong opinions shouldn't be banned just because they get a little hostile, and weak opinions shouldn't be banned just because they're a little fluffy. There's such a huge gray area that it's an impossibly difficult problem. Contrast this with Engadget, who can enforce discussion that aligns with whatever site policies they choose to adapt. Or you can take this even further, like on my blog, where openness means nothing and I can just delete anything that's not a question or an anecdote that adds to what I've written. In an open discussion forum, your biggest problem will be always be open discussion.

jodrellblank 17y ago
I wish more blogs would take your view. People go to all the trouble of writing articles carefully, putting them on a dedicated domain with a nice design or template, and then I scroll down and there are: "nice article I wrote one like it at http://buyviagra-cheap.example.org http://buyviagra-cheap.example.org and "HOW TO INSTALL THIS???!!!!!?!!! IT DOES NOT WORK!??" Invite readers in, tempt them with an interesting article and then leave them in some internet shady backstreet area. It doesn't need free speech, delete the tripe, edit the rest mercilessly (but note that they have been 'edited').
- RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
  > It doesn't need free speech, delete the tripe, > edit the rest mercilessly (but note that they > have been 'edited'). Can you suggest a way of doing that without don it all "by hand"? What you suggest is what I'd like to do, but it doesn't scale. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts as to a system like yours that does.
  - jmtulloss 17y ago
    My blog is very low traffic, so it's not that big of a deal, but using disqus allows me to go through and respond with "delete" in the body when I get a spammy message. Takes about 10 seconds and I can do it from my phone. Of course, I always end up missing some, so I tend to go through every few weeks and prune those that I missed. What we really need is gmail-esque spam filtering in disqus.
  - jodrellblank 17y ago
    I hadn't really considered that it should scale, anymore than you would ask how to write the articles themselves without doing it all by hand. Comments close after a period of time, so it shouldn't scale temporally, comments for a large site with lots of authors, well, they have lots of authors. If you want commentors to be able to suggest corrections indefinitely, then either a wiki is a more suitable medium, or an "email me" link. Depending on what you want to achieve - a communally edited document or a personal reply. As far as newspaper sites go, they go beyond 'comments'; hundreds of comments is in the realm of a forum and deserves some kind of moderators and so on. You want to publish to the world and have the world able to reply to you while you aren't paying attention? That's not going to work. If you want to publish to the world and have the world reply to each other, well that's what people have their own blogs for, surely; why would you want to host that indefinitely? And if you are going to have an abandoned corner of the internet where nobody 'in authority' checks what happens, then you need to rely on the passerby, hopefully give them some tools to step in and help, e.g. several downvotes over several days from different sources = autodelete. I doubt that's a solution; if you could automatically tell who to trust in the first place you wouldn't let the spammy comments be submitted.
  - tomjen2 17y ago
    It scales very well - but it scales by _humans_ rather than by programs. This doesn't mean you have to do it - you can get some cheap outsourcing these days.
  - Perceval 17y ago
    The xkcd IRC channel instituted the Robot 9000, which mute-bans anyone making an unoriginal comment. Obviously this does not prevent trolling, but it does reduce some of the more low-hanging fruit of retardation: http://blag.xkcd.com/2008/01/14/robot9000-and-xkcd-signal-attacking-noise-in-chat/ http://blag.xkcd.com/2008/01/14/robot9000-and-xkcd-signal-at... 4chan also implemented Robot 9000 on one of their boards: http://boards.4chan.org/r9k/ http://boards.4chan.org/r9k/
- prawn 17y ago
  Or leave off comments altogether (Kottke is an example of a successful blog without comments) and put other interesting entries in the article tail instead to keep people moving around the site.

jodrellblank 17y ago

I wish more blogs would take your view. People go to all the trouble of writing articles carefully, putting them on a dedicated domain with a nice design or template, and then I scroll down and there are: "nice article I wrote one like it at http://buyviagra-cheap.example.org http://buyviagra-cheap.example.org and "HOW TO INSTALL THIS???!!!!!?!!! IT DOES NOT WORK!??" Invite readers in, tempt them with an interesting article and then leave them in some internet shady backstreet area. It doesn't need free speech, delete the tripe, edit the rest mercilessly (but note that they have been 'edited').

RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
> It doesn't need free speech, delete the tripe, > edit the rest mercilessly (but note that they > have been 'edited'). Can you suggest a way of doing that without don it all "by hand"? What you suggest is what I'd like to do, but it doesn't scale. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts as to a system like yours that does.
- jmtulloss 17y ago
  My blog is very low traffic, so it's not that big of a deal, but using disqus allows me to go through and respond with "delete" in the body when I get a spammy message. Takes about 10 seconds and I can do it from my phone. Of course, I always end up missing some, so I tend to go through every few weeks and prune those that I missed. What we really need is gmail-esque spam filtering in disqus.
- jodrellblank 17y ago
  I hadn't really considered that it should scale, anymore than you would ask how to write the articles themselves without doing it all by hand. Comments close after a period of time, so it shouldn't scale temporally, comments for a large site with lots of authors, well, they have lots of authors. If you want commentors to be able to suggest corrections indefinitely, then either a wiki is a more suitable medium, or an "email me" link. Depending on what you want to achieve - a communally edited document or a personal reply. As far as newspaper sites go, they go beyond 'comments'; hundreds of comments is in the realm of a forum and deserves some kind of moderators and so on. You want to publish to the world and have the world able to reply to you while you aren't paying attention? That's not going to work. If you want to publish to the world and have the world reply to each other, well that's what people have their own blogs for, surely; why would you want to host that indefinitely? And if you are going to have an abandoned corner of the internet where nobody 'in authority' checks what happens, then you need to rely on the passerby, hopefully give them some tools to step in and help, e.g. several downvotes over several days from different sources = autodelete. I doubt that's a solution; if you could automatically tell who to trust in the first place you wouldn't let the spammy comments be submitted.
- tomjen2 17y ago
  It scales very well - but it scales by _humans_ rather than by programs. This doesn't mean you have to do it - you can get some cheap outsourcing these days.
- Perceval 17y ago
  The xkcd IRC channel instituted the Robot 9000, which mute-bans anyone making an unoriginal comment. Obviously this does not prevent trolling, but it does reduce some of the more low-hanging fruit of retardation: http://blag.xkcd.com/2008/01/14/robot9000-and-xkcd-signal-attacking-noise-in-chat/ http://blag.xkcd.com/2008/01/14/robot9000-and-xkcd-signal-at... 4chan also implemented Robot 9000 on one of their boards: http://boards.4chan.org/r9k/ http://boards.4chan.org/r9k/
prawn 17y ago
Or leave off comments altogether (Kottke is an example of a successful blog without comments) and put other interesting entries in the article tail instead to keep people moving around the site.