11 ms·

In the earlier days of blogging (circa mid-2000s, I think?) bloggers and article writers were encouraged to have comment sections as a mechanism to "engage" wit

In the earlier days of blogging (circa mid-2000s, I think?) bloggers and article writers were encouraged to have comment sections as a mechanism to "engage" with their audience. Social Media and blogging experts like Chris Brogan urged people to actively participate with commenters to build a community around their work (and he used to be very critical of Seth Godin for not having comments on his site). But that was before Twitter, Facebook, and a bevy of other platforms with which you can actively converse with your audience. At this point, I really question the value of comments on articles. On sites that are really primarily unidirectional information sources (like old media news sites that are now online), what purpose do they serve? We used to have "Letters to the Editor," which were few, curated, and sufficient. Do we really need comments on every article?

incogitomode 10y ago
I agree entirely. I've found comments below the story to generally seem outmoded and often jarringly tacked-on. Outsourcing to other communities seems great, but I could imagine NPR doing well with a Boing Boing BBS / Discourse model and effectively offering their own community board (subreddit, if you will) auto-threaded with their content. Then as somebody potentially having a serious thought in a comment you don't feel ghettoized to the bottom of the page, speaking to who, the author? Rarely does the threading in on-page comments give great visual direction to feel like you can engage other commenters or the author you are responding to in any manner other than "broadcasting" (or maybe a better word is screaming).
welanes 10y ago
> what purpose do they serve? You tell me, we're doing it right now, albeit by proxy. A return to a read-only web outside of Twitter and Facebook would make articles less insightful, sites less accountable and the web a little more boring. For example, I have saved dozens of comments from The FT and The Economist which added brilliant addendums as well as counter-points to the article topic. It would be dull without these mini-communities below the line. Sure, some comments are toxic - it's a reflection of society and a consequence of everybody having access to the web. How about a 'show comments' button like some websites have? Make them opt-in.

incogitomode 10y ago

I agree entirely. I've found comments below the story to generally seem outmoded and often jarringly tacked-on. Outsourcing to other communities seems great, but I could imagine NPR doing well with a Boing Boing BBS / Discourse model and effectively offering their own community board (subreddit, if you will) auto-threaded with their content. Then as somebody potentially having a serious thought in a comment you don't feel ghettoized to the bottom of the page, speaking to who, the author? Rarely does the threading in on-page comments give great visual direction to feel like you can engage other commenters or the author you are responding to in any manner other than "broadcasting" (or maybe a better word is screaming).

welanes 10y ago

> what purpose do they serve? You tell me, we're doing it right now, albeit by proxy. A return to a read-only web outside of Twitter and Facebook would make articles less insightful, sites less accountable and the web a little more boring. For example, I have saved dozens of comments from The FT and The Economist which added brilliant addendums as well as counter-points to the article topic. It would be dull without these mini-communities below the line. Sure, some comments are toxic - it's a reflection of society and a consequence of everybody having access to the web. How about a 'show comments' button like some websites have? Make them opt-in.