14 ms·

I've got to say that I think as far as online news reporting goes, the major weakness right now is forums and comments. If there were a better way to collate A

by Volscio 16y ago

I've got to say that I think as far as online news reporting goes, the major weakness right now is forums and comments. If there were a better way to collate ALL the comments on a specific incident or even on a general topic, and then filter them out according to anecdotal relevancy, it would add so much more to the ability for people to find out what's actually going on. So, for example, for the Arizona immigration story, I bet there are comments on a bunch of news sites and personal blogs that give fascinating anecdotes about run-ins with the Maricopa County Sheriffs, or about seeing illegal immigrants passing through some rancher's property, or about some local leader's opinion on the new bill. But one comment may be on Huff Post, one might be on some small regional news site, another might be on someone's personal blog. Those comments get buried and no one will ever find them.

Volscio 16y ago
Oh, also, anything that gets FAR more people to comment with their own stories would be better. For any given event, all those spectators could have something interesting to add, but few people are trained/interested in being sensors or reporters. Most lurk.
- pbiggar 16y ago
  We (NewsTilt) are actively encouraging all the journalists to comment on their own stories. If you ask them a question, they'll give you an answer. Try it - http://newstilt.com http://newstilt.com
blehn 16y ago
The problem with aggregating comments is that it degrades the quality of discussion, and therefore, the community. There's no depth, no flow. Backtype does the aggregation thing, but I find it just looks like noise. Maybe there's a better way, but I've yet to see something better than the type of 5-10 level deep conversations that happen on reddit/HN.
- Volscio 16y ago
  I agree with you. But maybe the aggregation isn't for more conversation (people like to do that within their trusted communities), but to enable better filtering. That is, you could have a rough total count of interest in a topic. Then you could label comments different things like "funny", "anecdote", "primary source", "trolling", etc. So if I just want to read the funniest comments, I could. If I wanted to get more context from on the ground, I could select "primary source" or whatever. Not sure why this isn't done already...I'm sure enough random commenters would categorize comments on their own to make it useful.

by Volscio 16y ago

Volscio 16y ago

Oh, also, anything that gets FAR more people to comment with their own stories would be better. For any given event, all those spectators could have something interesting to add, but few people are trained/interested in being sensors or reporters. Most lurk.

pbiggar 16y ago
We (NewsTilt) are actively encouraging all the journalists to comment on their own stories. If you ask them a question, they'll give you an answer. Try it - http://newstilt.com http://newstilt.com

blehn 16y ago

The problem with aggregating comments is that it degrades the quality of discussion, and therefore, the community. There's no depth, no flow. Backtype does the aggregation thing, but I find it just looks like noise. Maybe there's a better way, but I've yet to see something better than the type of 5-10 level deep conversations that happen on reddit/HN.

Volscio 16y ago
I agree with you. But maybe the aggregation isn't for more conversation (people like to do that within their trusted communities), but to enable better filtering. That is, you could have a rough total count of interest in a topic. Then you could label comments different things like "funny", "anecdote", "primary source", "trolling", etc. So if I just want to read the funniest comments, I could. If I wanted to get more context from on the ground, I could select "primary source" or whatever. Not sure why this isn't done already...I'm sure enough random commenters would categorize comments on their own to make it useful.