17 ms·

Getting Rid of Comments on Vice.com

138 points by artek 10y ago

Fr0ntBack 10y ago
I think if you're getting mostly garbage comments, it should give you pause for thought. Yes, the format of the internet doesn't encourage thoughtful, polite comments. But equally there might be a problem with what you're writing if you're attracting trolls. This is certainly true of Vice.
- astrodust 10y ago
  Vice doesn't shy away from taking a position that might be controversial or even extreme. A lot of their content borders on editorial which is fine if that's what you're looking for, but it's also full of fodder for those who want to argue about things. Honestly the comment on most news sites are absolutely atrocious and there'd be little lost if they were shut off completely.
  - duaneb 10y ago
    The comments on the New York Times seem to be high quality.
    - knieveltech 10y ago
      A strong indicator of intense moderator activity.
    - djtriptych 10y ago
      They employ people to moderate comments and select high-quality contributions. Not cheap.
    - danso 10y ago
      They also expend significant resources in moderating it: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/09/20/insider/approve-or-reject-moderation-quiz.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/09/20/insider/approv... (a comically high amount of resources, IMHO; a good part of what their human editors do could be triaged through automated systems)
      - sammermpc 10y ago
        FWIW, a move towards automated assistance is what motivated that article in the first place: "The New York Times is partnering with Google Jigsaw to create a new moderation system that will help us review incoming comments based on decisions our moderators have made in the past. Our moderators will continue to protect these discussions, but once this new system is launched, we will have robot helpers." I helped work on the interactive piece (though not the assisted comment moderation that they're rolling out).
      - monksy 10y ago
        I took that quiz. They have some terrible opinions on what should and shouldn't be deleted. They supported side tracking of the conversation, injection of baiting morals (for a comment on gay marriage they said they'd allow someone to preach about their religious views on gay behavior and marriage). You can have r/the_donald supporters, "Not my President", and apathetic individuals in the same place... but only if you have strong rules to keep the peace.
        MaxfordAndSons 10y ago
        > a comment on gay marriage they said they'd allow someone to preach about their religious views on gay behavior and marriage Unfortunately in that regard they're only following the same standards of acceptable arguments that hold in public spaces in the US.
    - stuart78 10y ago
      I think that is in part because they are highly moderated, both by their internal team and user votes. Such moderation is costly, but I tend to think it is worth it for the good of the community. http://www.nytimes.com/content/help/site/usercontent/usercontent.html http://www.nytimes.com/content/help/site/usercontent/usercon...
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - vinhboy 10y ago
      The NYT is the ONLY high quality comment "left" on the internet. It's sad that we are letting extremists mute comment sections.
  - newswriter99 10y ago
    Vice does nothing BUT write editorials and tries to pawn them off as objective journalism. Hence, trolling.
- djtriptych 10y ago
  Trolls are attracted to attention. Every popular site has this issue.
- zzalpha 10y ago
  But equally there might be a problem with what you're writing if you're attracting trolls. I very much disagree with that. Let's just take the CBC as an example. It's an excellent news organization that writes top notch journalism. And for any topic even remotely controversial (e.g., anything related to the indigenous population in Canada), they've had to disable the comment section because it's such a godawful cesspool.
  - matart 10y ago
    CBC comments show you how horrible some people can be. It makes me think that we leave discussion to the discussions sites. Reddit, HN, etc. and just let the news tell the news.
    - stan_rogers 10y ago
      I've used the "block element" feature of uBlock Origin to completely remove the comments from CBC.ca. Frankly, the possibility that I may miss the one insightful comment posted every twenty thousand or so (before it's pushed into "show more" territory) doesn't seem like much of a loss.
  - newswriter99 10y ago
    Vice is nowhere remotely close to journalistic professionalism. I'd argue they bait trolls.
    - sbarre 10y ago
      Are you thinking of Vice from 15 years ago when it was just a magazine? Things have changed, you should look at what kind of reporting they are actually doing these days, it might surprise you (in a good way).
      - weberc2 10y ago
        I still see lots of partisan clickbait articles from Vice. Hopefully my sample isn't representative, but I doubt it's an anomaly.
- danso 10y ago
  I think that assertion looks good on paper but isn't fair in practice. Other than communities that have significant friction to get in -- e.g. $5 for a Metafilter membership -- comments are going to fall prey to the dynamic that afflicts online reviews: people who are pissed are often more motivated to make it known, compared to those who are merely satisfied [0]. Whatever one might think of Vice overall, the model is that good journalism in general pisses people off. This attracts not only substantive critical comments, but trolls who want to deface the article. It takes real effort through moderation to create a constructive community, as I'm sure the folks who run HN can strongly attest to. [0] https://www.quora.com/Is-there-negative-bias-in-online-reviews https://www.quora.com/Is-there-negative-bias-in-online-revie...
  - DashRattlesnake 10y ago
    Metafilter also has pretty significant manual moderation. It's not uncommon to see moderator comments telling users to stop talking about some aspect of a post or tell someone who's going against the grain to pipe down. There is also a significant number of comment deletions, many of which are polite but have the potential to annoy privileged users. The end result is a sort of artificial consensus, which has been quite controversial and caused many long time users to leave. Basically, the comment culture is the result of a lot more than just a $5 cover, and it might not be the success a lot of people think it is.
    - brennen 10y ago
      > The end result is a sort of artificial consensus, which has been quite controversial and caused many long time users to leave. As a long-time user of the site and an occasional commenter (I seem to be sitting at around 1500 comments after 8 years of having an account, which marks me as a bit of a noob), this feels to me like a true but perhaps misleading statement. MetaFilter demonstrates that intensive, situationally attuned, full-time moderation can be very effective at maintaining a functional community. It also demonstrates that this process can (and almost certainly will) create its own style of drama and discord. Whatever else it is, MetaFilter commenting is a game system with rich, subtle, and frequently unsettling dynamics. It's somewhat driven by what I think of as a correctness ratchet, where locally established positions and norms are both ruthlessly enforced and endlessly subject to critique or reversal (except for certain positions which have attained the status of axiom or common-law moderation practice). As far as I can tell, as many people leave the site because they are on the _leading_ edge of this process (and view the overall state of things as regressive) as because they trail the consensus. This can all be pretty frustrating. At its worst, it devolves into hyperbolic groupthink, and occasionally edges into the kind of emergent self-satire that you see so much of on, say, tumblrs produced entirely by socially isolated teenagers. I'm currently disinclined to participate in a lot of MeFi threads for the simple reason that I don't see any real gain for anyone in litigating positions contrary to the current mefite correctness state machine. I don't think any of that serves to undermine the basic point, or demonstrate that the MetaFilter comment culture is a failure. (Participating in MetaFilter, and engaging in good faith with the really difficult aspects of MetaFilter-style discourse, has probably done more for me as a thinker than any other single thing I can point to.) It rather serves to highlight that no discourse is _without_ its significant problems, or statically assured to remain productive & humane. Humans fail. Systems fail. There are very definitely other kinds of community you might want to build than MetaFilter, but we would be doing a lot better if we built more systems that fail as well as MetaFilter does.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  NPR also nuked their comment section. They're not what I'd consider a watering hole of ill repute.
  - cydonian_monk 10y ago
    And the NPR comments section wasn't generally terrible, either. At least not on the articles I usually read. Still, I'd rather the money/time/energy required to properly maintain a comments section for NPR be spent on pursuits closer to their core purpose.
- caseysoftware 10y ago
  Considering how much of the media was shocked SHOCKED by Brexit, the election of Trump, Sarkozy's loss, the fall of Merkel, and the rise of Le Pen, maybe they should pay more attention to the comments..
  - kuschku 10y ago
    The "fall" of Merkel? You mean, she went from approval rates of 74% to about 50%?
    - rokosbasilisk 10y ago
      Probably in reference to the reversal of hijabs and beginning of her reversing some immigration policies.
  - thinkloop 10y ago
    Those were shocking events. Scientific polls, liquid prediction markets and experts, all predicted different outcomes. It would have been irresponsible to take different positions. Either the tools we have to measure these things are inadequate, and must be improved. People simply changed their minds as the events drew near. Or we happened to hit the underdog outcomes (80% chance of Hillary is still 1 in 5 for Trump). None gets solved by polling trolls.
    - wutbrodo 10y ago
      > Either the tools we have to measure these things are inadequate, and must be improved. I think that's the kind of point he's getting at. Dismissing people entirely as not relevant because their conversational norms differ from yours is the kind of things that leads to shocking events. This doesn't imply you should feel any more positively or negatively about these people, just that their comments may add explanatory power to your model of the world. When reality doesn't match your model, don't blame reality.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
- ebbv 10y ago
  This just isn't true. Every site I've ever seen get above a certain threshold of popularity has its comments site turn to utter garbage, if it wasn't terrible already. The problem is that once your comments section quality reaches a certain point, nobody wants to bother spending time an effort writing something thoughtful. For two reasons; one it seems like nobody there will appreciate it and two it gets drowned out by the noise that surrounds anything bombastic.
  - zigzigzag 10y ago
    HN, Slashdot and Reddit frequently have thousands of posts on a single story and many of the posts are excellent. The keys are that all three sites are dedicated to discussion: that's practically all they do (plus story aggregation). So they are optimised for it. A simple example of how they differ from most newspaper comment sections: threaded replies. Posts that span the page width. Karma tracking.
- sethish 10y ago
  Uh, no? What about gamergate?
- prawn 10y ago
  You can write something completely reasonable and still attract absolute dickheads - the internet is pretty special like that. I think a more realistic position is about how your commenting system motivates better comments, not to avoid criticism but to create a better product for your audience. e.g., focus more on your commenting system than simply your content. My local rag is a cesspool. No persistent identities, no karma, no community moderation, no other methods of promoting the best responses. You end up with drive-by insults and little of substance.
- kevinburke 10y ago
  I would recommend you read "The Internet of Garbage" by Sarah Jeong, which tackles this argument in a lot of depth. It's also very cheap for an e-book!
- aphextron 10y ago
  Nonsense. Literally any comment section on any news website will be filled with people spouting off their random insanity because it's simply a platform. The actual content of the article rarely even matters to these people.
  - vinhboy 10y ago
    We can easily discern, with statistics, which political ideology is providing all the insane comments. But in places like HN, people will scream at you for being partisan if you mention it. I think there needs to be an honest discussion about this, because muting comment sections is not fair to those who want to have reasonable conversation.
- ksk 10y ago
  > But equally there might be a problem with what you're writing if you're attracting trolls. This is certainly true of Vice. Can you explain your reasoning behind that?
charlesism 10y ago
Hopefully the biker bar analogy* is correct. Every year it feels more and more like the bikers are actually the majority. *https://chuqui.com/2015/07/the-death-of-reddit/ https://chuqui.com/2015/07/the-death-of-reddit/
- gdulli 10y ago
  The saddest thing about the fact that Reddit hasn't been disrupted is what that says about the collective tolerance of what it is.
  - aaronblohowiak 10y ago
    maybe we don't read the same subreddits, but /r/programming /r/woodworking and /r/personalfinance are all mostly cordial.
    - mundo 10y ago
      That's the thing about reddit - it's so big that you can find whatever you want. Whether you want polite discussion about woodworking, erotic fan-fiction, or examples of horrible racism and misogyny so you can write an article for HuffPoabout how horrible Reddit is, you will find what you're looking for. But I'm pretty sure that was true of the internet before Reddit came along, too. And I don't see how combining all of those discussion groups under the same domain made the world any worse than back when they were three separate message boards.
- lmm 10y ago
  Interesting to look back on this. Reddit seems to be doing fine now - it's put the line in a clear and simple place, and while there are occasional paranoid grumblings that certain subreddits are getting away with brigading it's mostly working out. Whereas Twitter - which seemed to follow a line closer to the one being advocated there - is a disaster area.
  - petertodd 10y ago
leavingreddit 10y ago
In my humble opinion perhaps websites might benefit simply from more sorting filters on comments. Reddit allows sorting by most upvoted and most controversial which is cool. However I wonder if sorting by the reading age of the comment for example might work. Perhaps creating a set of words which are inflammatory and sorting by most negative comments to most positive comments. Perhaps combining filters could be constructive. Of course there are performance concerns here but nevertheless I'm sure there are better alternatives to banning comments in general.
- newswriter99 10y ago
  The problem with the internet is it allows people to wall themselves off from information and people who contradict their view. Even if they're in need of said contradiction. What you're describing is part of the problem, not the solution.
  - leavingreddit 10y ago
    I think that's a fair point. I've seen reddit change over the years into a place where people no longer debate in the comments section, they just find the thread they agree with and comment on that. It's part of why I'm looking for somewhere else.
    - newswriter99 10y ago
      Can you find it though? Or, like a string of trees in a rainstorm, will it too become saturated? I'm no longer looking for an alternative. Wishing for the good old days of dial-up BBS like Totse is useless as well. However, there's still hope this will all turn out to be a narcissism fad which will eventually give way.
- barrkel 10y ago
  Simple metrics like these sound a lot like they could be gamed. There might be something useful in spam detection, but it's a fine line between moderation and censorship.
frozenport 10y ago
Comments are one of the only time effective ways to challenge news stories. Indeed editorials in newspapers used to be a mode of public discourse. If we consider VICE a legitimate news outlet, then this a sad day.
- volkk 10y ago
  There's a difference between reasonable public discourse and incessant trolls spamming, which is what 95% of all vice comments was. Any type of actual argument or discussion were drowned out by a multitude of "ugh another trash article by shitty vice" which doesn't add anything to the discussion whatsoever.
  - frozenport 10y ago
    Yes it does. Perhaps if they got enough of these they would stop publishing trash.
- djtriptych 10y ago
  Write a letter and sign your name.
  - kristofferR 10y ago
    Nobody except Vice gets to see that, and since nobody sees them Vice won't feel pressured into correcting their article.
    - djtriptych 10y ago
      Oh so trolls are helpful correctors lol.
- mzw_mzw 10y ago
  > If we consider VICE a legitimate news outlet Well, there's your problem.
- grzm 10y ago
akshayB 10y ago
I feel its about time we have thumbs up, thumbs down and a troll marker on comment section.
- kl4m 10y ago
  Full circle back to Slashdot's moderation? :)
  - Pete_D 10y ago
    I'm always surprised Slashdot-style tagged voting isn't more widespread, and curious what would happen if more communities tried it. One can imagine it reducing tensions by allowing different subpopulations to have different views of the same conversation - e.g. some people might want to filter "Funny", others wouldn't mind. If the tags are an open set, you might see other use cases evolving, like being able to jump to the highest-ranked "TL;DR"-tagged comment, or deprioritizing comments tagged "Complaint about article formatting" (much as I tend to agree with those, they do seem to be contentious).
newswriter99 10y ago
Considering Vice is run by upper-class WASPs who write as if they grew up underprivileged, it shouldn't be a surprise that most of its readers (actually working-class types) habitually call them out on their flawed, bias-filled stance. I'm not trying to be contrarian here. The biggest issue with VICE is that it pretends to be alternative the same way Lady GaGa pretends to be alternative.
- djtriptych 10y ago
  So, who's allowed to be 'alternative'?
  - newswriter99 10y ago
    Anyone can be "alternative" but it's impossible for a well-off Canadian who hires writes specifically from upper-class NYC and LA to be legit alternative. My point is, this is just like when Starbucks tried to copy indie coffee shops, or when record labels tried to produce "underground" bands, or when Walmart attempted to sell "hand-crafted" and "artisan" products. The premise makes the end result impossible.
    - djtriptych 10y ago
      And who are indie coffee shops, underground bands, and artisan craftspeople copying?
- slang800 10y ago
  They're not WASPs - the closest label you could put on them would be "hipster" or "liberal". Plus, most of the writers don't even work at VICE. Articles are contracted out to freelance writers so they don't need to pay benefits or provide office space. Only dev, strategy, management, analytics, marketing, and video/tv production are kept in-house.
colordrops 10y ago
Many sites have been closing their comments section. It seems to me that the purpose is to further constrict dissent and control the message. Rather than finding a technical solution or one that involves moderation, these sites just shut the community out and become a broadcast medium once again. A notable removal of a comments section was NPR's shutdown right around the time of the Democratic National Convention. The comments were overwhelmingly anti-Hillary, but they were for the most part civil. It looked really bad because these were progressives and liberals going after her rather than rabid right-wingers. Since NPR clearly had a pro-Hillary agenda, the comments section had to go.
- kevinburke 10y ago
  > It seems to me that the purpose is to further constrict dissent and control the message. Insofar as "control the message" means "we are tired of anonymous people in our comments section doxxing our authors and other people, and vile, racist attacks on our authors and groups of people", then yes, this is an attempt to "control the message." > Since NPR clearly had a pro-Hillary agenda, the comments section had to go. There's no evidence for this, and it's unrelated to the topic.
  - gdulli 10y ago
    > There's no evidence for this, and it's unrelated to the topic. What it lacks in veracity it makes up for in truthiness.
  - colordrops 10y ago
    > anonymous people in our comments section doxxing our authors and other people, and vile, racist attacks on our authors and groups of people", then yes, this is an attempt to "control the message." That is a cop-out and not true for all comment sections. > There's no evidence for this, and it's unrelated to the topic. That's a huge cop-out statement to shutdown conversation, and this is about as on-topic as possible. Who are you to decide what is on-topic?
    - kevinburke 10y ago
aibottle 10y ago
When I see comment sections, on YouTube or elsewhere, disabled it makes me really sad because in my opinion people should have the ability to share their opinion on stuff. The argument that those comments turn ugly is really nonsense (to me). If you don't like a comment just don't bother reading it again, just forget about it. However when a youtube video on 10 ways to keep me from being productive" has its comments disabled I can live with that. In the case of Vice it is a whole new dimension. Guys, you are journalists. The comment section often is a direct indicator on the quality of your stuff. These days there are so many BS-articles written even by you guys that I can't keep up and I really like how someone in the comment section can just point out wrong statements for everyone. I can read through the BS of trolls, just give the people a choice! If you want your comment section to be clean just implement a HN-like upvote system.
- fnovd 10y ago
  >When I see comment sections, on YouTube or elsewhere, disabled it makes me really sad because in my opinion people should have the ability to share their opinion on stuff. The argument that those comments turn ugly is really nonsense (to me). If you don't like a comment just don't bother reading it again, just forget about it. The argument that disabling comments is censorship is really nonsense (to me). If you don't like the way a website works, just don't bother visiting it again, just forget about it.
- msie 10y ago
  I disagree with your opinion and I think you are an idiot! How do you feel now? ;-)
soyiuz 10y ago
A healthy comment section needs active moderation. Consider getting your readership involved. You could, for example, follow the Stack Exchange model by giving frequent contributors more editorial powers in the comments section.
alimw 10y ago
I've always wondered at how few comments they get, maybe that makes them sad...
Buetol 10y ago
Looks like a good opportunity for a startup to provide efficient comment moderation. I've seen big youtube channels switch to human moderation and that made the comment section a real place for discussion.
brilliantcode 10y ago
anonymity without oversight that actively kills toxic individuals is going to revert to the lowest possible quality. there should be some rule: The lower the friction for anonymous commentators the greater the affinity towards resembling a low quality and toxic communities.
rokosbasilisk 10y ago
Considering all the events that occurred in 2016 from the brexit to trump that came as huge surprises to the media, maybe media elites should be paying MORE attention to the comments.
- gee_totes 10y ago
  This is a good point. The sentiment of "deplorables" is largely being removed and modeled-out from the mainstream internet/media and helps create a filter bubble. However, I don't think those comments give any value to the users of the site.
- krallja 10y ago
  Nice astroturfing https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13223008 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13223008
AbrahamParangi 10y ago
I think many people have realized that the costs (filtering & moderation) vs. benefits (community engagement) of comment sections just don't make sense for most websites. I suspect that for comment sections to be good the users need to actually be invested in the 'forum' they're posting in. Without any skin in the game (reputation or fear of moderation) there is little incentive for most users to add value and the system becomes dominated by 'low value' posts (like trolls, flamewars, spambots, etc.).
- seanalltogether 10y ago
  This actually a good argument toward shifting commenting into a paid subscription offering. Give access to the site free of ads and allow you to comment on articles.
  - rezashirazian 10y ago
    I disagree, if people pay for the privilege of commenting, they will feel entitled and less likely to self-moderate. It would make more sense to grant commenting privileges to individuals who have engaged with the site previously and are in good standing. Much like the Product Hunt.
    - throwanem 10y ago
      > if people pay for the privilege of commenting, they will feel entitled and less likely to self-moderate Not if getting banned means they have to buy a new account to post again.
      - saboot 10y ago
        Yeah, this is the something awful forums model. It's not perfect but better than most places.
      - dredmorbius 10y ago
        Metafilter does this. It's surprisingly effective.
creaghpatr 10y ago
Part of the problem is that Vice promotes their posts all over facebook to (I presume) a bipartisan demographic based on target age range. Because these are 'sponsored posts' not ads, people who do not agree with Vice's often highly partisan slant are constantly served their relatively provocative headlines with a really easy opportunity to leave a comment (both on fb and by clicking the link and heading to the comments section). edit: changed 'broad demographic' to 'bipartisan demographic'
scythe 10y ago
I wish it didn't fall on me to point this out, but bigotry is a political position, and trolling is a personality flaw. Honestly, I've never read VICE comments. But if it follows the pattern I've been seeing elsewhere on the Internet, when VICE's comment section was a liberal trollfest, it was okay, but when the conservatives started winning, it had to be shut down. Then of course the editors blame trolling, which was always pervasive. The problem is that we, the elite; we, the establishment; we, the intelligentsia, have got to maintain credibility with people who dislike us. What we haven't got available to us that the Silvio Berlusconi's of the world can use is clientelism, the ability to make people like you by offering them things you can't actually give them. I can't tell you how many times I've criticized liberals who respond "But conservatives [...]!". We're supposed to be better than them. That's the whole point.
- kevinburke 10y ago
  > when the conservatives started winning, it had to be shut down. There's zero evidence for this. Please read the article.
  - scythe 10y ago
    I read the whole article. I don't believe you for a second, though.
    - kevinburke 10y ago
      The main complaint listed by Vice in the article was that the comments section inevitably led to low quality debate, and commenters frequently had to be banned for posting racist, sexist comments, and/or releasing private information about Vice's writers or other people in the comment section. Those seem like perfectly valid reasons to shut it down, and seem orthogonal to "conservatives started winning," however you want to define that.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
Bedon292 10y ago
It has been a long time since I actually dove into a comments section on any news site and found anything other than inflammatory arguments. It seems like people target out these news sites intentionally to start these arguments with no intent of listening to the other side. I would much rather come somewhere like here, and actually seem to have mostly civil discussions even when people disagree. Does anyone find the comment section of any news site informative and useful? If so, where?
- clydethefrog 10y ago
  De Correspondent, a Dutch publication, their comments section is only accessible to paying members. They treat their subscribers as a community and usually an article ends with a question to the reader to discuss. Their publisher has a typical Medium post about their strategy. As a subscriber I would say it works, unless the topic is already really controversial. https://medium.com/@ejpfauth/lets-give-reader-comments-another-chance-and-for-real-this-time-77506d29856b#.o3beuoqbe https://medium.com/@ejpfauth/lets-give-reader-comments-anoth...
  - type0 10y ago
    I think it's great giving their subscribers a voice, however I don't agree that it's good to only be open to paying members. It's better to have something like subscriber accounts with unlimited comments and regular user accounts with limited number of comments.
- justincormack 10y ago
  The Financial Times often has pretty good comments, that are informative. Post Brexit its got worse though.
thaumaturgy 10y ago
This seems like the ideal project for a ML experiment. Offer an integrated comments section, attach the ability for humans to moderate it, and then feed the moderated items into your favorite classifier for training and see if it can learn how to mute the louder nuisances without blocking more civil discussion. Hand-moderating comments is a miserable job, it'd be a mercy if nobody had to do very much of it.
swalsh 10y ago
Hacker News after all these years has managed to maintain a pretty high standard when it comes to comment quality (my comments excluded, of course, they are of much lower quality). A large part of that is it was started with a pretty small group that set the tone and quality, and it has always been very aggressive towards new commenters in the form of limiting down-votes, and chastising lower quality comments. That bring to a slow boil method seems to be pretty effective. I've always been curious if it would be possible to scale up an online community to reach Reddit's size while maintaining an HN signal to noise ratio.
- dba7dba 10y ago
  Would Ycombinator be willing to start a separate product with its ranking/reputation system to allow other sites to host comments section? Comments section allows discussion and debates, which is what Democracy is built on.
  - kevinwang 10y ago
    I'd guess that a big part of the quality control here comes from efforts of the moderators, so I don't think that replicating the ranking system would replicate the quality of discourse.
  - whybroke 10y ago
    Much of the apparent quality is the prohibition of topics that will attract controversy _regardless of their importance_ and regardless of the authenticity of the commenters who spam nonsense on it. For example, I imagine this item[1] would be of some interest to anyone dealing with ad revenue yet it is unworkable on HN as is essentially all discussion of Russian hacking. [1]http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/20/technology/forgers-use-fake-web-users-to-steal-real-ad-revenue.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/20/technology/forgers-use-fak...
  - douche 10y ago
    It'd only work if you keep the quality of the people commenting the same or better. There's nothing really unique about the way HN works, there's just smarter people here, on average, than in your typical Youtube comment thread.
OldSchoolJohnny 10y ago
I think that it's simply too easy to comment. If there were a cost or some kind of difficulty in doing it that slowed down the process and made people think twice it would be completely different.
alistproducer2 10y ago
In a similar vein, CNBC quietly turned their comments off in the last couple of weeks.
Fr0ntBack 10y ago
One possible solution to this problem is to use a crowdworking platform like Mechanical Turk to delete low quality comments. This is a lot cheaper than employing dedicated moderation teams, but there is a trade-off in that more low quality comments will slip through the net.
egwynn 10y ago
I’ve wished that there was some kind of HTTP header I could have my UA send that told the server not to bother sending me the comments section, as I consider them to generally be a waste of resources. I even thought a little about how I’d go about formalizing it. After realizing that such a system would require an RFC, my brain broke from the irony.
vic-traill 10y ago
I can't comment on what might be the best technique(s) for retaining a high level commentary on news sites - I don't have the expertise. But I do know where I stand on my own digital interactions; if there appears to be the possibility of having a critical, constructive dialogue, I'll try it out. Everything else just encourages the mob. Walk away, don't let my ego or emotion convince me to reply to non-constructive comments. Non-constructive comments are, as the old chestnut goes, like love. Tough to define but you know them when you see them.
siegecraft 10y ago
The great thing about anonymous comments is you can use them to justify any behaviour you want.
weewooweewoo 10y ago
There's something to the idea that comments are "letters to the editor", as I believe that the biggest incentive for people to comment is when they feel that they have something to contribute. The problem, of course, is that hateful reasoning is usually something to 'novel' to contribute. It is especially easy to contribute something novel when you skim an article and you don't see any indication that the article is going to where your thinking. I've been playing with this on a small side project (a literary journal, so the worst medium to try it out with), but it would be my dream to see a major publication try this out: Making commenting only available after correctly answering a quiz question that demonstrates that the reader has read the article. Initial questions have the ability to frame discussions, clarify controversial details, and discourage lines of thought - and on the other side, it requires little effort for an editor to implement.
- aphextron 10y ago
  >There's something to the idea that comments are "letters to the editor", as I believe that the biggest incentive for people to comment is when they feel that they have something to contribute. I don't think that analogy holds up, though. People are free to sit down and write a well thought out email to the author of an article if they have a specific point of disagreement. The problem with comment sections is that people often times aren't even reading the story or providing constructive commentary on it. The page just becomes a platform for them to go off on whatever nonsensical theories they have and troll people.
hockeybias 10y ago
Never had any comments on http://HockeyBias.com http://HockeyBias.com because the hassle seemed hardly worth it.
spott 10y ago
I think there actually might be a market here for Reddit... Create a subreddit for a news site, and each new article on the news site automatically gets a new post on the subreddit. Embed the relevant post on the news site. Since "karma" is transitive across Reddit and across news sites, users are slightly less likely to troll. You could also do this with some sort of reputation system across websites (Disqus could add in something like that). The big problem with news sites is that the communities aren't big enough that there are any negative correlations associated with being a dick. Even facebook runs into this problem because there isn't any way to "punish" someone for a rude comment. Transitive, persistent reputation is key to solving this issue (at least in my very non-expert opinion). Reddit helps, with comment karma and post karma... but it obviously isn't perfect.
- jpfed 10y ago
  >Create a subreddit for a news site, and each new article on the news site automatically gets a new post on the subreddit. Amusingly, https://www.reddit.com/r/hackernews/ https://www.reddit.com/r/hackernews/
  - asciimo 10y ago
    You can comment on this thread here: https://www.reddit.com/r/hackernews/comments/5jfgim/getting_rid_of_comments_on_vicecom/ https://www.reddit.com/r/hackernews/comments/5jfgim/getting_... :)
- woodsier 10y ago
  It does sound like the best option available. Is anyone out there aware of a solution that currently exists (and is available to people like you and I?). Reddit has made it easy to embed comments on a site since last year: https://redditblog.com/2015/03/23/announcing-embeddable-comment-threads/ https://redditblog.com/2015/03/23/announcing-embeddable-comm...
  - zigzigzag 10y ago
    No, because the problem isn't really technical. Whilst Vice could probably improve the quality of their commenting by putting more effort into the software, the real problem is that they were receiving political opinions from a camp they didn't like much. The article doesn't really try to hide it: Without moderators or fancy algorithms, they are prone to anarchy Anarchy?! I thought anarchy involved Mad Max style gunfights and burning oil barrels. What does "anarchy" mean in the context of a bunch of words on a web page? Oh, right, uncontrolled and uncensored discussion where people can say what they think. Too often they devolve into racist, misogynistic maelstroms where the loudest, most offensive, and stupidest opinions get pushed to the top So they don't like their comments (whereas they presumably did before) because over time the comments have become "stupid", "offensive" and - of course - racist/misogynistic/hate speech/bigoted. I'm willing to bet that many of the comments that enraged them the most weren't particularly stupid or even racist, but rather belonged to a part of the political spectrum that Vice's writers wished they could make go away for real. If there's one thing 2016 shows it's the unlimited capacity for people to paint political views that they don't share of any kind, regardless of reasonableness or validity, as "racist" or "bigoted".
slang800 10y ago
I don't buy the "troll" argument. Every site has low-value comments and people either ignore them or down-vote them. They're not an issue. Take YouTube for example - they are known to have a cancerous comment section with little-to-no moderation, yet people don't avoid YouTube, they just avoid reading the comments on most channels. The real problem for VICE is when comments aren't from trolls - when they're debunking the article and pointing out flaws in real-time. That being said, I'm happy to see them disable comments. This will open up an opportunity for someone else to take over managing comments on their content... Hopefully someone who cares more about open discussion.
- throwaw12ay 10y ago
  > they just avoid reading the comments This. But usually when the content is good and thoughtful ,(AKA void of controversy or outrage), the comment can be useful. But otherwise frankly Youtube comment is a worst place than reddit itself.
wyck 10y ago
Translation: Like ever other MSM outlet we want to control the narrative, even on our sub-par and typically worthless articles. There is a reason why Gavin McInnes left.
cf 10y ago
Since the comments section of a news website is a major source of engagement, why not charge to make comments? Wouldn't this discourage the worst of the them?
kyrre 10y ago
no comments = fake news
- Neliquat 10y ago
  Not literally, there are thousands of counter examples, but it does seem that you seldom see fake news sites with a comment section. More and more authors are getting tired of being called out for shoddy reporting on the same page as their article.
PravlageTiem 10y ago
Did the pixels offend you? Block everyone who disagrees with you. Now you know why no one you knew voted for Trump. If the left is obsessed with turning their entire belief system into a remake of the 1930s radio model (One story teller allowed, millions of listeners), then we will get 1930s results. Meanwhile, I'll be using the internet the way Jesus 2.0 intended and engaging in robust anonymous communication networks to inoculate myself from feinting pearl-clutchers and other paid government emotion hackers. I'll give you one guess which ecosystem will survive when the powers that be realized their precious fourth estate no longer works like it did in the 1930s.
- norea-armozel 10y ago
  "Did the pixels offend you? Block everyone who disagrees with you." It's called freedom of association. No one is owed a hearing by there mere presence online or even offline from private organizations and private citizens. "If the left is obsessed with turning their entire belief system into a remake of the 1930s radio model (One story teller allowed, millions of listeners), then we will get 1930s results." That's exactly what the web is. It's a pull model. They post pages, you send a GET request to see the content. Don't like the content then don't send the GET request. "Meanwhile, I'll be using the internet the way Jesus 2.0 intended and engaging in robust anonymous communication networks to inoculate myself from feinting pearl-clutchers and other paid government emotion hackers." It's intended for individuals and private organizations to freely choose how to disseminate/consume their content. If that offends you then maybe you're the pearl-clutcher here perhaps? "I'll give you one guess which ecosystem will survive when the powers that be realized their precious fourth estate no longer works like it did in the 1930s." Sure and magically cable tv and talk radio will disappear from the Earth. /s
  - PravlageTiem 10y ago
    Freedom of association means assembling with like-minded interests, not purging unlike-minded interests. What you are trying to defend with that deep-end SJW Kool-aid belly flop is the unchristened but widely-held "freedom of ignorance" where you have the freedom to be stupid by denying information to yourself. Which of course, not only do you have but also appear ready to fight to the doxx to defend. The web is not a pull model. Learn the other HTTP verbs... or cherry-pick away to continue the "Fischer Price's My First Venture Outside of Tumblr" shtick everyone sees you pulling, that's fine, too. The web does allow individuals and private organizations to determine their distribution methodology. And not all of them are winners. The 1930s model has been dead once the tyrants of socialism bludgeoned it to death. But, hey... you seem hell-bent on justifying why your brand of censorship is awesome, how about a wager: You post your actual identifying information like social media has trained you and I won't post mine. Guess who doesn't have to adhere to the behaviour expectations of the people in my head and synthetic social pressures and status signalling, and thus, has true freedom of expression? Which one of us is going to be hunted down by axe-grinding autists who are obsessed with ideological purity and which one of us is going bypass that entire system until you hunt each other to death? Which of these strategies will survive beyond the impending eulogy of old media? Because I gotta tell ya... that bicoastal elitist bubble and the partnership with the thought factories over at mainstream media have gone full diminishing returns after September. I hear the Global Engagement Centre is hiring. You'd be perfect for them. Maybe we can fight Nazis with nothing but a $60,000 degree in English and composition! Yeah! We can repeat 1945 over and over and over again just so you can feel good! Because that's what matters.
SerLava 10y ago
>Besides, there are plenty of other ways for you to publicly discuss our work and the personal worth of our staff. We'll still be reading your thoughts on Twitter and Facebook, This may be the real reason. Or at least a big reason. I have seen some other sites push comments to social media in order to bolster themselves on those platforms.
desbest 10y ago
It looks like a move to control dissent as people comment their disagreements with a refute, to articles they disagree with.
norea-armozel 10y ago
I don't get the infatuation people have with comment sections. Most of the time they're full of spam or really bad trolls. If you want to share your ideas maybe you should host a blog or a vlog (on YouTube) where people are willing to engage you. I know people like to socialize but not every site needs a comment section. Go on Discord, Twitter, Reddit, Slack, or whatever. That site you think needs a comment section doesn't owe anyone a space to share ideas.

138 points by artek 10y ago

I think if you're getting mostly garbage comments, it should give you pause for thought. Yes, the format of the internet doesn't encourage thoughtful, polite comments. But equally there might be a problem with what you're writing if you're attracting trolls. This is certainly true of Vice.

astrodust 10y ago
Vice doesn't shy away from taking a position that might be controversial or even extreme. A lot of their content borders on editorial which is fine if that's what you're looking for, but it's also full of fodder for those who want to argue about things. Honestly the comment on most news sites are absolutely atrocious and there'd be little lost if they were shut off completely.
- duaneb 10y ago
  The comments on the New York Times seem to be high quality.
  - knieveltech 10y ago
    A strong indicator of intense moderator activity.
  - djtriptych 10y ago
    They employ people to moderate comments and select high-quality contributions. Not cheap.
  - danso 10y ago
    They also expend significant resources in moderating it: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/09/20/insider/approve-or-reject-moderation-quiz.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/09/20/insider/approv... (a comically high amount of resources, IMHO; a good part of what their human editors do could be triaged through automated systems)
    - sammermpc 10y ago
      FWIW, a move towards automated assistance is what motivated that article in the first place: "The New York Times is partnering with Google Jigsaw to create a new moderation system that will help us review incoming comments based on decisions our moderators have made in the past. Our moderators will continue to protect these discussions, but once this new system is launched, we will have robot helpers." I helped work on the interactive piece (though not the assisted comment moderation that they're rolling out).
    - monksy 10y ago
      I took that quiz. They have some terrible opinions on what should and shouldn't be deleted. They supported side tracking of the conversation, injection of baiting morals (for a comment on gay marriage they said they'd allow someone to preach about their religious views on gay behavior and marriage). You can have r/the_donald supporters, "Not my President", and apathetic individuals in the same place... but only if you have strong rules to keep the peace.
      - MaxfordAndSons 10y ago
        > a comment on gay marriage they said they'd allow someone to preach about their religious views on gay behavior and marriage Unfortunately in that regard they're only following the same standards of acceptable arguments that hold in public spaces in the US.
  - stuart78 10y ago
    I think that is in part because they are highly moderated, both by their internal team and user votes. Such moderation is costly, but I tend to think it is worth it for the good of the community. http://www.nytimes.com/content/help/site/usercontent/usercontent.html http://www.nytimes.com/content/help/site/usercontent/usercon...
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - vinhboy 10y ago
    The NYT is the ONLY high quality comment "left" on the internet. It's sad that we are letting extremists mute comment sections.
- newswriter99 10y ago
  Vice does nothing BUT write editorials and tries to pawn them off as objective journalism. Hence, trolling.
djtriptych 10y ago
Trolls are attracted to attention. Every popular site has this issue.
zzalpha 10y ago
But equally there might be a problem with what you're writing if you're attracting trolls. I very much disagree with that. Let's just take the CBC as an example. It's an excellent news organization that writes top notch journalism. And for any topic even remotely controversial (e.g., anything related to the indigenous population in Canada), they've had to disable the comment section because it's such a godawful cesspool.
- matart 10y ago
  CBC comments show you how horrible some people can be. It makes me think that we leave discussion to the discussions sites. Reddit, HN, etc. and just let the news tell the news.
  - stan_rogers 10y ago
    I've used the "block element" feature of uBlock Origin to completely remove the comments from CBC.ca. Frankly, the possibility that I may miss the one insightful comment posted every twenty thousand or so (before it's pushed into "show more" territory) doesn't seem like much of a loss.
- newswriter99 10y ago
  Vice is nowhere remotely close to journalistic professionalism. I'd argue they bait trolls.
  - sbarre 10y ago
    Are you thinking of Vice from 15 years ago when it was just a magazine? Things have changed, you should look at what kind of reporting they are actually doing these days, it might surprise you (in a good way).
    - weberc2 10y ago
      I still see lots of partisan clickbait articles from Vice. Hopefully my sample isn't representative, but I doubt it's an anomaly.
danso 10y ago
I think that assertion looks good on paper but isn't fair in practice. Other than communities that have significant friction to get in -- e.g. $5 for a Metafilter membership -- comments are going to fall prey to the dynamic that afflicts online reviews: people who are pissed are often more motivated to make it known, compared to those who are merely satisfied [0]. Whatever one might think of Vice overall, the model is that good journalism in general pisses people off. This attracts not only substantive critical comments, but trolls who want to deface the article. It takes real effort through moderation to create a constructive community, as I'm sure the folks who run HN can strongly attest to. [0] https://www.quora.com/Is-there-negative-bias-in-online-reviews https://www.quora.com/Is-there-negative-bias-in-online-revie...
- DashRattlesnake 10y ago
  Metafilter also has pretty significant manual moderation. It's not uncommon to see moderator comments telling users to stop talking about some aspect of a post or tell someone who's going against the grain to pipe down. There is also a significant number of comment deletions, many of which are polite but have the potential to annoy privileged users. The end result is a sort of artificial consensus, which has been quite controversial and caused many long time users to leave. Basically, the comment culture is the result of a lot more than just a $5 cover, and it might not be the success a lot of people think it is.
  - brennen 10y ago
    > The end result is a sort of artificial consensus, which has been quite controversial and caused many long time users to leave. As a long-time user of the site and an occasional commenter (I seem to be sitting at around 1500 comments after 8 years of having an account, which marks me as a bit of a noob), this feels to me like a true but perhaps misleading statement. MetaFilter demonstrates that intensive, situationally attuned, full-time moderation can be very effective at maintaining a functional community. It also demonstrates that this process can (and almost certainly will) create its own style of drama and discord. Whatever else it is, MetaFilter commenting is a game system with rich, subtle, and frequently unsettling dynamics. It's somewhat driven by what I think of as a correctness ratchet, where locally established positions and norms are both ruthlessly enforced and endlessly subject to critique or reversal (except for certain positions which have attained the status of axiom or common-law moderation practice). As far as I can tell, as many people leave the site because they are on the _leading_ edge of this process (and view the overall state of things as regressive) as because they trail the consensus. This can all be pretty frustrating. At its worst, it devolves into hyperbolic groupthink, and occasionally edges into the kind of emergent self-satire that you see so much of on, say, tumblrs produced entirely by socially isolated teenagers. I'm currently disinclined to participate in a lot of MeFi threads for the simple reason that I don't see any real gain for anyone in litigating positions contrary to the current mefite correctness state machine. I don't think any of that serves to undermine the basic point, or demonstrate that the MetaFilter comment culture is a failure. (Participating in MetaFilter, and engaging in good faith with the really difficult aspects of MetaFilter-style discourse, has probably done more for me as a thinker than any other single thing I can point to.) It rather serves to highlight that no discourse is _without_ its significant problems, or statically assured to remain productive & humane. Humans fail. Systems fail. There are very definitely other kinds of community you might want to build than MetaFilter, but we would be doing a lot better if we built more systems that fail as well as MetaFilter does.
toomuchtodo 10y ago
NPR also nuked their comment section. They're not what I'd consider a watering hole of ill repute.
- cydonian_monk 10y ago
  And the NPR comments section wasn't generally terrible, either. At least not on the articles I usually read. Still, I'd rather the money/time/energy required to properly maintain a comments section for NPR be spent on pursuits closer to their core purpose.
caseysoftware 10y ago
Considering how much of the media was shocked SHOCKED by Brexit, the election of Trump, Sarkozy's loss, the fall of Merkel, and the rise of Le Pen, maybe they should pay more attention to the comments..
- kuschku 10y ago
  The "fall" of Merkel? You mean, she went from approval rates of 74% to about 50%?
  - rokosbasilisk 10y ago
    Probably in reference to the reversal of hijabs and beginning of her reversing some immigration policies.
- thinkloop 10y ago
  Those were shocking events. Scientific polls, liquid prediction markets and experts, all predicted different outcomes. It would have been irresponsible to take different positions. Either the tools we have to measure these things are inadequate, and must be improved. People simply changed their minds as the events drew near. Or we happened to hit the underdog outcomes (80% chance of Hillary is still 1 in 5 for Trump). None gets solved by polling trolls.
  - wutbrodo 10y ago
    > Either the tools we have to measure these things are inadequate, and must be improved. I think that's the kind of point he's getting at. Dismissing people entirely as not relevant because their conversational norms differ from yours is the kind of things that leads to shocking events. This doesn't imply you should feel any more positively or negatively about these people, just that their comments may add explanatory power to your model of the world. When reality doesn't match your model, don't blame reality.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
ebbv 10y ago
This just isn't true. Every site I've ever seen get above a certain threshold of popularity has its comments site turn to utter garbage, if it wasn't terrible already. The problem is that once your comments section quality reaches a certain point, nobody wants to bother spending time an effort writing something thoughtful. For two reasons; one it seems like nobody there will appreciate it and two it gets drowned out by the noise that surrounds anything bombastic.
- zigzigzag 10y ago
  HN, Slashdot and Reddit frequently have thousands of posts on a single story and many of the posts are excellent. The keys are that all three sites are dedicated to discussion: that's practically all they do (plus story aggregation). So they are optimised for it. A simple example of how they differ from most newspaper comment sections: threaded replies. Posts that span the page width. Karma tracking.
sethish 10y ago
Uh, no? What about gamergate?
prawn 10y ago
You can write something completely reasonable and still attract absolute dickheads - the internet is pretty special like that. I think a more realistic position is about how your commenting system motivates better comments, not to avoid criticism but to create a better product for your audience. e.g., focus more on your commenting system than simply your content. My local rag is a cesspool. No persistent identities, no karma, no community moderation, no other methods of promoting the best responses. You end up with drive-by insults and little of substance.
kevinburke 10y ago
I would recommend you read "The Internet of Garbage" by Sarah Jeong, which tackles this argument in a lot of depth. It's also very cheap for an e-book!
aphextron 10y ago
Nonsense. Literally any comment section on any news website will be filled with people spouting off their random insanity because it's simply a platform. The actual content of the article rarely even matters to these people.
- vinhboy 10y ago
  We can easily discern, with statistics, which political ideology is providing all the insane comments. But in places like HN, people will scream at you for being partisan if you mention it. I think there needs to be an honest discussion about this, because muting comment sections is not fair to those who want to have reasonable conversation.
ksk 10y ago
> But equally there might be a problem with what you're writing if you're attracting trolls. This is certainly true of Vice. Can you explain your reasoning behind that?

charlesism 10y ago

Hopefully the biker bar analogy* is correct. Every year it feels more and more like the bikers are actually the majority. *https://chuqui.com/2015/07/the-death-of-reddit/ https://chuqui.com/2015/07/the-death-of-reddit/

gdulli 10y ago
The saddest thing about the fact that Reddit hasn't been disrupted is what that says about the collective tolerance of what it is.
- aaronblohowiak 10y ago
  maybe we don't read the same subreddits, but /r/programming /r/woodworking and /r/personalfinance are all mostly cordial.
  - mundo 10y ago
    That's the thing about reddit - it's so big that you can find whatever you want. Whether you want polite discussion about woodworking, erotic fan-fiction, or examples of horrible racism and misogyny so you can write an article for HuffPoabout how horrible Reddit is, you will find what you're looking for. But I'm pretty sure that was true of the internet before Reddit came along, too. And I don't see how combining all of those discussion groups under the same domain made the world any worse than back when they were three separate message boards.
lmm 10y ago
Interesting to look back on this. Reddit seems to be doing fine now - it's put the line in a clear and simple place, and while there are occasional paranoid grumblings that certain subreddits are getting away with brigading it's mostly working out. Whereas Twitter - which seemed to follow a line closer to the one being advocated there - is a disaster area.
- petertodd 10y ago

leavingreddit 10y ago

In my humble opinion perhaps websites might benefit simply from more sorting filters on comments. Reddit allows sorting by most upvoted and most controversial which is cool. However I wonder if sorting by the reading age of the comment for example might work. Perhaps creating a set of words which are inflammatory and sorting by most negative comments to most positive comments. Perhaps combining filters could be constructive. Of course there are performance concerns here but nevertheless I'm sure there are better alternatives to banning comments in general.

newswriter99 10y ago
The problem with the internet is it allows people to wall themselves off from information and people who contradict their view. Even if they're in need of said contradiction. What you're describing is part of the problem, not the solution.
- leavingreddit 10y ago
  I think that's a fair point. I've seen reddit change over the years into a place where people no longer debate in the comments section, they just find the thread they agree with and comment on that. It's part of why I'm looking for somewhere else.
  - newswriter99 10y ago
    Can you find it though? Or, like a string of trees in a rainstorm, will it too become saturated? I'm no longer looking for an alternative. Wishing for the good old days of dial-up BBS like Totse is useless as well. However, there's still hope this will all turn out to be a narcissism fad which will eventually give way.
barrkel 10y ago
Simple metrics like these sound a lot like they could be gamed. There might be something useful in spam detection, but it's a fine line between moderation and censorship.

frozenport 10y ago

Comments are one of the only time effective ways to challenge news stories. Indeed editorials in newspapers used to be a mode of public discourse. If we consider VICE a legitimate news outlet, then this a sad day.

volkk 10y ago
There's a difference between reasonable public discourse and incessant trolls spamming, which is what 95% of all vice comments was. Any type of actual argument or discussion were drowned out by a multitude of "ugh another trash article by shitty vice" which doesn't add anything to the discussion whatsoever.
- frozenport 10y ago
  Yes it does. Perhaps if they got enough of these they would stop publishing trash.
djtriptych 10y ago
Write a letter and sign your name.
- kristofferR 10y ago
  Nobody except Vice gets to see that, and since nobody sees them Vice won't feel pressured into correcting their article.
  - djtriptych 10y ago
    Oh so trolls are helpful correctors lol.
mzw_mzw 10y ago
> If we consider VICE a legitimate news outlet Well, there's your problem.
grzm 10y ago

akshayB 10y ago

I feel its about time we have thumbs up, thumbs down and a troll marker on comment section.

kl4m 10y ago
Full circle back to Slashdot's moderation? :)
- Pete_D 10y ago
  I'm always surprised Slashdot-style tagged voting isn't more widespread, and curious what would happen if more communities tried it. One can imagine it reducing tensions by allowing different subpopulations to have different views of the same conversation - e.g. some people might want to filter "Funny", others wouldn't mind. If the tags are an open set, you might see other use cases evolving, like being able to jump to the highest-ranked "TL;DR"-tagged comment, or deprioritizing comments tagged "Complaint about article formatting" (much as I tend to agree with those, they do seem to be contentious).

newswriter99 10y ago

Considering Vice is run by upper-class WASPs who write as if they grew up underprivileged, it shouldn't be a surprise that most of its readers (actually working-class types) habitually call them out on their flawed, bias-filled stance. I'm not trying to be contrarian here. The biggest issue with VICE is that it pretends to be alternative the same way Lady GaGa pretends to be alternative.

djtriptych 10y ago
So, who's allowed to be 'alternative'?
- newswriter99 10y ago
  Anyone can be "alternative" but it's impossible for a well-off Canadian who hires writes specifically from upper-class NYC and LA to be legit alternative. My point is, this is just like when Starbucks tried to copy indie coffee shops, or when record labels tried to produce "underground" bands, or when Walmart attempted to sell "hand-crafted" and "artisan" products. The premise makes the end result impossible.
  - djtriptych 10y ago
    And who are indie coffee shops, underground bands, and artisan craftspeople copying?
slang800 10y ago
They're not WASPs - the closest label you could put on them would be "hipster" or "liberal". Plus, most of the writers don't even work at VICE. Articles are contracted out to freelance writers so they don't need to pay benefits or provide office space. Only dev, strategy, management, analytics, marketing, and video/tv production are kept in-house.

colordrops 10y ago

Many sites have been closing their comments section. It seems to me that the purpose is to further constrict dissent and control the message. Rather than finding a technical solution or one that involves moderation, these sites just shut the community out and become a broadcast medium once again. A notable removal of a comments section was NPR's shutdown right around the time of the Democratic National Convention. The comments were overwhelmingly anti-Hillary, but they were for the most part civil. It looked really bad because these were progressives and liberals going after her rather than rabid right-wingers. Since NPR clearly had a pro-Hillary agenda, the comments section had to go.

kevinburke 10y ago
> It seems to me that the purpose is to further constrict dissent and control the message. Insofar as "control the message" means "we are tired of anonymous people in our comments section doxxing our authors and other people, and vile, racist attacks on our authors and groups of people", then yes, this is an attempt to "control the message." > Since NPR clearly had a pro-Hillary agenda, the comments section had to go. There's no evidence for this, and it's unrelated to the topic.
- gdulli 10y ago
  > There's no evidence for this, and it's unrelated to the topic. What it lacks in veracity it makes up for in truthiness.
- colordrops 10y ago
  > anonymous people in our comments section doxxing our authors and other people, and vile, racist attacks on our authors and groups of people", then yes, this is an attempt to "control the message." That is a cop-out and not true for all comment sections. > There's no evidence for this, and it's unrelated to the topic. That's a huge cop-out statement to shutdown conversation, and this is about as on-topic as possible. Who are you to decide what is on-topic?
  - kevinburke 10y ago

aibottle 10y ago

When I see comment sections, on YouTube or elsewhere, disabled it makes me really sad because in my opinion people should have the ability to share their opinion on stuff. The argument that those comments turn ugly is really nonsense (to me). If you don't like a comment just don't bother reading it again, just forget about it. However when a youtube video on 10 ways to keep me from being productive" has its comments disabled I can live with that. In the case of Vice it is a whole new dimension. Guys, you are journalists. The comment section often is a direct indicator on the quality of your stuff. These days there are so many BS-articles written even by you guys that I can't keep up and I really like how someone in the comment section can just point out wrong statements for everyone. I can read through the BS of trolls, just give the people a choice! If you want your comment section to be clean just implement a HN-like upvote system.

fnovd 10y ago
>When I see comment sections, on YouTube or elsewhere, disabled it makes me really sad because in my opinion people should have the ability to share their opinion on stuff. The argument that those comments turn ugly is really nonsense (to me). If you don't like a comment just don't bother reading it again, just forget about it. The argument that disabling comments is censorship is really nonsense (to me). If you don't like the way a website works, just don't bother visiting it again, just forget about it.
msie 10y ago
I disagree with your opinion and I think you are an idiot! How do you feel now? ;-)

soyiuz 10y ago

A healthy comment section needs active moderation. Consider getting your readership involved. You could, for example, follow the Stack Exchange model by giving frequent contributors more editorial powers in the comments section.

alimw 10y ago

I've always wondered at how few comments they get, maybe that makes them sad...

Buetol 10y ago

Looks like a good opportunity for a startup to provide efficient comment moderation. I've seen big youtube channels switch to human moderation and that made the comment section a real place for discussion.

brilliantcode 10y ago

anonymity without oversight that actively kills toxic individuals is going to revert to the lowest possible quality. there should be some rule: The lower the friction for anonymous commentators the greater the affinity towards resembling a low quality and toxic communities.

rokosbasilisk 10y ago

Considering all the events that occurred in 2016 from the brexit to trump that came as huge surprises to the media, maybe media elites should be paying MORE attention to the comments.

gee_totes 10y ago
This is a good point. The sentiment of "deplorables" is largely being removed and modeled-out from the mainstream internet/media and helps create a filter bubble. However, I don't think those comments give any value to the users of the site.
krallja 10y ago
Nice astroturfing https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13223008 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13223008

AbrahamParangi 10y ago

I think many people have realized that the costs (filtering & moderation) vs. benefits (community engagement) of comment sections just don't make sense for most websites. I suspect that for comment sections to be good the users need to actually be invested in the 'forum' they're posting in. Without any skin in the game (reputation or fear of moderation) there is little incentive for most users to add value and the system becomes dominated by 'low value' posts (like trolls, flamewars, spambots, etc.).

seanalltogether 10y ago
This actually a good argument toward shifting commenting into a paid subscription offering. Give access to the site free of ads and allow you to comment on articles.
- rezashirazian 10y ago
  I disagree, if people pay for the privilege of commenting, they will feel entitled and less likely to self-moderate. It would make more sense to grant commenting privileges to individuals who have engaged with the site previously and are in good standing. Much like the Product Hunt.
  - throwanem 10y ago
    > if people pay for the privilege of commenting, they will feel entitled and less likely to self-moderate Not if getting banned means they have to buy a new account to post again.
    - saboot 10y ago
      Yeah, this is the something awful forums model. It's not perfect but better than most places.
    - dredmorbius 10y ago
      Metafilter does this. It's surprisingly effective.

creaghpatr 10y ago

Part of the problem is that Vice promotes their posts all over facebook to (I presume) a bipartisan demographic based on target age range. Because these are 'sponsored posts' not ads, people who do not agree with Vice's often highly partisan slant are constantly served their relatively provocative headlines with a really easy opportunity to leave a comment (both on fb and by clicking the link and heading to the comments section). edit: changed 'broad demographic' to 'bipartisan demographic'

scythe 10y ago

I wish it didn't fall on me to point this out, but bigotry is a political position, and trolling is a personality flaw. Honestly, I've never read VICE comments. But if it follows the pattern I've been seeing elsewhere on the Internet, when VICE's comment section was a liberal trollfest, it was okay, but when the conservatives started winning, it had to be shut down. Then of course the editors blame trolling, which was always pervasive. The problem is that we, the elite; we, the establishment; we, the intelligentsia, have got to maintain credibility with people who dislike us. What we haven't got available to us that the Silvio Berlusconi's of the world can use is clientelism, the ability to make people like you by offering them things you can't actually give them. I can't tell you how many times I've criticized liberals who respond "But conservatives [...]!". We're supposed to be better than them. That's the whole point.

kevinburke 10y ago
> when the conservatives started winning, it had to be shut down. There's zero evidence for this. Please read the article.
- scythe 10y ago
  I read the whole article. I don't believe you for a second, though.
  - kevinburke 10y ago
    The main complaint listed by Vice in the article was that the comments section inevitably led to low quality debate, and commenters frequently had to be banned for posting racist, sexist comments, and/or releasing private information about Vice's writers or other people in the comment section. Those seem like perfectly valid reasons to shut it down, and seem orthogonal to "conservatives started winning," however you want to define that.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

Bedon292 10y ago

It has been a long time since I actually dove into a comments section on any news site and found anything other than inflammatory arguments. It seems like people target out these news sites intentionally to start these arguments with no intent of listening to the other side. I would much rather come somewhere like here, and actually seem to have mostly civil discussions even when people disagree. Does anyone find the comment section of any news site informative and useful? If so, where?

clydethefrog 10y ago
De Correspondent, a Dutch publication, their comments section is only accessible to paying members. They treat their subscribers as a community and usually an article ends with a question to the reader to discuss. Their publisher has a typical Medium post about their strategy. As a subscriber I would say it works, unless the topic is already really controversial. https://medium.com/@ejpfauth/lets-give-reader-comments-another-chance-and-for-real-this-time-77506d29856b#.o3beuoqbe https://medium.com/@ejpfauth/lets-give-reader-comments-anoth...
- type0 10y ago
  I think it's great giving their subscribers a voice, however I don't agree that it's good to only be open to paying members. It's better to have something like subscriber accounts with unlimited comments and regular user accounts with limited number of comments.
justincormack 10y ago
The Financial Times often has pretty good comments, that are informative. Post Brexit its got worse though.

thaumaturgy 10y ago

This seems like the ideal project for a ML experiment. Offer an integrated comments section, attach the ability for humans to moderate it, and then feed the moderated items into your favorite classifier for training and see if it can learn how to mute the louder nuisances without blocking more civil discussion. Hand-moderating comments is a miserable job, it'd be a mercy if nobody had to do very much of it.

swalsh 10y ago

Hacker News after all these years has managed to maintain a pretty high standard when it comes to comment quality (my comments excluded, of course, they are of much lower quality). A large part of that is it was started with a pretty small group that set the tone and quality, and it has always been very aggressive towards new commenters in the form of limiting down-votes, and chastising lower quality comments. That bring to a slow boil method seems to be pretty effective. I've always been curious if it would be possible to scale up an online community to reach Reddit's size while maintaining an HN signal to noise ratio.

dba7dba 10y ago
Would Ycombinator be willing to start a separate product with its ranking/reputation system to allow other sites to host comments section? Comments section allows discussion and debates, which is what Democracy is built on.
- kevinwang 10y ago
  I'd guess that a big part of the quality control here comes from efforts of the moderators, so I don't think that replicating the ranking system would replicate the quality of discourse.
- whybroke 10y ago
  Much of the apparent quality is the prohibition of topics that will attract controversy _regardless of their importance_ and regardless of the authenticity of the commenters who spam nonsense on it. For example, I imagine this item[1] would be of some interest to anyone dealing with ad revenue yet it is unworkable on HN as is essentially all discussion of Russian hacking. [1]http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/20/technology/forgers-use-fake-web-users-to-steal-real-ad-revenue.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/20/technology/forgers-use-fak...
- douche 10y ago
  It'd only work if you keep the quality of the people commenting the same or better. There's nothing really unique about the way HN works, there's just smarter people here, on average, than in your typical Youtube comment thread.

OldSchoolJohnny 10y ago

I think that it's simply too easy to comment. If there were a cost or some kind of difficulty in doing it that slowed down the process and made people think twice it would be completely different.

alistproducer2 10y ago

In a similar vein, CNBC quietly turned their comments off in the last couple of weeks.

Fr0ntBack 10y ago

One possible solution to this problem is to use a crowdworking platform like Mechanical Turk to delete low quality comments. This is a lot cheaper than employing dedicated moderation teams, but there is a trade-off in that more low quality comments will slip through the net.

egwynn 10y ago

I’ve wished that there was some kind of HTTP header I could have my UA send that told the server not to bother sending me the comments section, as I consider them to generally be a waste of resources. I even thought a little about how I’d go about formalizing it. After realizing that such a system would require an RFC, my brain broke from the irony.

vic-traill 10y ago

I can't comment on what might be the best technique(s) for retaining a high level commentary on news sites - I don't have the expertise. But I do know where I stand on my own digital interactions; if there appears to be the possibility of having a critical, constructive dialogue, I'll try it out. Everything else just encourages the mob. Walk away, don't let my ego or emotion convince me to reply to non-constructive comments. Non-constructive comments are, as the old chestnut goes, like love. Tough to define but you know them when you see them.

siegecraft 10y ago

The great thing about anonymous comments is you can use them to justify any behaviour you want.

weewooweewoo 10y ago

There's something to the idea that comments are "letters to the editor", as I believe that the biggest incentive for people to comment is when they feel that they have something to contribute. The problem, of course, is that hateful reasoning is usually something to 'novel' to contribute. It is especially easy to contribute something novel when you skim an article and you don't see any indication that the article is going to where your thinking. I've been playing with this on a small side project (a literary journal, so the worst medium to try it out with), but it would be my dream to see a major publication try this out: Making commenting only available after correctly answering a quiz question that demonstrates that the reader has read the article. Initial questions have the ability to frame discussions, clarify controversial details, and discourage lines of thought - and on the other side, it requires little effort for an editor to implement.

aphextron 10y ago
>There's something to the idea that comments are "letters to the editor", as I believe that the biggest incentive for people to comment is when they feel that they have something to contribute. I don't think that analogy holds up, though. People are free to sit down and write a well thought out email to the author of an article if they have a specific point of disagreement. The problem with comment sections is that people often times aren't even reading the story or providing constructive commentary on it. The page just becomes a platform for them to go off on whatever nonsensical theories they have and troll people.

hockeybias 10y ago

Never had any comments on http://HockeyBias.com http://HockeyBias.com because the hassle seemed hardly worth it.

spott 10y ago

I think there actually might be a market here for Reddit... Create a subreddit for a news site, and each new article on the news site automatically gets a new post on the subreddit. Embed the relevant post on the news site. Since "karma" is transitive across Reddit and across news sites, users are slightly less likely to troll. You could also do this with some sort of reputation system across websites (Disqus could add in something like that). The big problem with news sites is that the communities aren't big enough that there are any negative correlations associated with being a dick. Even facebook runs into this problem because there isn't any way to "punish" someone for a rude comment. Transitive, persistent reputation is key to solving this issue (at least in my very non-expert opinion). Reddit helps, with comment karma and post karma... but it obviously isn't perfect.

jpfed 10y ago
>Create a subreddit for a news site, and each new article on the news site automatically gets a new post on the subreddit. Amusingly, https://www.reddit.com/r/hackernews/ https://www.reddit.com/r/hackernews/
- asciimo 10y ago
  You can comment on this thread here: https://www.reddit.com/r/hackernews/comments/5jfgim/getting_rid_of_comments_on_vicecom/ https://www.reddit.com/r/hackernews/comments/5jfgim/getting_... :)
woodsier 10y ago
It does sound like the best option available. Is anyone out there aware of a solution that currently exists (and is available to people like you and I?). Reddit has made it easy to embed comments on a site since last year: https://redditblog.com/2015/03/23/announcing-embeddable-comment-threads/ https://redditblog.com/2015/03/23/announcing-embeddable-comm...
- zigzigzag 10y ago
  No, because the problem isn't really technical. Whilst Vice could probably improve the quality of their commenting by putting more effort into the software, the real problem is that they were receiving political opinions from a camp they didn't like much. The article doesn't really try to hide it: Without moderators or fancy algorithms, they are prone to anarchy Anarchy?! I thought anarchy involved Mad Max style gunfights and burning oil barrels. What does "anarchy" mean in the context of a bunch of words on a web page? Oh, right, uncontrolled and uncensored discussion where people can say what they think. Too often they devolve into racist, misogynistic maelstroms where the loudest, most offensive, and stupidest opinions get pushed to the top So they don't like their comments (whereas they presumably did before) because over time the comments have become "stupid", "offensive" and - of course - racist/misogynistic/hate speech/bigoted. I'm willing to bet that many of the comments that enraged them the most weren't particularly stupid or even racist, but rather belonged to a part of the political spectrum that Vice's writers wished they could make go away for real. If there's one thing 2016 shows it's the unlimited capacity for people to paint political views that they don't share of any kind, regardless of reasonableness or validity, as "racist" or "bigoted".

slang800 10y ago

I don't buy the "troll" argument. Every site has low-value comments and people either ignore them or down-vote them. They're not an issue. Take YouTube for example - they are known to have a cancerous comment section with little-to-no moderation, yet people don't avoid YouTube, they just avoid reading the comments on most channels. The real problem for VICE is when comments aren't from trolls - when they're debunking the article and pointing out flaws in real-time. That being said, I'm happy to see them disable comments. This will open up an opportunity for someone else to take over managing comments on their content... Hopefully someone who cares more about open discussion.

throwaw12ay 10y ago
> they just avoid reading the comments This. But usually when the content is good and thoughtful ,(AKA void of controversy or outrage), the comment can be useful. But otherwise frankly Youtube comment is a worst place than reddit itself.

wyck 10y ago

Translation: Like ever other MSM outlet we want to control the narrative, even on our sub-par and typically worthless articles. There is a reason why Gavin McInnes left.

cf 10y ago

Since the comments section of a news website is a major source of engagement, why not charge to make comments? Wouldn't this discourage the worst of the them?

kyrre 10y ago

no comments = fake news

Neliquat 10y ago
Not literally, there are thousands of counter examples, but it does seem that you seldom see fake news sites with a comment section. More and more authors are getting tired of being called out for shoddy reporting on the same page as their article.

PravlageTiem 10y ago

Did the pixels offend you? Block everyone who disagrees with you. Now you know why no one you knew voted for Trump. If the left is obsessed with turning their entire belief system into a remake of the 1930s radio model (One story teller allowed, millions of listeners), then we will get 1930s results. Meanwhile, I'll be using the internet the way Jesus 2.0 intended and engaging in robust anonymous communication networks to inoculate myself from feinting pearl-clutchers and other paid government emotion hackers. I'll give you one guess which ecosystem will survive when the powers that be realized their precious fourth estate no longer works like it did in the 1930s.

norea-armozel 10y ago
"Did the pixels offend you? Block everyone who disagrees with you." It's called freedom of association. No one is owed a hearing by there mere presence online or even offline from private organizations and private citizens. "If the left is obsessed with turning their entire belief system into a remake of the 1930s radio model (One story teller allowed, millions of listeners), then we will get 1930s results." That's exactly what the web is. It's a pull model. They post pages, you send a GET request to see the content. Don't like the content then don't send the GET request. "Meanwhile, I'll be using the internet the way Jesus 2.0 intended and engaging in robust anonymous communication networks to inoculate myself from feinting pearl-clutchers and other paid government emotion hackers." It's intended for individuals and private organizations to freely choose how to disseminate/consume their content. If that offends you then maybe you're the pearl-clutcher here perhaps? "I'll give you one guess which ecosystem will survive when the powers that be realized their precious fourth estate no longer works like it did in the 1930s." Sure and magically cable tv and talk radio will disappear from the Earth. /s
- PravlageTiem 10y ago
  Freedom of association means assembling with like-minded interests, not purging unlike-minded interests. What you are trying to defend with that deep-end SJW Kool-aid belly flop is the unchristened but widely-held "freedom of ignorance" where you have the freedom to be stupid by denying information to yourself. Which of course, not only do you have but also appear ready to fight to the doxx to defend. The web is not a pull model. Learn the other HTTP verbs... or cherry-pick away to continue the "Fischer Price's My First Venture Outside of Tumblr" shtick everyone sees you pulling, that's fine, too. The web does allow individuals and private organizations to determine their distribution methodology. And not all of them are winners. The 1930s model has been dead once the tyrants of socialism bludgeoned it to death. But, hey... you seem hell-bent on justifying why your brand of censorship is awesome, how about a wager: You post your actual identifying information like social media has trained you and I won't post mine. Guess who doesn't have to adhere to the behaviour expectations of the people in my head and synthetic social pressures and status signalling, and thus, has true freedom of expression? Which one of us is going to be hunted down by axe-grinding autists who are obsessed with ideological purity and which one of us is going bypass that entire system until you hunt each other to death? Which of these strategies will survive beyond the impending eulogy of old media? Because I gotta tell ya... that bicoastal elitist bubble and the partnership with the thought factories over at mainstream media have gone full diminishing returns after September. I hear the Global Engagement Centre is hiring. You'd be perfect for them. Maybe we can fight Nazis with nothing but a $60,000 degree in English and composition! Yeah! We can repeat 1945 over and over and over again just so you can feel good! Because that's what matters.

SerLava 10y ago

>Besides, there are plenty of other ways for you to publicly discuss our work and the personal worth of our staff. We'll still be reading your thoughts on Twitter and Facebook, This may be the real reason. Or at least a big reason. I have seen some other sites push comments to social media in order to bolster themselves on those platforms.

desbest 10y ago

It looks like a move to control dissent as people comment their disagreements with a refute, to articles they disagree with.

norea-armozel 10y ago

I don't get the infatuation people have with comment sections. Most of the time they're full of spam or really bad trolls. If you want to share your ideas maybe you should host a blog or a vlog (on YouTube) where people are willing to engage you. I know people like to socialize but not every site needs a comment section. Go on Discord, Twitter, Reddit, Slack, or whatever. That site you think needs a comment section doesn't owe anyone a space to share ideas.