4 ms·

As a DC-area resident and frequent reader of the Washington Post, the biggest problem with their comments section is the commenters. I'm not sure how this helps

As a DC-area resident and frequent reader of the Washington Post, the biggest problem with their comments section is the commenters. I'm not sure how this helps.

ZenoArrow 9y ago
> "I'm not sure how this helps." Better tools to filter out trolls leaves more space for healthy debate.
- Twirrim 9y ago
  > Better tools to filter out trolls leaves more space for healthy debate. The very nature of US political discourse itself leaves no space for healthy debate. I'm sceptical that removing the trolls is going to be sufficient to fix that.
  - sbov 9y ago
    It would, but then there would be no one left to comment.
    - ZenoArrow 9y ago
      Except that by doing so it leaves a vacuum for more reasonable commenters to fill. It's not a culture change that happens overnight, but the potential long term benefits make it worthwhile.
  - JacobJans 9y ago
    > The very nature of US political discourse itself leaves no space for healthy debate. I am quite convinced that the nature of US political discourse is largely determined by the predominant media, and not by the individuals participating in the discourse. –– Cable news is incentivized to sensationalize any minor event, and to frame stories centered around conflict –– Social media rewards the most emotionally potent messages, consistently pushing aside calm discourse in favor of messages that hit emotional hot-buttons –– Newspapers, magazines, etc have adapted their style of writing in order to gain more traction on social media, furthering the cycle of increasingly strong emotional engagement. Sure, newspapers are also often quite dispassionate, but those stories rarely gain much attention in the political realm. –– Social media also increasingly creates identity bubbles, where like minded individuals can support one another's beliefs. This grouping of people has lead to identity being the primary consideration; facts are secondary.
    - Clubber 9y ago
      I agree with this. Sensationalism and conflict sells papers / ads. The comments section is just a reflection of the standard of the journalism business today. I would predict that any comment technology that lowers page views, even if it makes the conversation better, will be abandoned. I would go one step further though, the news tries to make everything emotional (it obvious by the loaded words they use). Any emotional discussion can't be rational, almost by nature.
    - Mediterraneo10 9y ago
      > I am quite convinced that the nature of US political discourse is largely determined by the predominant media There are plenty of historical examples of partisan clashes like the USA’s "conservative versus liberal/progressive" one without a modern media. Just look at some of the appalling rhetoric between the two parties of the time in 19th-century America, or the clashes between the Blues and Greens in Constantinople. Choosing a tribe to belong to and then adapting a harsh “us versus them” stance seems to be a human universal. Modern media has only capitalized on something that was already there.
  - rusk 9y ago
    I wonder is this a line of thinking borne of weariness? The dreadful nature of political discourse everywhere is surely something that should be up for improvement. I'd like to think technology could be used to improve this, even though lately it seems to have been confusing things. I'd be given to thinking that once the public at large become more familiar with, and respectful of the power of social media, it will be the means through which this discourse is improved. I think we already see this in many spheres, just that the ugliness usually tends to undermine effectiveness. The trolls need to go, and they will in time but it's as much a social issue as a technological one. I think what we're seeing here is a "long 1997" similar to the "long September" phenomenon being played out as whole new massive chunks of the population join the online world.
    - alloyed 9y ago
      I absolutely agree that our current situation needs to be improved, but looking at the history of media leads me to believe that by progressing past the centralized and regulated system of TV and radio we've left a local maximum when it comes to "civility". Older forms of "ugly" news, like the press of the french revolution or turn-of-the-century america, didn't get fixed over time, but by the law "catching up", either through oppression or the increase of regulation causing regulatory capture. Of course, the idea of recentralizing speech is more or less unacceptable: what would that even mean when the problem is not a small group of newsmakers, but literally everybody? I don't see any other solutions in our long past, though.
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  Not sure how you could ever hope to have productive debate on say an article about global warming. It's not a local topic, it's a difficult topic, there's millions of regular people and trolls around the world waiting to blab about something they don't have any clue about. It's hard for me to imagine what a comment on a Washington Post article could add to the article or to anyone's knowledge. It's user involvement for the sake of user involvement. "Healthy debate" is maybe unobtainable at that scale. HN can get pretty ignorant and off in the weeds (hey we're all guilty) fairly often, and that is despite being topical, relatively small, having relatively informed users and active moderators.
  - devinhelton 9y ago
    I think the biggest thing forums and comment systems need to do is to ban tedious comments. On subjects that have been debated to death, it is really annoying to see all the comments for a new article just be repeated talking points that I have seen a million times before. I would suggest sites have a single mega-threads for debating hot topics. Then make a rule that for any new article, you can only write a comment that says something new or something specific about the article. Forbid writing generic arguments that have already been covered in the topic mega-thread.
    - frou_dh 9y ago
      Let the inaugural cordoned-off HN comment sink be about Electron apps having high resource usage.
    - chiefofgxbxl 9y ago
      A ubiquitous example of this is the Facebook "Like" button, which the creator of which said she wanted to "solve the redundant problem": > So how did the like button come about? What problem were you trying to solve? I was trying to solve what we called the redundant problem. So for example, if you write "We're getting married!" all the comments used to say "Congratulations" over and over again. I found that really aesthetically ugly, plus, every time someone did say something heartfelt, the post was hard to find among all the other redundant ones. [0] I find a similar situation on YouTube, where commenters don't add any insight or discussion to the video, they just say something like, "Great job!" or "Beautiful music!". Not a problem in itself, but when you have hundreds or thousands of these comments it leaves out real room for critique, questions, etc. GitHub has a similar feature with reactions to issues. However, one small concern I have is that such reactions might "dumb down" user/viewer participation and give the impression that using a reaction is all you need to do to have an opinion. Real discourse requires thought and reason, and not just slapping an emotional sticker on something. [0] https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/mbag3a/the-inventor-of-the-like-button-wants-you-to-stop-worrying-about-likes https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/mbag3a/the-inventor-of-th...
- eighthnate 9y ago
  That's the problem. Everyone thinks everyone else is a troll.
  - ZenoArrow 9y ago
    I don't think you're a troll.
- odiroot 9y ago
  One's healthy debate is another man's trolling. It's so obvious recently in US online media.
  - s73ver_ 9y ago
    Ehh, not really.
  - cakedoggie 9y ago
    A troll is not someone you just disagree with.
    - odiroot 9y ago
      That's my point. Too many people immediately jump to stick this label just because they disagree.
- SubiculumCode 9y ago
  Not just trolls. I find that moderating voices have a hard time on comment sections. There is a tendency to go to one extreme or the other, where the most hardliners tend to drown others out.
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  That's assuming there's really anyone left.
- intended 9y ago
  Whatever tool removes the troll will tomorrow remove the whistleblower. People are running pell mell into this arms race and are stopping to imagine how their tools could be put to ill use. The best option for moderation is trained man power.
eighthnate 9y ago
The biggest problem is WaPo. And I'd say being a frequent read of WaPo isn't anything to be proud of either. In my estimation, WaPo is one of the most evil news institutions in the country and certainly the most powerful and the most involved in censoring/manipulating social media.
forapurpose 9y ago
> the biggest problem with their comments section is the commenters I think that's the problem with comments on any website. The questions are 1) how to bring out the best from people, and 2) whether that is sufficient. The same person will behave very differently in different contexts. They may be professional but constrained in a business meeting or around superiors; intellectual, curious, and challenging in a classroom; and obnoxious and loud in a bar. How do you make your comment section, and website in general, bring out the qualities you want in your comments? I'd guess that many websites are not so altruistic as to want intelligent comments more than provocative ones, to generate traffic. I recently read an interesting history of the NY Times Op-Ed section, which said that provocation, rather than wisdom, was the intent. And even if you bring out the best in people, is that sufficient? I find almost all columnists and op-ed writers to be a waste of time; how much time do I have for uninformed, random people? (And I appreciate the irony of saying that in my comment!)

As a DC-area resident and frequent reader of the Washington Post, the biggest problem with their comments section is the commenters. I'm not sure how this helps.

ZenoArrow 9y ago

> "I'm not sure how this helps." Better tools to filter out trolls leaves more space for healthy debate.

Twirrim 9y ago
> Better tools to filter out trolls leaves more space for healthy debate. The very nature of US political discourse itself leaves no space for healthy debate. I'm sceptical that removing the trolls is going to be sufficient to fix that.
- sbov 9y ago
  It would, but then there would be no one left to comment.
  - ZenoArrow 9y ago
    Except that by doing so it leaves a vacuum for more reasonable commenters to fill. It's not a culture change that happens overnight, but the potential long term benefits make it worthwhile.
- JacobJans 9y ago
  > The very nature of US political discourse itself leaves no space for healthy debate. I am quite convinced that the nature of US political discourse is largely determined by the predominant media, and not by the individuals participating in the discourse. –– Cable news is incentivized to sensationalize any minor event, and to frame stories centered around conflict –– Social media rewards the most emotionally potent messages, consistently pushing aside calm discourse in favor of messages that hit emotional hot-buttons –– Newspapers, magazines, etc have adapted their style of writing in order to gain more traction on social media, furthering the cycle of increasingly strong emotional engagement. Sure, newspapers are also often quite dispassionate, but those stories rarely gain much attention in the political realm. –– Social media also increasingly creates identity bubbles, where like minded individuals can support one another's beliefs. This grouping of people has lead to identity being the primary consideration; facts are secondary.
  - Clubber 9y ago
    I agree with this. Sensationalism and conflict sells papers / ads. The comments section is just a reflection of the standard of the journalism business today. I would predict that any comment technology that lowers page views, even if it makes the conversation better, will be abandoned. I would go one step further though, the news tries to make everything emotional (it obvious by the loaded words they use). Any emotional discussion can't be rational, almost by nature.
  - Mediterraneo10 9y ago
    > I am quite convinced that the nature of US political discourse is largely determined by the predominant media There are plenty of historical examples of partisan clashes like the USA’s "conservative versus liberal/progressive" one without a modern media. Just look at some of the appalling rhetoric between the two parties of the time in 19th-century America, or the clashes between the Blues and Greens in Constantinople. Choosing a tribe to belong to and then adapting a harsh “us versus them” stance seems to be a human universal. Modern media has only capitalized on something that was already there.
- rusk 9y ago
  I wonder is this a line of thinking borne of weariness? The dreadful nature of political discourse everywhere is surely something that should be up for improvement. I'd like to think technology could be used to improve this, even though lately it seems to have been confusing things. I'd be given to thinking that once the public at large become more familiar with, and respectful of the power of social media, it will be the means through which this discourse is improved. I think we already see this in many spheres, just that the ugliness usually tends to undermine effectiveness. The trolls need to go, and they will in time but it's as much a social issue as a technological one. I think what we're seeing here is a "long 1997" similar to the "long September" phenomenon being played out as whole new massive chunks of the population join the online world.
  - alloyed 9y ago
    I absolutely agree that our current situation needs to be improved, but looking at the history of media leads me to believe that by progressing past the centralized and regulated system of TV and radio we've left a local maximum when it comes to "civility". Older forms of "ugly" news, like the press of the french revolution or turn-of-the-century america, didn't get fixed over time, but by the law "catching up", either through oppression or the increase of regulation causing regulatory capture. Of course, the idea of recentralizing speech is more or less unacceptable: what would that even mean when the problem is not a small group of newsmakers, but literally everybody? I don't see any other solutions in our long past, though.
aaron-lebo 9y ago
Not sure how you could ever hope to have productive debate on say an article about global warming. It's not a local topic, it's a difficult topic, there's millions of regular people and trolls around the world waiting to blab about something they don't have any clue about. It's hard for me to imagine what a comment on a Washington Post article could add to the article or to anyone's knowledge. It's user involvement for the sake of user involvement. "Healthy debate" is maybe unobtainable at that scale. HN can get pretty ignorant and off in the weeds (hey we're all guilty) fairly often, and that is despite being topical, relatively small, having relatively informed users and active moderators.
- devinhelton 9y ago
  I think the biggest thing forums and comment systems need to do is to ban tedious comments. On subjects that have been debated to death, it is really annoying to see all the comments for a new article just be repeated talking points that I have seen a million times before. I would suggest sites have a single mega-threads for debating hot topics. Then make a rule that for any new article, you can only write a comment that says something new or something specific about the article. Forbid writing generic arguments that have already been covered in the topic mega-thread.
  - frou_dh 9y ago
    Let the inaugural cordoned-off HN comment sink be about Electron apps having high resource usage.
  - chiefofgxbxl 9y ago
    A ubiquitous example of this is the Facebook "Like" button, which the creator of which said she wanted to "solve the redundant problem": > So how did the like button come about? What problem were you trying to solve? I was trying to solve what we called the redundant problem. So for example, if you write "We're getting married!" all the comments used to say "Congratulations" over and over again. I found that really aesthetically ugly, plus, every time someone did say something heartfelt, the post was hard to find among all the other redundant ones. [0] I find a similar situation on YouTube, where commenters don't add any insight or discussion to the video, they just say something like, "Great job!" or "Beautiful music!". Not a problem in itself, but when you have hundreds or thousands of these comments it leaves out real room for critique, questions, etc. GitHub has a similar feature with reactions to issues. However, one small concern I have is that such reactions might "dumb down" user/viewer participation and give the impression that using a reaction is all you need to do to have an opinion. Real discourse requires thought and reason, and not just slapping an emotional sticker on something. [0] https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/mbag3a/the-inventor-of-the-like-button-wants-you-to-stop-worrying-about-likes https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/mbag3a/the-inventor-of-th...
eighthnate 9y ago
That's the problem. Everyone thinks everyone else is a troll.
- ZenoArrow 9y ago
  I don't think you're a troll.
odiroot 9y ago
One's healthy debate is another man's trolling. It's so obvious recently in US online media.
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  Ehh, not really.
- cakedoggie 9y ago
  A troll is not someone you just disagree with.
  - odiroot 9y ago
    That's my point. Too many people immediately jump to stick this label just because they disagree.
SubiculumCode 9y ago
Not just trolls. I find that moderating voices have a hard time on comment sections. There is a tendency to go to one extreme or the other, where the most hardliners tend to drown others out.
s73ver_ 9y ago
That's assuming there's really anyone left.
intended 9y ago
Whatever tool removes the troll will tomorrow remove the whistleblower. People are running pell mell into this arms race and are stopping to imagine how their tools could be put to ill use. The best option for moderation is trained man power.

eighthnate 9y ago

The biggest problem is WaPo. And I'd say being a frequent read of WaPo isn't anything to be proud of either. In my estimation, WaPo is one of the most evil news institutions in the country and certainly the most powerful and the most involved in censoring/manipulating social media.

forapurpose 9y ago

> the biggest problem with their comments section is the commenters I think that's the problem with comments on any website. The questions are 1) how to bring out the best from people, and 2) whether that is sufficient. The same person will behave very differently in different contexts. They may be professional but constrained in a business meeting or around superiors; intellectual, curious, and challenging in a classroom; and obnoxious and loud in a bar. How do you make your comment section, and website in general, bring out the qualities you want in your comments? I'd guess that many websites are not so altruistic as to want intelligent comments more than provocative ones, to generate traffic. I recently read an interesting history of the NY Times Op-Ed section, which said that provocation, rather than wisdom, was the intent. And even if you bring out the best in people, is that sufficient? I find almost all columnists and op-ed writers to be a waste of time; how much time do I have for uninformed, random people? (And I appreciate the irony of saying that in my comment!)