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The focus on "identifying journalists", muting "annoying" voices, the "RESPECT" button and pushing specific comments to the top by featuring them kind of leave

The focus on "identifying journalists", muting "annoying" voices, the "RESPECT" button and pushing specific comments to the top by featuring them kind of leave a bad taste in my mouth... And I would be the last to argue that comment sections below news articles are anything but a cesspool - they're notoriously bad! But I'm just not sure a control model this heavy handed and lip-servicey is the right approach.

DarkWiiPlayer 7y ago
Same. Reading "Five Myths of Community Design" on the same site [1] left me kind of wondering if they really built a service people would want to use. Personally, I've always thought the "like" model of modern online interaction is broken, but my idea about fixing it would be to add "Agree" and "Disagree" buttons, but only display the sum the two as a measure of engagement. [1] https://coralproject.net/blog/five-myths-of-community-design-day-one/#myth1 https://coralproject.net/blog/five-myths-of-community-design...
- jdavis703 7y ago
  You need more than agree and disagree to measure engagement, otherwise you're just measuring polarization. For example you might want to measure several reactions such as: interesting, funny, angering and sad.
  - DarkWiiPlayer 7y ago
    I believe that if the social currency is interactions instead of specifically positive interactions, as well as with the shift from "dislike" to "disagree" (something less associated with negative emotions) this would discourage engaging at all with strongly offensive content, effectively just starving it of attention. Of course this is just a theory; until someone implements it and evaluates the result, I may well be completely wrong and maybe it'd even have the oposite effect.
  - mgkimsal 7y ago
    a "thanks" button would go a long way to bringing some outward civility to many discussions. 'like' just doesn't have the same weight.
  - olah_1 7y ago
    >interesting, funny, angering and sad. If facebook is any indication, these end up being used mostly ironically. I can't imagine they give facebook any real indication of emotion on their platform. Even the "angry" react (which is mostly an ironic reaction), is missing the context. Are you angry with the commenter? Are you angry about the something the commenter is referencing?
    - new_guy 7y ago
      >Even the "angry" react (which is mostly an ironic reaction), is missing the context. Are you angry with the commenter? Are you angry about the something the commenter is referencing? Interestingly on my site we have a total of 31 custom reactions people can use to express their reaction to a piece. The ONLY one people feel the need to qualify is the dislike one, anytime someone uses it they qualify it with 'disliking the content, not the post'. There's no obvious reason for it though, the dislike is just one among many and it looks the same as all the other reactions, but it's the only one to generate a unique response.
      - olah_1 7y ago
        It would be interesting if all reactions could have some system of reacting to different parts of a post. Perhaps you can attach a react onto the username instead of the comment? Or you can attach a react onto a specific sentence of a comment instead of the entire comment?
  - repolfx 7y ago
    For example you might want to measure several reactions such as: interesting, funny, angering and sad. Slashdot does that. To vote for a post you have to pick an adjective. I always thought it worked well, because it showed what kind of content would be valued. For example "funny" is an adjective you can pick, which signals the site valued funny comments. I had some great laughs reading it back in the day.
- olah_1 7y ago
  >"Agree" and "Disagree" buttons Why not just have an Overton window slider that lets people place where they think the comment is on the scale?
  - DarkWiiPlayer 7y ago
    That's the exact opposite of what I'm saying. It puts emphasis on "Is it acceptable to post this". I'm talking precisely about ignoring those posts altogether.
- RHSeeger 7y ago
  What if I don't agree with something, but think it's worthwhile to read. A dissenting opinion, etc.
jasode 7y ago
>But I'm just not sure a control model this heavy handed Is there any consensus that a popular website's comment area has high-quality conversation but also does not have heavy-handed moderation? The Coral website doesn't mention it explicitly but I believe the project is trying to reverse the trend of publishing websites disabling user comments.[0][1] It seems like a bunch of websites suddenly realized their user comments were more of a liability than an asset. Either heavily moderate them (costs $$$ in human labor) -- or disable them completely. [0] https://www.wired.com/2015/10/brief-history-of-the-demise-of-the-comments-timeline/ https://www.wired.com/2015/10/brief-history-of-the-demise-of... [1] https://www.kqed.org/lowdown/29720/no-comment-why-a-growing-number-of-news-sites-are-dumping-their-comment-sections https://www.kqed.org/lowdown/29720/no-comment-why-a-growing-...
VvR-Ox 7y ago
I think this may be based on how you'd like the people to act. But from my experience there is situations and places where someone has to look for people and help them to stop their destructive behavior. In my opinion this problem is connected to the "tragedy of the commons" and maybe some day we (humans) will overcome these flaws but until then they need some leadership, control and sanctions (just like kids and teenagers when they grow up). Of course there is people who can behave all time when they communicate and who don't leave their trash everywhere they go but I think it's a minority. While saying this I'm very aware of the fact that I wrote a lot of bad comments myself. Maybe such a system could help people like me, I'd be glad to see it in action to find out.

DarkWiiPlayer 7y ago

Same. Reading "Five Myths of Community Design" on the same site [1] left me kind of wondering if they really built a service people would want to use. Personally, I've always thought the "like" model of modern online interaction is broken, but my idea about fixing it would be to add "Agree" and "Disagree" buttons, but only display the sum the two as a measure of engagement. [1] https://coralproject.net/blog/five-myths-of-community-design-day-one/#myth1 https://coralproject.net/blog/five-myths-of-community-design...

jdavis703 7y ago
You need more than agree and disagree to measure engagement, otherwise you're just measuring polarization. For example you might want to measure several reactions such as: interesting, funny, angering and sad.
- DarkWiiPlayer 7y ago
  I believe that if the social currency is interactions instead of specifically positive interactions, as well as with the shift from "dislike" to "disagree" (something less associated with negative emotions) this would discourage engaging at all with strongly offensive content, effectively just starving it of attention. Of course this is just a theory; until someone implements it and evaluates the result, I may well be completely wrong and maybe it'd even have the oposite effect.
- mgkimsal 7y ago
  a "thanks" button would go a long way to bringing some outward civility to many discussions. 'like' just doesn't have the same weight.
- olah_1 7y ago
  >interesting, funny, angering and sad. If facebook is any indication, these end up being used mostly ironically. I can't imagine they give facebook any real indication of emotion on their platform. Even the "angry" react (which is mostly an ironic reaction), is missing the context. Are you angry with the commenter? Are you angry about the something the commenter is referencing?
  - new_guy 7y ago
    >Even the "angry" react (which is mostly an ironic reaction), is missing the context. Are you angry with the commenter? Are you angry about the something the commenter is referencing? Interestingly on my site we have a total of 31 custom reactions people can use to express their reaction to a piece. The ONLY one people feel the need to qualify is the dislike one, anytime someone uses it they qualify it with 'disliking the content, not the post'. There's no obvious reason for it though, the dislike is just one among many and it looks the same as all the other reactions, but it's the only one to generate a unique response.
    - olah_1 7y ago
      It would be interesting if all reactions could have some system of reacting to different parts of a post. Perhaps you can attach a react onto the username instead of the comment? Or you can attach a react onto a specific sentence of a comment instead of the entire comment?
- repolfx 7y ago
  For example you might want to measure several reactions such as: interesting, funny, angering and sad. Slashdot does that. To vote for a post you have to pick an adjective. I always thought it worked well, because it showed what kind of content would be valued. For example "funny" is an adjective you can pick, which signals the site valued funny comments. I had some great laughs reading it back in the day.
olah_1 7y ago
>"Agree" and "Disagree" buttons Why not just have an Overton window slider that lets people place where they think the comment is on the scale?
- DarkWiiPlayer 7y ago
  That's the exact opposite of what I'm saying. It puts emphasis on "Is it acceptable to post this". I'm talking precisely about ignoring those posts altogether.
RHSeeger 7y ago
What if I don't agree with something, but think it's worthwhile to read. A dissenting opinion, etc.

jasode 7y ago

>But I'm just not sure a control model this heavy handed Is there any consensus that a popular website's comment area has high-quality conversation but also does not have heavy-handed moderation? The Coral website doesn't mention it explicitly but I believe the project is trying to reverse the trend of publishing websites disabling user comments.[0][1] It seems like a bunch of websites suddenly realized their user comments were more of a liability than an asset. Either heavily moderate them (costs $$$ in human labor) -- or disable them completely. [0] https://www.wired.com/2015/10/brief-history-of-the-demise-of-the-comments-timeline/ https://www.wired.com/2015/10/brief-history-of-the-demise-of... [1] https://www.kqed.org/lowdown/29720/no-comment-why-a-growing-number-of-news-sites-are-dumping-their-comment-sections https://www.kqed.org/lowdown/29720/no-comment-why-a-growing-...

VvR-Ox 7y ago

I think this may be based on how you'd like the people to act. But from my experience there is situations and places where someone has to look for people and help them to stop their destructive behavior. In my opinion this problem is connected to the "tragedy of the commons" and maybe some day we (humans) will overcome these flaws but until then they need some leadership, control and sanctions (just like kids and teenagers when they grow up). Of course there is people who can behave all time when they communicate and who don't leave their trash everywhere they go but I think it's a minority. While saying this I'm very aware of the fact that I wrote a lot of bad comments myself. Maybe such a system could help people like me, I'd be glad to see it in action to find out.