6 ms·

I'm a web editor at a regional news site, and moderating reader comments is a huge pain in the neck, largely because of the inherent anonymity of the web. A fe

by jawns 16y ago

I'm a web editor at a regional news site, and moderating reader comments is a huge pain in the neck, largely because of the inherent anonymity of the web. A few years back, I tried to come up with a solution. I created Truyoo (http://www.truyoo.com http://www.truyoo.com), which essentially requires a user to pay a one-time nominal fee (less than $2) to confirm their identity. They would then be issued a Truyoo ID, which could be used to comment on any site that used Truyoo. For legitimate, constructive commenters, this is extremely inexpensive -- but it quickly becomes very expensive for spammy/abusive users. Unfortunately, Truyoo never gained traction, largely because no publisher was willing to ask its users to pay even a tiny one-time fee to comment.

user24 16y ago
> For legitimate, constructive commenters, this is extremely inexpensive actually compared to the status quo, free, it's extremely expensive.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- hollerith 16y ago
  Only if your time has no value.
zecho 16y ago
It has nothing to do with anonymity. It has everything to do with the content on which people comment. For example, political articles are bound to bring in opposing viewpoints. And if you allow anyone to comment, you're bound to bring in a lot of people. I'm convinced if you want to keep the level of discourse up, you can have a (mostly) homogeneous group of commenters and a large scale site or a small group of heterogeneous commenters, but you cannot have both scale and heterogeneity. By charging your users to comment, you're probably going to reduce scale.
- jdp23 16y ago
  It's a great point that there aren't any obvious examples in the US of large heterogenous groups with good comments. That said I also am not aware of any attempt to do even Slashdot-like crowdsourced voting (including explanation of reasons for voting, meta-moderation) at scale, or to take the next step and provide a richer user experience to make it easy for users to be able to filter out what they don't want do see.
- luminous00 16y ago
  From a publisher's point of view, it has a lot to do with anonymity. Ever try to block a determined troll?
- fredBuddemeyer 16y ago
  it has a lot to do with anonymity. simply look at techcrunch and what happened overnight with real names- quite large and homogenous too.
kmfrk 16y ago
Great concept - the more available approaches the better. It also works fairly well for Something Awful. My problem with the site is that my intuitive malware/scam heuristics would get a false positive on the site, if you hadn't vouched for it here on Hacker News. If you changed the design, it might help a little, but you obviously still need to figure out the market for the service. On the positive side, companies are starting to realize that they aren't handling comment systems very well.
- zecho 16y ago
  Something Awful is also heavily, heavily moderated and it's a group of fairly like-minded people, especially in the subforums outside GBS. If I remember right, I think the $10 charge was more to recoup costs of running the site. Keeping out crazies is a side effect.
  - kmfrk 16y ago
    It's not very heavily moderated, but it does have moderators that can be summoned with the report buttons. One of the first things you learn on SA is to "grow a thicker skin", because there aren't enough moderators with sufficient time to stop users from ganging up on some people and giving them a hard time. And as a result, moderators also allow a harsher tone. The moderators are vital, but I wouldn't say that they are moderating heavily. It does show the relevance of communities like SA versus random gatherings of visitors that most comment systems on websites constitute.
  - samengland 16y ago
    I think heavy, but not overly up-front moderation is the key to building a good discussion - this simply means clearing out comments which are superfluous - thereby creating richer, more readable content.
halo 16y ago
Removing anonymity discourages normal users who don't want to leave a permanent record that may come back to haunt them later ("The Internet's not written in pencil, Mark, it's written in ink").
- spottiness 16y ago
  I agree. Anonymity is essential for honest discussion. Anonymity is almost required to know what people "really" think. That's why we created Spottiness. In our site, every "spot" has to be anonymous or won't be published. Our challenge is to weed out the garbage while we make it very easy for everybody to say what they think.
  - thaumaturgy 16y ago
    So you think 4Chan is the epitome of honesty?
    - spottiness 16y ago
      Never heard of that site. I gave it a look and realized that your comment is ironic, but still I'll reply: Our content is heavily moderated, so the obvious crap that 4Chan shows has no possibility of being published. Yet, if somebody has something interesting to say about pornography, we provide the anonymous channel, as long as the idea meets common sense standards of civility and good taste.
      - astrange 16y ago
        Why does your site have user accounts? It seems like it's combining different audiences at once - the red ones are transmission of random teenage angst (better to put in any pseudonymous journal site or tumblr), the gold ones are positive reviews (seems like they're safe on Yelp), and no black ones have actually appeared in the time I've had this window open. It's nice that the page live-scrolls, but then why does Read More reload the page? > Yet, if somebody has something interesting to say about pornography They might not care whether you think it meets your standard of good taste?
e1ven 16y ago
I tried the same with a social networking site (Like Reddit/HN) about a year ago. When I asked users to pay even $1 to try it, no one was interested in doing so. http://e1ven.com/2010/09/15/lonava-com-retrospective/ http://e1ven.com/2010/09/15/lonava-com-retrospective/
- zem 16y ago
  ended up working extremely well for metafilter, though
- adambyrtek 16y ago
  What was the incentive for them to pay?
- jawns 16y ago
  Heh ... I tried to do almost exactly what you tried to do, with similar results: http://coding.pressbin.com/50/10-web-start-ups-all-mine--and-why-they-failed http://coding.pressbin.com/50/10-web-start-ups-all-mine--and... Check out the blurbs on Truyoo, Utopic, and ioFeed.
  - e1ven 16y ago
    Wow, reading through that, and looking at Utropic, it's amazing how similar our projects were. We had many of the same aims, ambitions, problems, and results. I think your analysis of the situation (No Co-Founder, Not fully invested) was true for both of us, but I also, particularly after reading your ioFeed post.. We're creating technical solutions to problems. That's not enough. Saying "I can improve on Facebook" doesn't take into account the huge network effect, and it doesn't solve the problem of getting people onto your site. It's a good reminder that the tech isn't enough by itself.
jerrya 16y ago
"I'm a web editor at a regional news site, and moderating reader comments is a huge pain in the neck" Right. You're doing it wrong. Stop moderating reader comments. Let readers moderate reader comments. Stop creating one way comment systems. Create ways for readers to converse with reporters. At hacker news for example, all sorts of entrepreneurs come by and all sorts of startup wannabe employees come through as well. When was the last time you saw a reporter have any serious interaction with his readers in the comments?
- jawns 16y ago
  Bear in mind that mainstream, general-interest news sites can't get away with (or don't perceive themselves as being able to get away with) allowing incredibly offensive content to just sit there, waiting for other readers to flag it. Works for some brands -- not for others.

by jawns 16y ago

user24 16y ago

> For legitimate, constructive commenters, this is extremely inexpensive actually compared to the status quo, free, it's extremely expensive.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
hollerith 16y ago
Only if your time has no value.

zecho 16y ago

It has nothing to do with anonymity. It has everything to do with the content on which people comment. For example, political articles are bound to bring in opposing viewpoints. And if you allow anyone to comment, you're bound to bring in a lot of people. I'm convinced if you want to keep the level of discourse up, you can have a (mostly) homogeneous group of commenters and a large scale site or a small group of heterogeneous commenters, but you cannot have both scale and heterogeneity. By charging your users to comment, you're probably going to reduce scale.

jdp23 16y ago
It's a great point that there aren't any obvious examples in the US of large heterogenous groups with good comments. That said I also am not aware of any attempt to do even Slashdot-like crowdsourced voting (including explanation of reasons for voting, meta-moderation) at scale, or to take the next step and provide a richer user experience to make it easy for users to be able to filter out what they don't want do see.
luminous00 16y ago
From a publisher's point of view, it has a lot to do with anonymity. Ever try to block a determined troll?
fredBuddemeyer 16y ago
it has a lot to do with anonymity. simply look at techcrunch and what happened overnight with real names- quite large and homogenous too.

kmfrk 16y ago

Great concept - the more available approaches the better. It also works fairly well for Something Awful. My problem with the site is that my intuitive malware/scam heuristics would get a false positive on the site, if you hadn't vouched for it here on Hacker News. If you changed the design, it might help a little, but you obviously still need to figure out the market for the service. On the positive side, companies are starting to realize that they aren't handling comment systems very well.

zecho 16y ago
Something Awful is also heavily, heavily moderated and it's a group of fairly like-minded people, especially in the subforums outside GBS. If I remember right, I think the $10 charge was more to recoup costs of running the site. Keeping out crazies is a side effect.
- kmfrk 16y ago
  It's not very heavily moderated, but it does have moderators that can be summoned with the report buttons. One of the first things you learn on SA is to "grow a thicker skin", because there aren't enough moderators with sufficient time to stop users from ganging up on some people and giving them a hard time. And as a result, moderators also allow a harsher tone. The moderators are vital, but I wouldn't say that they are moderating heavily. It does show the relevance of communities like SA versus random gatherings of visitors that most comment systems on websites constitute.
- samengland 16y ago
  I think heavy, but not overly up-front moderation is the key to building a good discussion - this simply means clearing out comments which are superfluous - thereby creating richer, more readable content.

halo 16y ago

Removing anonymity discourages normal users who don't want to leave a permanent record that may come back to haunt them later ("The Internet's not written in pencil, Mark, it's written in ink").

spottiness 16y ago
I agree. Anonymity is essential for honest discussion. Anonymity is almost required to know what people "really" think. That's why we created Spottiness. In our site, every "spot" has to be anonymous or won't be published. Our challenge is to weed out the garbage while we make it very easy for everybody to say what they think.
- thaumaturgy 16y ago
  So you think 4Chan is the epitome of honesty?
  - spottiness 16y ago
    Never heard of that site. I gave it a look and realized that your comment is ironic, but still I'll reply: Our content is heavily moderated, so the obvious crap that 4Chan shows has no possibility of being published. Yet, if somebody has something interesting to say about pornography, we provide the anonymous channel, as long as the idea meets common sense standards of civility and good taste.
    - astrange 16y ago
      Why does your site have user accounts? It seems like it's combining different audiences at once - the red ones are transmission of random teenage angst (better to put in any pseudonymous journal site or tumblr), the gold ones are positive reviews (seems like they're safe on Yelp), and no black ones have actually appeared in the time I've had this window open. It's nice that the page live-scrolls, but then why does Read More reload the page? > Yet, if somebody has something interesting to say about pornography They might not care whether you think it meets your standard of good taste?

e1ven 16y ago

I tried the same with a social networking site (Like Reddit/HN) about a year ago. When I asked users to pay even $1 to try it, no one was interested in doing so. http://e1ven.com/2010/09/15/lonava-com-retrospective/ http://e1ven.com/2010/09/15/lonava-com-retrospective/

zem 16y ago
ended up working extremely well for metafilter, though
adambyrtek 16y ago
What was the incentive for them to pay?
jawns 16y ago
Heh ... I tried to do almost exactly what you tried to do, with similar results: http://coding.pressbin.com/50/10-web-start-ups-all-mine--and-why-they-failed http://coding.pressbin.com/50/10-web-start-ups-all-mine--and... Check out the blurbs on Truyoo, Utopic, and ioFeed.
- e1ven 16y ago
  Wow, reading through that, and looking at Utropic, it's amazing how similar our projects were. We had many of the same aims, ambitions, problems, and results. I think your analysis of the situation (No Co-Founder, Not fully invested) was true for both of us, but I also, particularly after reading your ioFeed post.. We're creating technical solutions to problems. That's not enough. Saying "I can improve on Facebook" doesn't take into account the huge network effect, and it doesn't solve the problem of getting people onto your site. It's a good reminder that the tech isn't enough by itself.

jerrya 16y ago

"I'm a web editor at a regional news site, and moderating reader comments is a huge pain in the neck" Right. You're doing it wrong. Stop moderating reader comments. Let readers moderate reader comments. Stop creating one way comment systems. Create ways for readers to converse with reporters. At hacker news for example, all sorts of entrepreneurs come by and all sorts of startup wannabe employees come through as well. When was the last time you saw a reporter have any serious interaction with his readers in the comments?

jawns 16y ago
Bear in mind that mainstream, general-interest news sites can't get away with (or don't perceive themselves as being able to get away with) allowing incredibly offensive content to just sit there, waiting for other readers to flag it. Works for some brands -- not for others.