> This has nothing to do with comments. The emphasis on comments is little more than an attempt to get on the "social media is harmful" bandwagon. I don't agre

> This has nothing to do with comments. The emphasis on comments is little more than an attempt to get on the "social media is harmful" bandwagon. I don't agree. First of all, this study was about comments, and as such we now have data about how comments affect the reader. There may be studies about annoying ads and the like, but this study is useful because it provides data about comments on a page. I agree with your premise that > We respond to the whole experience, not just the propositional content of an article. however this article and study are most certainly about the specific effect of comments. Secondly, comments are significantly different enough from the other elements you outlined (such as design and advertisements) to warrant individual research and reporting. For example, comments are community-generated vs "site-generated" (for want of a better term) things like design and ad content. Comments are a user engagement tool, and in light of this research this tool evokes a number of questions. * Good design is for our intents a solved problem; find a good designer and give them money. How does one cultivate "good" comments? * We agree that having malware advertisements on your site is bad practice; is it bad practice to have unmoderated comments on a science blog? * Are authors justified in disabling comments completely? I don't agree that this is just "complaining about the purportedly ill effects of participatory online discussion", nor do I even agree that this is what was being done in the first place (it's not how I read the article). This article is providing reporting about a study that has given us data about how comments effect consumers of science reporting, and should cause us to question the role and implementation of comments in the future. As an aside, my favourite comment from the article, posted after a long series of rants about reporters with agendas: > Ouch, right in the irony.