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I think, for the most part, general news sites shouldn't have comment sections.

by jstalin 13y ago

TelmoMenezes 13y ago
I feel the opposite. Nowadays, I can't stand reading general news without a comments section. I think it's one of the areas where "crowd intelligence" actually works amazingly well: in uncovering fallacies, subtle agendas, propaganda, misrepresentation of facts, etc. I feel I might be polluting my mind when I read a piece of general news that is not being subject to commenting.
- betterunix 13y ago
  It all depends on how things are run. On some sites the comments are written by people who are borderline illiterate. On others the comments are insightful. I am somewhat hesitant to say it, but a good policy might be to charge people a small fee (like $5/yr) to post comments. Much of the trolling and illiterate nonsense would be would be filtered by such a system, at least from what I have seen in places like Metafilter or the WELL. Edit: or we could do things mailing list / Usenet style and just have people run spam filters on their own. Of course, some NGs are overrun with noise that makes them almost unreadable. Also, most computer users are not sophisticated enough to actually set up a killfile or spam filter on their own.
  - simias 13y ago
    I'm not sure having people pay would give good results, in the french newspaper "lemonde.fr" for instance you have to have to be a subscriber to be able to comment. There are less comments than on other big new sites, but I can't say the quality is significantly higher. Better grammar, maybe.
- runn1ng 13y ago
  If you feel that comment section shows that crowd intelligence works, you have different definition of works than I do.
  - rowanseymour 13y ago
    Aren't HN comments 'crowd intelligence' ?
nsxwolf 13y ago
I have never seen comments on a news site that were worthwhile. It's always a train wreck. Any time I scroll down to look at them, I quickly ask myself "Why did I just do that?" They give you a skewed perspective of the world. When I read Huffington Post comments, I have to remind myself that all liberals are not this obnoxiously stupid. When an article gets linked by Drudge, I have to remind myself that all conservatives are not psychotic hateful trolls.
- onebaddude 13y ago
  >It's always a train wreck. I take the opposite view. When it's a disaster comment section, I see it as: this is actually how some people think. Until there were options, like comments, that gave everyone a platform, it was impossible to tell what people thought about the message being delivered. Good or bad. Most sites, including this one, the commentary has the best insight.
  - nsxwolf 13y ago
    But if you look carefully, it's often a relatively small group of trolls burning down the entire section. Take Drudge-linked stories, for instance. There are about 6 super-trolls that aggressively post on every single linked story (the "Feds Made Sarah Palin" guy, the guy that talks like Zippy the Pinhead with all the CAPS). The normal, level-headed people probably aren't posting at all, and they greatly outnumber the trolls who do.

I think, for the most part, general news sites shouldn't have comment sections.

by jstalin 13y ago

I think, for the most part, general news sites shouldn't have comment sections.

I feel the opposite. Nowadays, I can't stand reading general news without a comments section. I think it's one of the areas where "crowd intelligence" actually works amazingly well: in uncovering fallacies, subtle agendas, propaganda, misrepresentation of facts, etc. I feel I might be polluting my mind when I read a piece of general news that is not being subject to commenting.

betterunix 13y ago
It all depends on how things are run. On some sites the comments are written by people who are borderline illiterate. On others the comments are insightful. I am somewhat hesitant to say it, but a good policy might be to charge people a small fee (like $5/yr) to post comments. Much of the trolling and illiterate nonsense would be would be filtered by such a system, at least from what I have seen in places like Metafilter or the WELL. Edit: or we could do things mailing list / Usenet style and just have people run spam filters on their own. Of course, some NGs are overrun with noise that makes them almost unreadable. Also, most computer users are not sophisticated enough to actually set up a killfile or spam filter on their own.
- simias 13y ago
  I'm not sure having people pay would give good results, in the french newspaper "lemonde.fr" for instance you have to have to be a subscriber to be able to comment. There are less comments than on other big new sites, but I can't say the quality is significantly higher. Better grammar, maybe.
runn1ng 13y ago
If you feel that comment section shows that crowd intelligence works, you have different definition of works than I do.
- rowanseymour 13y ago
  Aren't HN comments 'crowd intelligence' ?

nsxwolf 13y ago

I have never seen comments on a news site that were worthwhile. It's always a train wreck. Any time I scroll down to look at them, I quickly ask myself "Why did I just do that?" They give you a skewed perspective of the world. When I read Huffington Post comments, I have to remind myself that all liberals are not this obnoxiously stupid. When an article gets linked by Drudge, I have to remind myself that all conservatives are not psychotic hateful trolls.

onebaddude 13y ago
>It's always a train wreck. I take the opposite view. When it's a disaster comment section, I see it as: this is actually how some people think. Until there were options, like comments, that gave everyone a platform, it was impossible to tell what people thought about the message being delivered. Good or bad. Most sites, including this one, the commentary has the best insight.
- nsxwolf 13y ago
  But if you look carefully, it's often a relatively small group of trolls burning down the entire section. Take Drudge-linked stories, for instance. There are about 6 super-trolls that aggressively post on every single linked story (the "Feds Made Sarah Palin" guy, the guy that talks like Zippy the Pinhead with all the CAPS). The normal, level-headed people probably aren't posting at all, and they greatly outnumber the trolls who do.