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I am confused as to how a "tech" site such as t/c doesn't have any sort of community comment moderation features. It makes sense to let your readers vote down

by htsh 17y ago

I am confused as to how a "tech" site such as t/c doesn't have any sort of community comment moderation features. It makes sense to let your readers vote down the trollish comments. On slashdot and reddit and even on digg, if you set your comment threshold to +5, what's left behind is pretty good conversation. On HN, trollish comments are grayed out almost immediately. What's most disappointing is that slashdot has had a comment karma system since '97. Instead of complaining about the trolls, I'd prefer if they actually did something about it.

froo 17y ago
Slashdot, reddit, digg and HN are homebrewed software - TechCrunch is a Wordpress install, a little bit of a different kettle of fish. But regardless, I think that with a significant number of people who just troll the comments at techcrunch, any kind voting system will just be gamed anyway and in doing so, will dilute it's effectiveness.
- slig 17y ago
  > TechCrunch is a Wordpress install, a little bit of a different kettle of fish. Which is opensource and can be customized. TC isn't a toy blog, so they should hire someone to work on the feature, or use 3-rd part comment system, like Intense Debate or Disqus.
- htsh 17y ago
  I kinda like the HN system of only allowing downvotes if you maintain a comment karma above a certain level. That, or something like that, makes a lot of sense and it can't really be "gamed" by the comment trolls on techcrunch. Again, my belief is simply that this is not a new problem. The word "troll" has existed since the BBS days and over the last 10 years other sites have come up with clever ways (that work) to filter the trollish comments out. I don't think any of them are perfect, but it seems a bit cynical and overstated to say "any" voting system would be gamed if other sites have managed. Even digg.
prawn 17y ago
Great post htsh. Slashdot-style community-based moderation is clearly the way forward. Even reading at +2 is quite reasonable and certainly allows you to avoid the trash you get on TC or YouTube (reading the comments there surely brings anyone to doubt the mental capacity of their fellow humans).
- htsh 17y ago
  Perhaps I'm an old man but it seems really retarded for folks like this to be wasting time with a problem that had been solved over a decade ago. And it doesn't have to be exactly the same -- but something is better than anything. Also, the retail site Amazon has also had community review moderation for the better part of a decade. Even if there's only a "like" button that brings more liked comments up, it'd be something. No system is perfect, but all of them work well enough to bring useful content up and push trollish content out or invisible. And if trolls want to fight amongst themselves, they can still do it (either at the bottom of the page or by turning their threshold off). You simply cannot have folks pick and choose which comments to keep and which to censor. That definitely will not make for good discussion, as evidenced by their efforts to date. And even if its wordpress, as someone pointed out its open source and I bet there are multiple plugins that setup such functionality. I simply don't believe that these "tech" people in Silicon Valley would have a problem finding someone to do a little coding for them. Seems lazy more than anything else.

by htsh 17y ago

froo 17y ago

Slashdot, reddit, digg and HN are homebrewed software - TechCrunch is a Wordpress install, a little bit of a different kettle of fish. But regardless, I think that with a significant number of people who just troll the comments at techcrunch, any kind voting system will just be gamed anyway and in doing so, will dilute it's effectiveness.

slig 17y ago
> TechCrunch is a Wordpress install, a little bit of a different kettle of fish. Which is opensource and can be customized. TC isn't a toy blog, so they should hire someone to work on the feature, or use 3-rd part comment system, like Intense Debate or Disqus.
htsh 17y ago
I kinda like the HN system of only allowing downvotes if you maintain a comment karma above a certain level. That, or something like that, makes a lot of sense and it can't really be "gamed" by the comment trolls on techcrunch. Again, my belief is simply that this is not a new problem. The word "troll" has existed since the BBS days and over the last 10 years other sites have come up with clever ways (that work) to filter the trollish comments out. I don't think any of them are perfect, but it seems a bit cynical and overstated to say "any" voting system would be gamed if other sites have managed. Even digg.

prawn 17y ago

Great post htsh. Slashdot-style community-based moderation is clearly the way forward. Even reading at +2 is quite reasonable and certainly allows you to avoid the trash you get on TC or YouTube (reading the comments there surely brings anyone to doubt the mental capacity of their fellow humans).

htsh 17y ago
Perhaps I'm an old man but it seems really retarded for folks like this to be wasting time with a problem that had been solved over a decade ago. And it doesn't have to be exactly the same -- but something is better than anything. Also, the retail site Amazon has also had community review moderation for the better part of a decade. Even if there's only a "like" button that brings more liked comments up, it'd be something. No system is perfect, but all of them work well enough to bring useful content up and push trollish content out or invisible. And if trolls want to fight amongst themselves, they can still do it (either at the bottom of the page or by turning their threshold off). You simply cannot have folks pick and choose which comments to keep and which to censor. That definitely will not make for good discussion, as evidenced by their efforts to date. And even if its wordpress, as someone pointed out its open source and I bet there are multiple plugins that setup such functionality. I simply don't believe that these "tech" people in Silicon Valley would have a problem finding someone to do a little coding for them. Seems lazy more than anything else.