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How Ta-Nehisi Coates built the best comment section on the internet

44 points by Thevet 12y ago

A_COMPUTER 12y ago
I have read and commented on his articles for years. I am opinionated on them. His were only moderately better than most other places. >these days I tend to believe that comment sections are just tumors on otherwise good journalism, and that we’d all be better off without them. Comments sections are great when the writer is lying or obfuscating, which happens with shocking regularity. It's great when someone in the comments section adds context to a story that the writer neglected to include, either though ignorance or malice. I would say for local news, you quite often have to go to the comments section to even find out what really happened.
DavidAdams 12y ago
The Hacker News crowd and the tech entrepreneurship ecosystem in general has a deserved reputation for a bias toward trying to fix problems that are prominent in their own line of sight. In other words, a lot of startups trying to fix problems that vex prosperous, tech-savvy single people in San Francisco. But here's a geek-world problem that's staring us all right in the face. Despite the enormous potential benefit of the internet as a place for open, respectful discourse among people from all walks of life, it seems that every forum must eventually devolve into ad-hominem rancor and trolling, unless it's aggressively and time-consumingly moderated by dedicated human beings. I've been involved in trying to crack this particular nut since 1997 as publisher of OSNews, and I've been a participant in some relatively good forums such as HN over the years, but I can't help but think that there's an opportunity start with what Disqus has done and take it to the next level. In the article, Coates bemoans the limited moderation toolset that he got from Disqus, and I can't help but think that there's a potential big data play to fingerprint the most obvious kinds of trolling and give human moderators a quiver of time-saving tools to keep their forums on the straight and narrow. If anyone here has some ideas about how we might go about executing on this idea, let me know. I'd be interested in being involved.
- panic 12y ago
  If you haven't seen it already, you should watch Matt Haughey's "Lessons from 11 years of community" (link below), in which he describes some of the moderation tools and techniques MetaFilter has developed over the years. "Lessons from 11 years of community": https://vimeo.com/21043675 https://vimeo.com/21043675
  - LeoPanthera 12y ago
    The problem with MetaFilter's moderation is that it is both heavy-handed and entirely opaque. If they decide a comment is unacceptable, for whatever reason, it is simply erased from history. The poster is not informed this has happened, nor told why. There are two enormous disadvantages to this model - it doesn't encourage commenters to improve the quality of what they post, and it ultimately creates an atmosphere of mistrust, from those who have been silently black-holed. The Reddit model of public votes is better, even when layered with admin moderation, because at least users can see what is happening, and why.
    - A_COMPUTER 12y ago
      In the past on Metafilter, if there were some unacceptable comments they were deleted but the moderator would add a comment that simply restated what was not allowed and asking people to stay civil. I think this can actually work really well, because it doesn't shame the people moderated and they can move forward without feeling personally slighted. This is in stark contrast to the person's name next to a big [DELETED] or Boingboing's mocking "disemvowelment".
      - wiml 12y ago
        I have to agree that one of the things that made Metafilter's moderation more successful was being able to moderate without alienating the users. Moderation often devolves into simply ejecting all but one "tribe" from a forum so that nobody's left to have a disagreement; MeFi avoided that trap far better than many places.
mturmon 12y ago
His blog is one of the most thought-provoking American political/social blogs. He writes from a unique perspective and really challenges you to think.
blackbagboys 12y ago
Ta-Nehisi Coates's commentary is explicitly political and ideological, and those ideological affinities defined the limits of acceptable discourse in his comments section. You may or may not be sympathetic to those politics (I am, to a degree), but here's another way to describe what made this 'the best comment section on the Internet': it intentionally excluded any viewpoint too far outside the mainstream of the community (and, contra the author's implication, those comments were not necessarily racist trolling). A similar phenomenon happens on HN; the community centers itself around a particular set of values or opinions, and opinions which differ too radically from the center are very effectively marginalized - like a wave losing strength as it ripples outward. This allows for productive discourse, but explicitly describing the benefits of collective censorship as such makes some people uneasy. (It's important, then, to ensure that you participate in communities with many different "opinion loci".)
- swatow 12y ago
  HN does strike a good balance between civility and diversity of opinion. Or at least they get a lot of one controlling for the other. I tend to post from a right wing perspective but only had one comment flag killed (where I pointed out that it was hypocritical of French Americans to say that France needs to preserve its culture, while at the same time saying that the US has no culture, and anyone who says it does is a racist). The one thing that bothers me is the flood of social justice themed articles, including one that was flag killed but revived by the mods. I guess the mods felt that they were reacting against over-zealous flaggers. But I think in practice they are overriding the opinion of the community who are sick of articles about issues like sexism in tech.
  - cbd1984 12y ago
    > the US has no culture How anyone can believe this is beyond me. It is like saying a given atom has no protons, or that a given region of a country has no area. It's such a gross misunderstanding of basic concepts it should mark anyone who says it as someone who has no basis for continuing the discussion.
    - 12y ago
snowwrestler 12y ago
> Those threads were where the regulars started to really get to know each other, and develop their own shorthand, nicknames, and inside jokes. Online communities, like any communities, need to develop the right culture in order to thrive. People have to get to know each other; then they'll engage in shared defense of the culture against hostile outsiders (trolls, in this case). If you're trying to create on online community, then you can short-cut the process a little bit by attempting to install your own culture via participation (modelling the values you want to see in your commenters) and moderation (excluding those who violate the culture). But to do that effectively is very hard work. Hard work that most people and most publishers don't seem willing to do. So they end up with crappy pointless comment threads.

44 points by Thevet 12y ago

I have read and commented on his articles for years. I am opinionated on them. His were only moderately better than most other places. >these days I tend to believe that comment sections are just tumors on otherwise good journalism, and that we’d all be better off without them. Comments sections are great when the writer is lying or obfuscating, which happens with shocking regularity. It's great when someone in the comments section adds context to a story that the writer neglected to include, either though ignorance or malice. I would say for local news, you quite often have to go to the comments section to even find out what really happened.

DavidAdams 12y ago

The Hacker News crowd and the tech entrepreneurship ecosystem in general has a deserved reputation for a bias toward trying to fix problems that are prominent in their own line of sight. In other words, a lot of startups trying to fix problems that vex prosperous, tech-savvy single people in San Francisco. But here's a geek-world problem that's staring us all right in the face. Despite the enormous potential benefit of the internet as a place for open, respectful discourse among people from all walks of life, it seems that every forum must eventually devolve into ad-hominem rancor and trolling, unless it's aggressively and time-consumingly moderated by dedicated human beings. I've been involved in trying to crack this particular nut since 1997 as publisher of OSNews, and I've been a participant in some relatively good forums such as HN over the years, but I can't help but think that there's an opportunity start with what Disqus has done and take it to the next level. In the article, Coates bemoans the limited moderation toolset that he got from Disqus, and I can't help but think that there's a potential big data play to fingerprint the most obvious kinds of trolling and give human moderators a quiver of time-saving tools to keep their forums on the straight and narrow. If anyone here has some ideas about how we might go about executing on this idea, let me know. I'd be interested in being involved.

panic 12y ago
If you haven't seen it already, you should watch Matt Haughey's "Lessons from 11 years of community" (link below), in which he describes some of the moderation tools and techniques MetaFilter has developed over the years. "Lessons from 11 years of community": https://vimeo.com/21043675 https://vimeo.com/21043675
- LeoPanthera 12y ago
  The problem with MetaFilter's moderation is that it is both heavy-handed and entirely opaque. If they decide a comment is unacceptable, for whatever reason, it is simply erased from history. The poster is not informed this has happened, nor told why. There are two enormous disadvantages to this model - it doesn't encourage commenters to improve the quality of what they post, and it ultimately creates an atmosphere of mistrust, from those who have been silently black-holed. The Reddit model of public votes is better, even when layered with admin moderation, because at least users can see what is happening, and why.
  - A_COMPUTER 12y ago
    In the past on Metafilter, if there were some unacceptable comments they were deleted but the moderator would add a comment that simply restated what was not allowed and asking people to stay civil. I think this can actually work really well, because it doesn't shame the people moderated and they can move forward without feeling personally slighted. This is in stark contrast to the person's name next to a big [DELETED] or Boingboing's mocking "disemvowelment".
    - wiml 12y ago
      I have to agree that one of the things that made Metafilter's moderation more successful was being able to moderate without alienating the users. Moderation often devolves into simply ejecting all but one "tribe" from a forum so that nobody's left to have a disagreement; MeFi avoided that trap far better than many places.

mturmon 12y ago

His blog is one of the most thought-provoking American political/social blogs. He writes from a unique perspective and really challenges you to think.

blackbagboys 12y ago

Ta-Nehisi Coates's commentary is explicitly political and ideological, and those ideological affinities defined the limits of acceptable discourse in his comments section. You may or may not be sympathetic to those politics (I am, to a degree), but here's another way to describe what made this 'the best comment section on the Internet': it intentionally excluded any viewpoint too far outside the mainstream of the community (and, contra the author's implication, those comments were not necessarily racist trolling). A similar phenomenon happens on HN; the community centers itself around a particular set of values or opinions, and opinions which differ too radically from the center are very effectively marginalized - like a wave losing strength as it ripples outward. This allows for productive discourse, but explicitly describing the benefits of collective censorship as such makes some people uneasy. (It's important, then, to ensure that you participate in communities with many different "opinion loci".)

swatow 12y ago
HN does strike a good balance between civility and diversity of opinion. Or at least they get a lot of one controlling for the other. I tend to post from a right wing perspective but only had one comment flag killed (where I pointed out that it was hypocritical of French Americans to say that France needs to preserve its culture, while at the same time saying that the US has no culture, and anyone who says it does is a racist). The one thing that bothers me is the flood of social justice themed articles, including one that was flag killed but revived by the mods. I guess the mods felt that they were reacting against over-zealous flaggers. But I think in practice they are overriding the opinion of the community who are sick of articles about issues like sexism in tech.
- cbd1984 12y ago
  > the US has no culture How anyone can believe this is beyond me. It is like saying a given atom has no protons, or that a given region of a country has no area. It's such a gross misunderstanding of basic concepts it should mark anyone who says it as someone who has no basis for continuing the discussion.
  - 12y ago

snowwrestler 12y ago

> Those threads were where the regulars started to really get to know each other, and develop their own shorthand, nicknames, and inside jokes. Online communities, like any communities, need to develop the right culture in order to thrive. People have to get to know each other; then they'll engage in shared defense of the culture against hostile outsiders (trolls, in this case). If you're trying to create on online community, then you can short-cut the process a little bit by attempting to install your own culture via participation (modelling the values you want to see in your commenters) and moderation (excluding those who violate the culture). But to do that effectively is very hard work. Hard work that most people and most publishers don't seem willing to do. So they end up with crappy pointless comment threads.