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Yeah, I don't know why general news outlets have comment sections, they're universally awful. They should go back to Letters (Emails) to the Editor, but that wo
by a3n 12y ago
Yeah, I don't know why general news outlets have comment sections, they're universally awful. They should go back to Letters (Emails) to the Editor, but that would mean they'd have to pay someone to field the emails.
- tim333 12y agoWhere voting is allowed for best comment, the best ones are often quite useful. The Economist for example, it's usually worth reading the top comments. For some odd reason the guardian does not allow sorting the comments by best votes.
- krapp 12y agoI suspect comment sections outside of forums (or sites which are designed around discussion like HN or Reddit) are mostly attempts to make a site more "viral" and "social", in the belief that doing so will somehow drive people to your site and keep them engaged and maybe clicking on the ads or whatever. While this could be true, with certain sites (like news sites) comments are bound to be politically charged and tend towards the negative. Doubly so if comments allow threading or reflinks, making tangential discussions (and arguments) between posters easy. I think many sites assume comments would somehow lead to a revenue stream because something something facebook. Also, it's probably likely that any site built on Wordpress is going to keep comments by default in their templates.