Comments on: Are comments a wretched hive of scum and villainy or an underused resource for publishers?

By: cas127

cas127 — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 03:32:23 +0000

Speaking of wretched scum, isn’t that Paul “ALL YOUR QE-DILUTED SAVINGS BELONGS TO US” Krugman and “Zimbabwe Ben” Bernanke in the photo – circa 2020, post inflationary apocalypse?

By: Tracy @ WSB

Tracy @ WSB — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 08:04:36 +0000

I have always said two things: “Comments are content” – not just during breaking news, when commenters can contribute new information, observations, etc., but also for stories that need more digging, such as an ongoing issue here – a story we broke – police installing federally funded surveillance cameras without community consultation first; commenters have dug up more information, even gone out for a closer look at the cameras. #2 – NO ONLINE ENTERPRISE OF ANY SIZE HAS ANY EXCUSE FOR NOT HAVING/ENFORCING RULES. The only reason comments are a sewer on any site is because the site owner/s abdicated their responsibility. I understand there may be the occasional site that really wants to see a mudfight (or worse) among certain readers. Otherwise, if you can afford to run a website, you can afford to keep watch on your comments. And don’t just make it the province of a “community manager” or “moderators.” On news sites, every reporter should be responsible for her/his stories’ discussion section. Etc.

By: Kevin Horne

Kevin Horne — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 20:16:14 +0000

Not sure if NYTimes is the same, but you can comment without being a subscriber. So even when you hit the paywall in a set time period, the comments tab on the article is still there for you to access…which might be why the comments might not always be of high quality (i.e., people who comment without reading the whole artilce ;-)

By: Jacquelyn McBain

Jacquelyn McBain — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 19:53:32 +0000

These comments about comments have been useful…giving me links I hadn’t considered. Saw Ta-Nehisi Coates’ on UP…interesting to learn where he came from.
The commodifying side of comments is something that might best occur further down the line…when someone’s comments get attention and you get hired!
But finding truth is what it’s about, isn’t it? And when there’s money to be had, corruption and distortion take off like plagues, especially without a healthy societal immune system, like a good, functioning FCC. I think that’s why bad comments in the Wall Street Journal are frequent…it’s the domain of the dollar first and ideas are there to support that end rather than the pursuit of truth untethered by this goal.
Beyond money, these segues are the healthy tissue of discourse…group think. This might become a better immune system and less corruptible than governmental agencies many of which are currently, willfully hampered or which function in name only.

By: Martin Belam

Martin Belam — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 14:24:16 +0000

The trouble is I often find myself holding the “two competing views of website and blog comments” at the same time – really useful on small digital-only publications, often really dreadful on large traditional sites that don’t resource managing them well. I’ve got a lot of time for the community management teams at the big players, I think they often do a lot of good work with very little support.

By: Mathew Ingram

Mathew Ingram — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 14:11:09 +0000

It’s interesting that you say the Wall Street Journal has the worst comments — I would have expected them to be better, since it has a paywall. For me, some of the best comments appear on personal blogs like Union Square Ventures partner Fred Wilson’s AVC blog, or Ta-Nehisi Coates’ stuff at the Atlantic.

By: David Thomas

David Thomas — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 14:09:52 +0000

Its the fundamental difference between qualitative and quantitative marketing data — the qualitative has to be evaluated with a lot of scrutiny and skepticism. As in a previous commentary, MI explored the issue of veracity which can’t be assessed very well — new approaches adopt a merit badge approach (ala foursquare, etc.). The key is not to over value comments — treat them as windows to inferences that can be assessed by data studies, not a sampling of majority sentiment.

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 07:05:43 +0000

Cool – the previous 2 comments illustrate both ends of the spectrum.

To avoid falling into that trap let me say that, even though I have to wade through a lot of garbage to find it, comments can sometimes provide the best information, or at least important context for the stories they follow.

But different publications and comment systems seem to collect wildly varying quality. Wall Street Journal and Yahoo! seem to bring the worst comments. Slate used to be near the top, until their experiment with Facebook’s comments engine. Ars Tecnica seem pretty good. Newsvine had a great system for a while (star comments, and a way to see only these), but I haven’t checked back in a while.

Who does comments best now?

By: paul martin

paul martin — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 04:42:52 +0000

You get the audience u deserve and whatabout Disqus

By: efemurl

efemurl — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 23:56:20 +0000

Great Post…..In my opinion Comments do add “Value” and there is a possibility that they can be leveraged to add revenues

Interesting to see how aggressively companies create and extend technology to; extract value, “softly” encircle, and commoditize community created content.