Some research I'd like someone else to do

[andrewducker]

I'd like someone to look at all the different commenting systems out there, and work out why some of them have a decent proportion of interesting discussion, while some of them are full of pond scum.

And then write up the findings, along with a nice simple checklist for "How to manage the comments on your site if you want good discussion".

Because, frankly, on 95% of the sites out there I avoid reading the comments, because I know it's just not good for my blood pressure.

Comments

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

I once accidentally wandered into the Daily Mail readers comments section.

My sanity is yet to recover.

[andrewducker]

Frustratingly, The Guardian's website can be just as bad.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

I've visited briefly another couple of newspapers forums, and they were pretty awful too.

Though the Sun's was quite funny in terms of sheer number of times Hitler and the Nazis were invoked.

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

It is any site with a lot of readers. The problem is you can't moderate people just for being idiots (although that Gawker system mentioned below is interesting).

[andrewducker]

Hacker News also has a Karma system, where you can only upvote when you've been upvoted yourself for X points, and you an only downvote when you've reached Y points. It's quite simple, and seems to work reasonably well.

It's all self-running as well - the users moderate themselves.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

"you can't moderate people just for being idiots"

Says who?

Actually, I can think of at least one site which explicitly removes posts and bans people for being, in their opinion, stupid. And they're the source of record for hardcore World of Warcraft players, so they're doing something right.

(They're also remarkably polite for a gamer site)

[andrewducker]

I believe that Something Awful also punish _the wrong kind of_ stupidity very heavily.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

You're gently caressing right they do.

[andrewducker]

I don't read SA myself, but I get enough stuff forwarded on by a friend that does to make that terribly funny :->

[andrewducker]

Just had a friend point out the £10 joining fee. Which will also stop people doing stuff stupid enough to get banned.

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

I think the $5 fee for Metafilter also filters out a lot of the crap. Along with having visible moderators who are part of the community and not just some figure on high banning and deleting things, and who will explain their decisions.

[xquiq.livejournal.com]

In a sort of odd way, I sometimes enjoy reading the Daily Mail comments section, particularly on the 'Femail' articles. Then I remember that these are actually people, many of whom are probably allowed to vote.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

That's the kicker isn't it, when you suddenly realise they are out there, voting. *cough* for the conservative party *cough*

:)

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

From my not inextensive experience:

1) Allow commenting without registration, but do NOT allow anonymous commenting.

2) Be very very active as a moderator - you should respond to most comments yourself.

3) Try "be nice, guys" first if an argument looks like it's kicking off, or equivalent. De-escalate. There are excellent courses out there on how to do this.

4) PMs (personal messages) to people being dicks are also good.

5) Disemvoweling or editing messages is more effective than deleting, and interrupts the conversation less.

6) Do not be afraid to use the banhammer if you have to.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, the unwillingness of moderators to tidy the comments up inevitably leads to disaster. Comments need to be dealt with quickly, otherwise situations deteriorate.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

It's HOW you deal with them, too. Personally my preferred approach would be something like:

Andrew, [Ad hominem deleted by moderator - be nice, guys, we're all on the same side here], but I agree that comments need to be tidied rapidly.

[andrewducker]

Hey, you can't say that about my mother!

I don't actually have the ability to do that on LJ, but I can freeze and delete comments, which seems to work reasonably well.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

Those are important rules/principles, and probably all that are needed.

Personally, I rarely read Comments on anything but Making Light and a few trusted blogs done by people who pretty much follow your suggestions -- the Newspaper & other Mass Media sites' Comment threads I sampled all seemed to be inherently toxic.

[matgb]

This.

Any site, especially a mainstream news site, that allows freeform comments but offers no engagement will see the comments devolve horribly.

I suspect more succesful sites will eventually need to switch on 1), and all should, if OpenID was more userfriendly, be able to start insisting on at least OpenID (or similar, like Oauth or Facebook).

I think newspaper sites should, if they're going to allow comments, insist the journalist that wrote the article follow and respond to comments.

On CiF, the only threads worth reading are the ones where the post was written by a blogger who then engages properly in comments.

It's not the actual commenting system that matters (even LJ comments boxes can become sewers, especially on feeds). IT's the level of engagement and the sense of community.

Here, I know I can talk to pretty much any other commenter and get a decent discussion out of it. I can do that on some wordpress blogs, even some bloody blogger blogs. But on other LJs, even those of actual friends, commenting is rarely worth it, and replying to someone I don't know? Scary reactions are scary.

Atmosphere matters a lot, takes time to build up a decent comments box.

[skington.livejournal.com]

Otherwise known as: Do What Teresa Nielsen Hayden says.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Close, anyway. I disagree with TNH on a couple of points of community management, and think she's occasionally more aggressive than she needs to be, but yeah, in general, she Knows Her Shit.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

Gawker - where you have to audition to become a regular commentator. When you first comment it shows up by has to be approved by either a member of the staff or a "gold star" commentator before he or she can bid again.

When you are first approved you are a regular level commentator and users can flag their comments if considered inappropriate. Over time if the commentator proves him or herself they get a gold star and can not be flagged but get the right to flag non gold star users and approve newbie commentators.

[andrewducker]

Similar with Hacker News (see above).

[broin.livejournal.com]

Also...it depends what comment you want, obviously.

4chan? /b/ is... /b/. But /ck/ (cooking) has some superbly interesting and insightful chatter.

Yeah, I know.

4chan is also deeply honest. There are no status games.

Plastic.com used to be where I went for political debate, but now I stick to Comment is Free for the most part. But even there, the tiny Guardian boxes cramp comment.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

a nice simple checklist for "How to manage the comments on your site if you want good discussion".

A smart person I know recently did just this - here you go:

1) There
2) Are
3) Of
4) Course
5) No
6) Such
7) Things

There's plenty of top tips (many of them with some evidence to suggest they help), but my experience (and I'm sort-of paid to know about this stuff) is that the comments you get are the product of the social context, not the technical system. The technical system can have an influence (sometimes profound), but the 'right' technical tool is neither necessary nor sufficient for good discussion. (Also, defining 'good discussion' really rigorously is bloody hard.)

[phillipalden.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah. I'll have the time for that project sometime around 2050.

[andrewducker]

I think I have some spare time in 2061!

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

I seem not to have problems with my blood-pressure when reading those toxic comments, but do need to be careful lest it trigger an attack of Clinical Depression when contemplating the possibility that those writers may be, after all, typical human beings.

Anything on the InterNet can attract the occasional jerk, of course, but I find that topics with any whiff of Politics (including "Political Correctness", Racism/Sexism, & Economics subsets) or Religion tend to be worst, with others such as Gardening and Cooking being generally civil. (Not that no-one ever goes off on a wild tirade, but when it happens, often as not, the others (mostly Regulars) just give a "X is Ranting about that Pet Peeve again" shrug.)