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

[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.