In the news: community & comments

Vanilla Forums
Vanilla Forums
in General

Share interesting or insightful articles about the state of comments & community on the Internet... and comment on them. :open_mouth:

TIME cover headline (Aug 26), article by Joel Stein: Why we're losing the Internet to the culture of hate.

Gene Demby at NPR (Twitter thread): Tomorrow is the last day for comments on NPR.

WIRED (editors): Dear Internet: It’s Time to Fix This Mess You Made.

Margaret Sullivan for Wapo: Everyone seems to hate online reader comments. Here’s why I treasure them.

Comments

  • Unknown
    Unknown

    First they came for comments, but I we weren't a commenting system so I didn't say anything...

    Commenting systems usually consist of only drive-by posting which is their fundamental flaw that communities don't have. However, comments and forums are still close cousins so I wonder what can be done to save comments.

    A few thoughts:

    • Why bother with commenting when you can share a story on Facebook or Reddit and then talk about it with your social network or community?
    • Is the problem in comments because publishers ignore their comments completely?
    • Are there any technological fixes for commenting systems?
  • Vanilla Forums
    Vanilla Forums

    This is a very good thread (as in, click & read the chain) on engineers at AirBnB attempting to "solve" bias:

  • Vanilla Forums
    Vanilla Forums

    @Todd said:

    • Why bother with commenting when you can share a story on Facebook or Reddit and then talk about it with your social network or community?

    Overlapping interests is my take. Sure I can share it on Facebook, but will anyone even see it let alone engage?

    • Is the problem in comments because publishers ignore their comments completely?

    I think that's a problem, but I also think anything short of fully engaging and moderating the comments is also the problem.

    • Are there any technological fixes for commenting systems?

    From the Margaret Sullivan article:

    An organization called the Coral Project is working on it. Funded by the Knight Foundation and involving The Post, the Times and the tech developer Mozilla Foundation, it’s an effort to find the best ways for news organizations to engage with their audiences — on their own sites.

    https://coralproject.net/

    Ultimately our solution in this space might end up being integration with a giant research project like that that's far beyond the scope of what we could do on our own.

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