Let's Talk About Commenting
We twittered about this a few days ago, but we’d like to open it up for discussion: What can we do to improve the overall the quality of comments on the blog, to encourage lurkers to get involved without alienating some of the more active and, um, spirited commenters? We hear quite often from regular…
We twittered about this a few days ago, but we’d like to open it up for discussion: What can we do to improve the overall the quality of comments on the blog, to encourage lurkers to get involved without alienating some of the more active and, um, spirited commenters? We hear quite often from regular readers who feel uncomfortable, even intimidated, with the prospect of commenting. This isn’t surprising given the verbal beat-down one new commenter received from a gang of regulars a couple of weeks ago. Nor is the level of discussion going on in today’s Open Thread really where we’d like it to be. Short of active comment moderation, which really isn’t a practical option, what do you think we can/should do to elevate the quality of discussion and make newcomers feel more welcome? We’d be particularly interested to hear from some folks who usually hang back on the sidelines. It’s in the best interests of the blog and everyone who reads it to have as many people contributing their knowledge and opinions as possible.
Thanks,
Mr. B
Hello everyone,
I very rarely comment and when I do, I usually find myself on the receiving end of snarky commentary mixed in with true pearls of wisdom.
Some Ad hominen attacks thrown in on occasion.
In one of my other lives, I actually help to create usability structures for interactive projects and have a few simple ideas.
#1. Ratings on comments. The idea here (and lots of websites use this approach) is to let anyone rank a comment written by another user as either a thumbs up or a thumb down rating. This allows the community to generate a metric that we all can use to rate the relevance of a particular comment writer.
In other words, all this would do is give everyone a percentage rating. Maybe i’m a 50% approved, maybe others are higher or lower, but the point is that by doing this we can make visible the community based rating for everyone who does choose to post. ratings can be based on a user, or on a post on a particular thread.
#2. sorting/filtering/promoting.
Point #1 might be good enough and maybe all I need to know is what the ratings of others are. But… we can take it further.
filtering comments is a good way to tone down a thread that has become overburdened. The idea here is that for any given thread (or for any given user globally in the community) if a particular user’s comments are very poorly rated then the website simply hides that comment. It creates a little temporal problem of course but also let’s the community choose collectively what to see and what to not.
Software can create a threshold (maybe a rating of 10% approval?) which removes anything that the community has rated poorly.
software can also toggle on/off the mean threads so the hard core users can see everything if they like.
Sorting and promoting comments is a little bit different and also produces some temporal problems. The idea here is the inverse of filtering. Brownstonersoftware ™ would promote the highest rated community rated postings to the top of the list. It would be a little bit like the comment of the day thing that brownstoner does except it would go at the top of the page, and then beneath it in another window would be the raw commentary. This way casual forum users could just look at the top rated posts as nuggets of wisdom and hard core users could read everything deep in the notes.
There’s a bunch of different approaches you guys can use to upgrade your project you just need to be flexible.
My 2 cents:
I enjoy reading this blog and use it daily to gain important information on all aspects of Brooklyn living, I check the forums, reply where I can and post my own questions. I find most of the threads informative and entertaining. Yes, the OT has become a bit of a clique and sometimes you are in and sometimes you aren’t – which is fine – it’s cyberspace for crissakes – but I don’t think you should moderate posters or limit posts. The creation of the OT was the perfect way to keep the silly banter contained and has fostered relationships outside int he real world.
I agree with some of the previous posters – I would love to see more threads in the evening or on weekends. Perhaps you can offer regular posters a chance for them to get a small payment if they too contribute a lot of pictures or stories that you might not be able to cover.
Perhaps creating an incentive to your loyal fanbase might spark more interest.
I did read the post, but I wasn’t talking about hits in my comment. Brownstoner is a “smaller pond” in the sense that registration is turning away lots of folks out that would otherwise be active participants. It’s consistent with this that the overall number of hits on the site has increased.
“After that there would be 5 posters left on Brownstoner, Dumbass!!!”
Illusions of Grandeur. That is a myth you would propagate because the arrow points to you.
Ever decent semi to serious forum/list I am on have moderation. Participation varies much more there than here.
“Grow a pair and hit back!!!!!”
And there lies the disconnect between the casuals and regulars. You apparently take this very seriously and want the fight. Some just want a discussion. And not like there is intellectual honesty in the flame fest that goes on here.
i don’t think i post less often directly because of the regular posters, but it’s an interesting thought. if you feel intimidated by the Usuals to the point you won’t post something you would otherwise, I gotta assume it really wasn’t worth posting in the first place.
Ha! Don’t get mad at me What, just pointing out the obvious. I actually appreciate your comments and think they are needed here.
But it seems you’ve got a conflict to work out between enjoying the notoriety and promoting readership on one hand, and rooting for the demise of the site on the other…..
People actaully read the comments, I thought they were there for looks! I havent read a comment in forever (except a few on FIPS about the dancers at 13’s)! I just write to see my name in print!
So come in the waters fine!
Perhaps some sort of voting system can be instituted? Posters whose comments are voted to be the most useful/informative get their “comment allotment” increased or some such thing. The opposite can be true as well. That way What (and possibly Rob, sorry) will be limited to 1 comment a day. Democracy inaction!
You long ago made the decision to cradle a few hardcore regulars and to make this site a sort of virtual parlor for them. There’s something to be said for this strategy, but it has a cost as you now obviously realize.
Posted by: Tesla Coil at March 27, 2009 11:46 AM
…March is actually going to be a record month in terms of visitor traffic–we’ll clear 1.5 million pageviews for the first time so that’s not a concern….
Posted by: brownstoner at March 27, 2009 11:26 AM
This is actually what i hate the most….when someone jumps in and posts without thinking or having read the previous posts or posts something on topic but completely out of context. Its annoying that you don’t take the time to read before you post.