NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments • Hacker News Board

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#251

Post by bradleyankrom » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 10:05 PM UTC

eddieh wrote: post #233

overcast wrote: post #170

This is an interesting move, and a topic I've been discussing with friends. I've stopped using sites like Reddit, because the comment sections are just toxic. I've gone as far as installing Chrome extensions that make comment sections disappear from popular sites like YouTube. It's too easy to get drawn into the negativity, and I'm completely over it. "Social Networking" has reached it's low point as far as I'm conce…

Even HN has declined, but what bothers me most is that HN has a definite range of views that are acceptable. This limits useful discourse. e.g. someone should be able to criticize Elon Musk without being downvoted to hell. While HN does stay civil, I think it is too limited in general. Don't get me wrong, the reason I use HN is because the discussion hasn't devolved into /. or reddit. However, HN would do well to enc…

Re HN: also anything that can be coerced into a political discussion will devolve quickly. Conservative views typically wind up grayed, even when they are substantive arguments.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#252

Post by welanes » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 10:05 PM UTC

mosburger wrote: post #122

In the earlier days of blogging (circa mid-2000s, I think?) bloggers and article writers were encouraged to have comment sections as a mechanism to "engage" with their audience. Social Media and blogging experts like Chris Brogan urged people to actively participate with commenters to build a community around their work (and he used to be very critical of Seth Godin for not having comments on his site). But that was…

> what purpose do they serve?

You tell me, we're doing it right now, albeit by proxy. A return to a read-only web outside of Twitter and Facebook would make articles less insightful, sites less accountable and the web a little more boring.

For example, I have saved dozens of comments from The FT and The Economist which added brilliant addendums as well as counter-points to the article topic. It would be dull without these mini-communities below the line.

Sure, some comments are toxic - it's a reflection of society and a consequence of everybody having access to the web. How about a 'show comments' button like some websites have? Make them opt-in.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#253

Post by jsmthrowaway » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 10:06 PM UTC

bradleyankrom wrote: post #251

eddieh wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even HN has declined, but what bothers me most is that HN has a definite range of views that are acceptable. This limits useful discourse. e.g. someone should be able to criticize Elon Musk without being downvoted to hell. While HN does stay civil, I think it is too limited in general. Don't get me wrong, the reason I use HN is because the discussion hasn't devolved into /. or reddit. However, HN would do well to enc…

Re HN: also anything that can be coerced into a political discussion will devolve quickly. Conservative views typically wind up grayed, even when they are substantive arguments.

This is because it is de facto HN policy to be OK with downvoting to register disagreement. pg put that one down and it hasn't changed.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#254

Post by dredmorbius » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 10:06 PM UTC

hx87 wrote: post #81

guard-of-terra wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disqus more or less figured out comment moderation around me. I'm yet to see a Disqus-powered comment system overran by undesirable content. HN is failing at comments. During last years, the community deteriorated to the point where for many articles every single comment is grayed-out downvoted. That signifies quite a rift in community. HN used to be upvote-intensive excitement-driven but today it's downvote-intensiv…

Which articles are you reading? I have yet to see a single article where that has happened.

Turn on "showdead" and you'll see much more.

Often justified. Sometimes not.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#255

Post by illumin8 » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 10:09 PM UTC

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #241

eddieh wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even HN has declined, but what bothers me most is that HN has a definite range of views that are acceptable. This limits useful discourse. e.g. someone should be able to criticize Elon Musk without being downvoted to hell. While HN does stay civil, I think it is too limited in general. Don't get me wrong, the reason I use HN is because the discussion hasn't devolved into /. or reddit. However, HN would do well to enc…

The anti-dissent phenomenon is amplified by the greying of comments, which continues to be a bad idea all these years later. The literal message and incentive there is: leave a comment that gets upvotes or it will get progressively harder to read until nobody can actually read it. So now you have to care about what you say, because it will be completely removed from the site by natural voting if you don't toe a certa…

HN could remove this disagreement moderation bias by implementing a meta-moderation feature similar to Slashdot.

Slashdot used to be a great place (like HN was a few years ago), and many of the best moderation systems originated there.

Meta-moderation kept everything fair because you could moderate the moderators. The way it worked was that people with high karma would get asked at the top of their page to please take time and meta-moderate 10 comments a day. You get presented with 10 random comments and the moderation +/-, and simply check a radio button indicating whether the moderation was fair or unfair.

The way it was enforced, I assume, is that people who were meta-moderated as unfair too often would lose their ability to moderate completely.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#256

Post by vertex-four » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 10:11 PM UTC

bradleyankrom wrote: post #251

eddieh wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even HN has declined, but what bothers me most is that HN has a definite range of views that are acceptable. This limits useful discourse. e.g. someone should be able to criticize Elon Musk without being downvoted to hell. While HN does stay civil, I think it is too limited in general. Don't get me wrong, the reason I use HN is because the discussion hasn't devolved into /. or reddit. However, HN would do well to enc…

Re HN: also anything that can be coerced into a political discussion will devolve quickly. Conservative views typically wind up grayed, even when they are substantive arguments.

Right-libertarian views are generally most popular here - both "conservative" and "liberal" (American definitions of both) views are generally not popular. And god forbid you have views that would be considered slightly left of center in much of the EU.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#257

Post by bradleyankrom » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 10:11 PM UTC

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #253

bradleyankrom wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re HN: also anything that can be coerced into a political discussion will devolve quickly. Conservative views typically wind up grayed, even when they are substantive arguments.

This is because it is de facto HN policy to be OK with downvoting to register disagreement. pg put that one down and it hasn't changed.

I've noticed flagging being used similarly, too. The argument that downvoting should be used to register disagreement falls apart when you consider that only users with enough (>= 500, I think?) karma have disagreement privileges.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#258

Post by gallonofmilk » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 10:12 PM UTC

maybe the problem isn't comment moderation, but rather the expectation that anyone should be able to "control" the dissemination of human thought through mediums like the internet?

the sooner news companies etc drop this notion of control the better chance they stand in the future.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#259

Post by kbenson » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 10:19 PM UTC

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #241

eddieh wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even HN has declined, but what bothers me most is that HN has a definite range of views that are acceptable. This limits useful discourse. e.g. someone should be able to criticize Elon Musk without being downvoted to hell. While HN does stay civil, I think it is too limited in general. Don't get me wrong, the reason I use HN is because the discussion hasn't devolved into /. or reddit. However, HN would do well to enc…

The anti-dissent phenomenon is amplified by the greying of comments, which continues to be a bad idea all these years later. The literal message and incentive there is: leave a comment that gets upvotes or it will get progressively harder to read until nobody can actually read it. So now you have to care about what you say, because it will be completely removed from the site by natural voting if you don't toe a certa…

I agree the greying out of comments is problematic, but I think it also serves an important purpose, and that's to incentivize care in the crafting of your comment. It is the punishment of community norms as much as the negative points are. Unfortunately, community norms have a way of adopting views as well as actions, and we have what you refer to as anti-dissent mode.

Ultimately, the question is whether negatives of people who down vote on disagreement (as opposed to more objective items, such as lack of evidence for assertions or overly personal and/or aggressive comments) outweighs the benefit of a very effective way for the community to self moderate, given there is occasional pushback against subjective down voting when it happens.

The problem will of course seem larger if some of the common community views conflict with your own, and you've been subjected to the consequences of this. This is countered by the human tendency (IMO) to view unexplained negativity as unwarranted. Were you downvoted because your comment was lacking in some regard, or because you stepped into a pet issue of the community. It's easier to believe the second, and while it is the case sometimes, it's hard to tell what is perception and what is reality.

Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments

#260

Post by dmatthewson » Wed, Aug 17, 2016, 10:19 PM UTC

They cite cost as the issue, that only 2600 users represent half of all comments on their entire system.

I don't know how much they are paying for a third party to manage their comment system, but I will bid $500/month to handle those 2600 users comprising half of all comments, or $1000/month for all comments. All inclusive bid. I can get this tiny number of users running on a pretty modest system.

My proposed system will also save money on subpoenas and moderation overhead by not storing ip addresses and not having paid moderation.