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Talk: An open-source commenting platform focused on better conversation

coralproject.net

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Re: Talk: An open-source commenting platform focused on better conversation

#51

Post by naasking »

Fellshard wrote: post #21
wmf wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you dig deeper it's more like anti-Twitter. "We don’t allow commenters to see each other’s comment histories, We don’t have @ mentions, No Follows, No private messaging, We use ‘Respect’, not ‘Like’, Our notifications are opt in, and via email, We don’t create a feed ... for you to constantly refresh, No gamification, No infinite scroll, world-class moderation tools, We tell community members if the algorithm thin…

Re: decentralized communities: Is that decentralized, or independently hosted? Does the owner of the site host the database, or is Coral Talk hosting all databases, with a separate instance for each site? Re: explicit algorithm violation notices: Good, but it does not sound like there's an appropriate appeals process in place, something required even with algorithms in place. Also important to have said algorithm be…

> Good, but it does not sound like there's an appropriate appeals process in place

And possibly make every judgment public and transparent like the courts, but redact any content that is illegal and/or involves doxxing and other privacy violations. Whenever humans interact, we need something like a justice system/courts.

Re: Talk: An open-source commenting platform focused on better conversation

#52

Post by olah_1 »

jdavis703 wrote: post #44
DarkWiiPlayer wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. Reading "Five Myths of Community Design" on the same site [1] left me kind of wondering if they really built a service people would want to use. Personally, I've always thought the "like" model of modern online interaction is broken, but my idea about fixing it would be to add "Agree" and "Disagree" buttons, but only display the sum the two as a measure of engagement. [1] https://coralproject.net/blog/five-myth…

You need more than agree and disagree to measure engagement, otherwise you're just measuring polarization. For example you might want to measure several reactions such as: interesting, funny, angering and sad.

>interesting, funny, angering and sad.

If facebook is any indication, these end up being used mostly ironically. I can't imagine they give facebook any real indication of emotion on their platform.

Even the "angry" react (which is mostly an ironic reaction), is missing the context. Are you angry with the commenter? Are you angry about the something the commenter is referencing?

Re: Talk: An open-source commenting platform focused on better conversation

#53

Post by olah_1 »

DarkWiiPlayer wrote: post #42
theon144 wrote: post #38

The focus on "identifying journalists", muting "annoying" voices, the "RESPECT" button and pushing specific comments to the top by featuring them kind of leave a bad taste in my mouth... And I would be the last to argue that comment sections below news articles are anything but a cesspool - they're notoriously bad! But I'm just not sure a control model this heavy handed and lip-servicey is the right approach.

Same. Reading "Five Myths of Community Design" on the same site [1] left me kind of wondering if they really built a service people would want to use. Personally, I've always thought the "like" model of modern online interaction is broken, but my idea about fixing it would be to add "Agree" and "Disagree" buttons, but only display the sum the two as a measure of engagement. [1] https://coralproject.net/blog/five-myth…

>"Agree" and "Disagree" buttons

Why not just have an Overton window slider that lets people place where they think the comment is on the scale?

Re: Talk: An open-source commenting platform focused on better conversation

#54

Post by jasode »

theon144 wrote: post #38

The focus on "identifying journalists", muting "annoying" voices, the "RESPECT" button and pushing specific comments to the top by featuring them kind of leave a bad taste in my mouth... And I would be the last to argue that comment sections below news articles are anything but a cesspool - they're notoriously bad! But I'm just not sure a control model this heavy handed and lip-servicey is the right approach.

>But I'm just not sure a control model this heavy handed

Is there any consensus that a popular website's comment area has high-quality conversation but also does not have heavy-handed moderation?

The Coral website doesn't mention it explicitly but I believe the project is trying to reverse the trend of publishing websites disabling user comments.[0][1]

It seems like a bunch of websites suddenly realized their user comments were more of a liability than an asset. Either heavily moderate them (costs $$$ in human labor) -- or disable them completely.

[0] https://www.wired.com/2015/10/brief-history-of-the-demise-of...

[1] https://www.kqed.org/lowdown/29720/no-comment-why-a-growing-...

Re: Talk: An open-source commenting platform focused on better conversation

#55

Post by olah_1 »

>In our study of gender nonbinary people of color, women of color, and online commentary, participants talked about having to constantly run a cost-benefit analysis on participation in any online conversations, based on the likelihood that they would be attacked, merely for participation.

4chan solved this problem a decade ago. Put your content before your identity rather than the other way around.

In many spaces today, being a straight white man is far more inflammatory than being a non-binary person of color. This is especially true in the open-source community.

The solution is to stop pushing your identity onto people when it's completely irrelevant. I'm not saying hide who you are. But it's simply not relevant to the vast majority of discussions.

Re: Talk: An open-source commenting platform focused on better conversation

#56

Post by RHSeeger »

DarkWiiPlayer wrote: post #42
theon144 wrote: post #38

The focus on "identifying journalists", muting "annoying" voices, the "RESPECT" button and pushing specific comments to the top by featuring them kind of leave a bad taste in my mouth... And I would be the last to argue that comment sections below news articles are anything but a cesspool - they're notoriously bad! But I'm just not sure a control model this heavy handed and lip-servicey is the right approach.

Same. Reading "Five Myths of Community Design" on the same site [1] left me kind of wondering if they really built a service people would want to use. Personally, I've always thought the "like" model of modern online interaction is broken, but my idea about fixing it would be to add "Agree" and "Disagree" buttons, but only display the sum the two as a measure of engagement. [1] https://coralproject.net/blog/five-myth…

What if I don't agree with something, but think it's worthwhile to read. A dissenting opinion, etc.

Re: Talk: An open-source commenting platform focused on better conversation

#57

Post by adamsea »

olah_1 wrote: post #55

>In our study of gender nonbinary people of color, women of color, and online commentary, participants talked about having to constantly run a cost-benefit analysis on participation in any online conversations, based on the likelihood that they would be attacked, merely for participation. 4chan solved this problem a decade ago. Put your content before your identity rather than the other way around. In many spaces tod…

You are literally saying “hide who you are, whenever I decide that who you are does not matter.”

EDIT: OP literally says: “ I'm not saying hide who you are. But it's simply not relevant to the vast majority of discussions.”

Again, who gets to make that decision? Who gets to set the criteria for making that decision?

Re: Talk: An open-source commenting platform focused on better conversation

#58

Post by lapnitnelav »

olah_1 wrote: post #55

>In our study of gender nonbinary people of color, women of color, and online commentary, participants talked about having to constantly run a cost-benefit analysis on participation in any online conversations, based on the likelihood that they would be attacked, merely for participation. 4chan solved this problem a decade ago. Put your content before your identity rather than the other way around. In many spaces tod…

Exactly, the main thing about 4ch and the likes is that you can't satiate your need for validation through likes / upvotes and a profile.

Much like what Instagram is trying now (hiding other people's likes count) or this very platform, doing away with those metrics should help foster better conversations.

Re: Talk: An open-source commenting platform focused on better conversation

#59

Post by bocklund »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #47
wyattjoh wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’re doing all the development under the next branch, a big rewrite to typescript :)

Sounds like something Github should implement - indicate the latest activity anywhere instead of just the master branch. I too will scan the last activity and shrug if they don't seem to have been updated for a year. Can you configure the dev branch to show up on the landing page of github?

Yes:

Settings -> Branches -> Default branch

We have our develop branch set up, which tracks all the contributions as you would expect. We treat our master branch as a latest release branch.

Re: Talk: An open-source commenting platform focused on better conversation

#60

Post by adamsea »

naasking wrote: post #49
hnarn wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The term "journalist" is no more subjective than "author" (literature) or "programmer". As with many things, the line is normally drawn where people start to making (wholly or partyly) a living from the activity or not, i.e. whether they are professionals.

> The term "journalist" is no more subjective than "author" (literature) or "programmer". It's more contentious than that. Journalists supposedly deal with "facts", but there's often considerable disagreement over facts or their interpretation. No matter your political persuasion, I'm sure there are "journalists" making a living on this, as per your definition, but who operate on the opposite end of the political spe…

I would say defining who is and isn’t a journalist can sometimes be complicated and difficult, but rarely genuinely subjective.

There has been a lot of writing and thinking and discussion around what makes a journalist, and different styles of journalism, for some time now.

Ultimately the challenge is differing views of reality - disagreement about truth. I think that’s the root issue.

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