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Getting Rid of Comments on Vice.com

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Re: Getting Rid of Comments on Vice.com

#61

Post by DashRattlesnake »

danso wrote: post #12
Fr0ntBack wrote: post #2

I think if you're getting mostly garbage comments, it should give you pause for thought. Yes, the format of the internet doesn't encourage thoughtful, polite comments. But equally there might be a problem with what you're writing if you're attracting trolls. This is certainly true of Vice.

I think that assertion looks good on paper but isn't fair in practice. Other than communities that have significant friction to get in -- e.g. $5 for a Metafilter membership -- comments are going to fall prey to the dynamic that afflicts online reviews: people who are pissed are often more motivated to make it known, compared to those who are merely satisfied [0]. Whatever one might think of Vice overall, the model i…

Metafilter also has pretty significant manual moderation. It's not uncommon to see moderator comments telling users to stop talking about some aspect of a post or tell someone who's going against the grain to pipe down. There is also a significant number of comment deletions, many of which are polite but have the potential to annoy privileged users.

The end result is a sort of artificial consensus, which has been quite controversial and caused many long time users to leave.

Basically, the comment culture is the result of a lot more than just a $5 cover, and it might not be the success a lot of people think it is.

Re: Getting Rid of Comments on Vice.com

#62

Post by seanalltogether »

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #39

I think many people have realized that the costs (filtering & moderation) vs. benefits (community engagement) of comment sections just don't make sense for most websites. I suspect that for comment sections to be good the users need to actually be invested in the 'forum' they're posting in. Without any skin in the game (reputation or fear of moderation) there is little incentive for most users to add value and the sy…

This actually a good argument toward shifting commenting into a paid subscription offering. Give access to the site free of ads and allow you to comment on articles.

Re: Getting Rid of Comments on Vice.com

#63

Post by clydethefrog »

Bedon292 wrote: post #52

It has been a long time since I actually dove into a comments section on any news site and found anything other than inflammatory arguments. It seems like people target out these news sites intentionally to start these arguments with no intent of listening to the other side. I would much rather come somewhere like here, and actually seem to have mostly civil discussions even when people disagree. Does anyone find the…

De Correspondent, a Dutch publication, their comments section is only accessible to paying members. They treat their subscribers as a community and usually an article ends with a question to the reader to discuss.

Their publisher has a typical Medium post about their strategy. As a subscriber I would say it works, unless the topic is already really controversial.

https://medium.com/@ejpfauth/lets-give-reader-comments-anoth...

Re: Getting Rid of Comments on Vice.com

#64

Post by cydonian_monk »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #17
Fr0ntBack wrote: post #2

I think if you're getting mostly garbage comments, it should give you pause for thought. Yes, the format of the internet doesn't encourage thoughtful, polite comments. But equally there might be a problem with what you're writing if you're attracting trolls. This is certainly true of Vice.

NPR also nuked their comment section. They're not what I'd consider a watering hole of ill repute.

And the NPR comments section wasn't generally terrible, either. At least not on the articles I usually read. Still, I'd rather the money/time/energy required to properly maintain a comments section for NPR be spent on pursuits closer to their core purpose.

Re: Getting Rid of Comments on Vice.com

#66

Post by petertodd »

lmm wrote: post #32
charlesism wrote: post #5

Hopefully the biker bar analogy* is correct. Every year it feels more and more like the bikers are actually the majority . * https://chuqui.com/2015/07/the-death-of-reddit/

Interesting to look back on this. Reddit seems to be doing fine now - it's put the line in a clear and simple place, and while there are occasional paranoid grumblings that certain subreddits are getting away with brigading it's mostly working out. Whereas Twitter - which seemed to follow a line closer to the one being advocated there - is a disaster area.

You sure twitter is a disaster area?

I work in one of the most controversial crypo fields out there - Bitcoin - and other than blocking dozens of people my experience on twitter is fine. Or put another way, the blocking/filtering tools work and let me focus on people worth talking too.

It's open discussion forums like reddit where my experience sucks; /r/btc is a trash fire.

Re: Getting Rid of Comments on Vice.com

#67

Post by weberc2 »

sbarre wrote: post #38
newswriter99 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vice is nowhere remotely close to journalistic professionalism. I'd argue they bait trolls.

Are you thinking of Vice from 15 years ago when it was just a magazine? Things have changed, you should look at what kind of reporting they are actually doing these days, it might surprise you (in a good way).

I still see lots of partisan clickbait articles from Vice. Hopefully my sample isn't representative, but I doubt it's an anomaly.

Re: Getting Rid of Comments on Vice.com

#69

Post by Fr0ntBack »

One possible solution to this problem is to use a crowdworking platform like Mechanical Turk to delete low quality comments. This is a lot cheaper than employing dedicated moderation teams, but there is a trade-off in that more low quality comments will slip through the net.
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