The problem isn't bad comments - it's the publishers that don't understand the medium.
The article is a great example of how most newspapers and old publishing houses are barking up the wrong tree. It talks about using real names, court decisions and expecting people to read and comply with guidelines. That's simply not how the Internet works.
I see plenty of examples of excellent comment sections - often better than the article. HN is an example, some of the subreddits I'm subscribed to another. Interestingly I have never seen an old media outlet that has mastered comments.
The problem is that old media (or at least the people at the top) don't understand how to solve this problem because it involves a heavy dose of technology. I've never heard terms such as hell-banning, karma and vote-ring detection in a discussion by old media houses. Heck, many of them haven't even mastered threaded comments yet.
It's a problem that can be solved by a savvy combination of technology and psychology, but the old publishing houses seem to be clueless about both.
You assume it's a problem that needs solving. I don't know what the general feeling is, but I tend to prefer the model of going to one place for the news or information and another (like Hacker News or Reddit) for the commentary. I don't feel the need to read comments at the CS Monitor or NY Times (though the Times has a good comment section in general) or any other "long form" site. I go there for thoughtful, in depth analysis by someone who's put time into thinking about the issue.
Part of my problem with comments is that they are rarely thoughtful or in depth, even at a site like this. They are what I'm writing now: a short snippet that's more like a back and forth conversation than a thoughtful analysis. Both have their place, but I don't see the need for them to coexist on one site.
I'm surprised big brand advertisers don't have a problem with unmoderated comments. Then again, they also buy pre-roll video ads on places like Daily Mail for such inspiring footage such as a woman being mauled by a pitbull.
Part of my problem with comments is that they are rarely thoughtful or in depth, even at a site like this. They are what I'm writing now: a short snippet that's more like a back and forth conversation than a thoughtful analysis.
Alot of intelligence comes from bringint together simple--but relevant--pieces of information...or distlling simple--but essential--lines of logic from inpenetrable source material.
Like I said, there's value in conversation. I'm here at HN after all.
I just feel that conversation belongs in places that specialize in conversation (and all the spam handling, moderation and community management that entails) and not on sites that cannot get it right.
Who needs quality in comments? Certainly, not the old media. All they need are clicks, views and users' engagement.
It's quite often to see an obvious flamebait promoted to a "featured comment", etc.
At Yahoo, we tried a little to improve comment quality.
We tried to rank comments based on its text quality using machine learning (some of the features were hate words, grammar error, CAPITAL letters).
We hope that seeing well written comments at the top can trigger a better discussion than just top voted ones.
Here is the paper: http://ip.com/IPCOM/000230875
> The problem is that old media (or at least the people at the top) don't understand how to solve this problem because it involves a heavy dose of technology
There's a relatively new and successful digital-only publication in Holland called 'De Correspondent' that has been innovative in many ways. One of their goals, for example, is to allow subscribers to participate more in the news process.
And yet their comment section is the most primitive kind imaginable. It frustrates me because they do so many things right, and they have some high-profile commenters.
I toyed with the idea of trying to spice up their comment section (within the limitations of what a client-side plugin can do), but I put this off because I heard they've been 'working on it'.
I think a good commenting system or some reddit-style section would really fit in their vision, but I suspect part of the problem they face is that the site is built and maintained by a design-centric agency that isn't heavy on the technical innovation.
Another example, they touted their iPad-optimized version and yet the infinite-loading didn't (and possibly still doesn't) work on Google Chrome for iPad.
I know quite a few journalists, and one thing most of them seem to have in common is border-line illiteracy when it comes to computers. Most of them never heard of Reddit, for example, which is baffling to me for someone in a profession like journalism...
(that said, I applaud much of what De Correspondent does; they're on the right track and I hope to see similar initiatives in other countries)
Fundamentally, the problem is the community. If you don't attract people who make good comments and you don't have a high enough ratio, you won't have a good system no matter what you do. And I think newspapers have a couple problems there:
* Good communities on the Internet generally are focused on a specific topic. That encourages people who like the field to show up and gives most participants something in common. They have similar base knowledge, similar interests, and the community has a goal. Sub-reddits are usually fairly focused, HN is actually a little broad, but still has a relatively narrow field of interest. A newspaper likely won't have that.
* Good communities are the result of "trying again". When a community goes bad, the better contributers leave and join new ones. The old ones generally die, either literally or they just go down the tubes in quality of content. The good communities you see are to some extent the result of many failed communities. But newspapers are fixed, they can't just die off and try again.
* Good communities have moderators who drop the ax on allowed content. This isn't a long-term solution, but I think it's necessary to have this until the community is primed and trained to vote wisely themselves. From my experience, starting a community with a core baseline of values is like herding cats. Someone in charge has to be firm and "unfair" for a while to get things started in the right direction. Would newspapers actually heavily censor their comments?
None are strict requirements, but I think they are very helpful in creating a good community.
For example, some sub-reddits have nearly died in terms of quality only to resurrect themselves back into something semi-worthwhile. (Only examples I can pull directly from memory are /r/pics and /r/technology, neither of which is a great subreddit now, but goodness gracious you should've seen them two or three years ago.) But in those cases, they had the advantage of the things you listed, like reddit's hell-banning, karma, and ruthless moderators who made unpopular authoritarian decisions until the voters were trained to do a good job themselves.
I agree with most of this, but it's not just technology. It's the balance of power expressed in the way old media publishers publish content.
The see the content they produce as the primary value, and the comments as a sideshow. Platforms like HN are very different, because here the people are the center, and the content exists to feed the discussion, exchange and analysis of information.
As far as old media is concerned, they've already done the analysis, so the people really don't have anything to add. But the fact is that given the medium, most old media publications are extremely shallow and completely static. Only newspaper articles don't give references, background information, give no insight in how the analysis came about and absolutely do not evolve over time.
Publishers don't understand that their product is the raw material, not the end product. If they don't provide the context and services, people will take that raw material elsewhere, like HN, and the only comments on the publisher's site will be of the hit-and-run kind.
The article is a great example of how most newspapers and old publishing houses are barking up the wrong tree. It talks about using real names, court decisions and expecting people to read and comply with guidelines. That's simply not how the Internet works.
I see plenty of examples of excellent comment sections - often better than the article. HN is an example, some of the subreddits I'm subscribed to another. Interestingly I have never seen an old media outlet that has mastered comments.
The problem is that old media (or at least the people at the top) don't understand how to solve this problem because it involves a heavy dose of technology. I've never heard terms such as hell-banning, karma and vote-ring detection in a discussion by old media houses. Heck, many of them haven't even mastered threaded comments yet.
It's a problem that can be solved by a savvy combination of technology and psychology, but the old publishing houses seem to be clueless about both.