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How would you tame or improve our comments?
Readers would comment more if our comments were less combative, had easier CAPTCHAs, and made it easier to reply to individual comments, said those who responded to our recent survey. How would you make the comments less combative, or how else could we improve them?
Most of the survey respondents don't comment very often, or at all:
Do you comment on Greater Greater Washington? How often?

Here's how survey respondents came down on what might make them comment more:
If you don't comment a lot, would anything lead you to want to comment more?

Most of the "other" responses are people saying they wouldn't comment at all regardless, or people who said the only way to get them to comment more is to add another hour to each day, make their job less demanding, and so on. Others said they think anything they want to say has already been said by another.
At first, the survey had 2 versions of the question, one with an added option about adding threaded comments, and one without. I fixed this early on, and so we don't have good data about the threaded comment option. Even once it was gone, a few people suggested it in the Other box.
I'd been hesitant to do threading because it makes it harder to come back later and see what comments people have added, but perhaps other advantages outweigh that. One reader said, when suggesting this in the Other box, that this approach "still allows everyone to comment but readers may visually skip over tangent conversations of no interest to them."
Even without indenting, we could still make it easier to reply by having a reply button on each comment and a UI for selecting some text to reply to, which would automatically put it into the comment in italics or whatever formatting is appropriate.
I will also work on looking into better CAPTCHA solutions. Does anyone know of one? We do get a lot of spam attempts, some of which make it through the filter even with the CAPTCHAs.
Finally, many more people suggested toning the comments down as opposed to letting them be more freewheeling. We have a very strong belief in allowing comments that disagree with the ideas any post or comment presents, but also push hard to delete comments which attack others personally or take a tone which criticizes another for daring to speak up.
It's important to make the comments a space where people can toss out ideas, even ones they haven't spent years thinking about and reading or writing academic papers on; others might say they disagree, but we don't want others saying that it was inappropriate to even voice the opinion.
What parts of the comments still are problematic? One that comes to mind is the occasional tendency for some threads to veer into arguments not about the issue but about what one person previously said and what it means. A lot of these arguments turn into sniping back and forth about the meaning of some comment hours or days previous. That's really not interesting to everyone else.
One idea that came to mind is to ask commenters to avoid using the word "you" or otherwise talking directly to or about others. We wouldn't ban that entirely, since sometimes the word is very appropriate. However, I've often found that if a comment is about the issues, it's fairly easy to phrase it without using second person pronouns; instead of saying, "You wrote [x], but why do you think that, and you are wrong," one can just say, "The argument that [x] is not correct because of these reasons." On the other hand, a combative comment is very hard to phrase this way.
One possibility might be to set things up so that such second person comments can get posted, but go through moderation first. If you can write a comment without using you, your comment goes up faster.
Or, are there other elements of commenting that inhibit a more valuable conversation?
Here are some of the additional responses readers gave for the Other category:
- I don't know if restricting comments will help. It just seems that the same people always comment and continually duke it out over and over. Makes newcomers not want to comment.
- Threaded comments and/or the ability to mute commenters
- Email me when someone responds to my post; showing thumbs up or thumbs down (maybe you already do this?)
- Implement a ranking system (ala reddit)
- Comments should be on point and on topic. This blog should not turn into for example the Washington Post comments section which is half garbage and half racist comments (im not saying that this blogs comments are like that however). What I propose is that the comment policy be stricter, so while perhaps some jokes would be allowed purely sarcastic comments are not helpful. Also it would be great if the comments could bring together and form some sort of consensus, i.e. allow the users to sort of hash out possible solutions to a problem or generate new ideas which could allow the GGW community to rally behind or serve as a proposal made to eleced or governmental officials.
- Moderators to keep people on topic
- Comment likes and popularity (not quite as formal as Slashdot)
- Add numbers to each individual comment.
- If anything, i don't enjoy the bickering and straw-man arguments from a few commentors.
- The comments are too combative, but restricting comments shouldn't be the way to go. The same 6ish people have the same debates on all the comments. It gets old.
- Weed out the trolls.
- Consider a tiered comment system where you can directly reply to a comment and the response indents. That still allows everyone to comment but readers may visually skip over tangent conversations of no interest to them.
- The tone is what's wrong with the comments.
- I'm often reading a day or two later, no one's reading comments anymore
— some way to keep the conversation "live"?
- Encourage people to follow the "Golden Rule" when it comes to the tone of their comments.
- Probably not - they are very combative but I don't think restriction is necessarily the answer.
- No problems, seems better than most comment systems
- Maybe Facebook comments?
- I don't really know how to stop all the anti-urbanist diatribes but they are rampant and definitely diminish my experience, as much as I hate to admit that they are winning by reducing the usability of this public forum
allow an NYT like system where you can read the most recommended comments as well as editors picks. - Encourage people to follow the "Golden Rule" when it comes to the tone of their comments.
The idea of having a special tab for for popular and promoted comments, which the Post, Forbes, and others also use, is an interesting one to ponder.
What do you think would make the comments more enjoyable and encourage more people to participate?
Comments
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by FoggyRez on Jul 27, 2012 1:26 pm • link • report
by Tweet4pedro on Jul 27, 2012 1:33 pm • link • report
by Froggie on Jul 27, 2012 1:44 pm • link • report
http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/15603/breakfast-links-trouble-for-taxis/#comment-148719
(Jasper's Response:
http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/15603/breakfast-links-trouble-for-taxis/#comment-148728 )
by David F-H on Jul 27, 2012 1:46 pm • link • report
Also, it may be worthwhile if the author can return to his post after a period of time to synthasize the main arguments introduced in the comments and have a chance to respond (similar to Andrew Sullivan's approach to reader's e-mails). Nevertheless, that may be too time-intensive for a volunteer group.
by cmc on Jul 27, 2012 1:53 pm • link • report
It also sounds to me like people who think things are too combative are simply not willing to stand up for their opinion. They want to make a statement that does not get challenged. That is not a good idea to have a discussion. The only way to learn, and improve your understanding of things is to relentlessly challenge your own ideas, and defend them when others challenge them. Sometimes you can convince others of your position, and that's great. Other times, you can't and then usually you learn something you didn't know. Which is also a good thing.
by Jasper on Jul 27, 2012 1:54 pm • link • report
More moderation would actually not only make me less likely to comment, but less likely to read the blog at all. Unless something is really just pure, off-topic hatred that isn't relevant, leave it alone. Nobody is making a reader come back and read their comment and any replies.
Personally, as someone who has had a comment "edited", but not deleted, I found it offensive that my speech was censored as to make it incomplete and that then, my request to have the comment either published in its original form or deleted altogether was not honored. As a result, I have gone from a daily reader to an occasional reader. More moderation will likely make me stick to other sites.
As a general rule, blogs should either allow comments by anyone and keep a very loose moderation policy, only allow comments by "registered users" and simply ban the ones who are consistently problematic, or just not offer comments at all. Perhaps offering a "recommended" button that allows relevant comments that readers click on to be seen first is a way to help, but all comments should appear below that.
To tightly regulate the speech of your readers to follow something more complex than "be civil and stay on topic" eliminates voices from a real conversation. If all I wanted to read was the blog's position on a topic, I'd just read the article and stop there and not bother with comments at all. I read the comments BECAUSE I want to see what others think. Not because I want to see what the blog is promoting and thinks I should see.
by shawguy on Jul 27, 2012 1:58 pm • link • report
Certain types of articles (Rob P's article yesterday on WF is an easy example) are just comment bait. IT was a stupid, or silly article and deserved to get turned into another "people who drive cars to the grocery store are evil and/or angels" comment thread.
Another sort of article (Matt Johnson's on Union Station) is an example of comments working; if you can read through them all it is a good learning exercise.
More article like Matt's (and less like Rob's) would be better for GGW. Less content? Potentially. But as an itertive process it might work out better for everyone. Several other authors here (and I won't name names, but they write about Georgetown and Montgomery County) have improved their articles here in the last few years.
I think in terms of concerte steps:
1. Close comments after a week
2. Remove the "notify me of followup comments via email" button because it just encourges back and forth.
3. An "editor's choice" comments would be wonderful, but way too much work. Maybe you can set up a voting system so that comment gets dumped into the next day's morning links.
by charlie on Jul 27, 2012 2:08 pm • link • report
You've already taken the most important step, which was banning Lance.
by Dizzy on Jul 27, 2012 2:26 pm • link • report
The CAPTCHA is sometimes hard to read.
by Jay Roberts on Jul 27, 2012 3:08 pm • link • report
Jasper, what you refer to as "not willing to stand up for their opinion" is what I would describe as "not willing to spend large amounts of time pointlessly arguing with someone who is so staunchly defending their own point of view that arguing with them is a pointless exercise." There are certainly some people (extroverts mostly, I've found) who enjoy and learn from arguing for the sake of arguing, but there are many of us who do not feel like it is a good use of our time. It does not mean that we are opposed to hearing other people's ideas, but we resent being attacked for expressing our own.
by grumpy on Jul 27, 2012 3:25 pm • link • report
I do believe that those who are reluctant to chime in on a subject because of a "fear" that they will be attacked is rather unfounded. Likely, those people don't like to be challenged and are accustomed to having discussions framed w/in their narrow world view. I don't believe you will find more people commenting if the tone is somehow improved because MOST of the articles and ensuing commentary are already rather tame. Yet, they likely don't respond even to those and prefer to do what most people who visit blogs do...just read.
I believe I am the person most attacked from all sides. For some reason, I doubt that those put of by the "tone" actually think about hogwash. They don't think, "wow, this is why I hate coming here because they all jump on HogWash." If so, that's never articulated.
So forgive me if I don't take their concerns seriously.
1. No, you should start banning "you" not only because it takes waaay to much work, it's also an overreach.
2. I like a reply button, but not if it the thread ends up looking like the HuffPost and other similar formats.
3. A ratings system would essentially end up being an amen corner. The others would be hidden..which defeats the purpose.
4. While I do agree w/the idea disallowing unrelated arguments, I imagine that's difficult to monitor. But it also takes away from the idea of engagement.
by HogWash on Jul 27, 2012 3:40 pm • link • report
I find the comments here will sometimes be a bit too ad hominem and not as civil in tone as is my ideal. So, some threads i tune out.
That said, let's see if i can decipher the reCAPTCHA :) Third time's the charm, apparently.
by dcseain on Jul 27, 2012 4:01 pm • link • report
by MLD on Jul 27, 2012 4:08 pm • link • report
I've never had a problem with the captchas.
For a while, the comments did seem to be getting more combative, but the newish policy seems to be working well. I'm really surprised that apparently so many people think that this site is too combative/uncivil/whatever.
One big thing: I'm often reading a day or two later, no one's reading comments anymoresome way to keep the conversation "live"? . This is very true. When I get home late (and by that I mean after 5 O'Clock), I hardly ever bother commenting on any story I read, no matter how interested I am, because it seems that everyone forgets about everything after the DC witching hour.
by kinverson on Jul 27, 2012 4:09 pm • link • report
I get most of my news online, but GGW is the only site where I regularly read the comments. And that's because they're almost always civil, thoughtful, informative and on-topic. Sure, there's room for improvement, but let's not lose sight of what a good thing we have going here. Keep up the good work, David & Co.
by Hexagon Tiles on Jul 27, 2012 4:25 pm • link • report
http://www.skepticalscience.com/
by WVa85 on Jul 27, 2012 4:35 pm • link • report
Yum, I like my moderation with a grain of snark.
Though if GGW started removing self-promoting links how would Richard Layman ever comment on anything?! (I kid, he and most other people commenting here are very knowledgeable.)
by MLD on Jul 27, 2012 4:50 pm • link • report
We've occasionally had guest authors who make controversial points in their articles but who don't ever show back up to respond to what often seems to be very valid criticism. I'd like guest authors to be reminded that interactivity via the comments is one of the strengths of GGW and that they ought to participate in the discussion of their own articles.
As far as I know, we haven't had any problems with spoofing of displayed names, but there don't seem to be any barriers that would prevent this, and there are a number of regular commenters here who ought to have exclusive use of the name under which they've been commenting. What about a formal username/ login system? I see the downside of requiring a login to post, but then it might be possible to see the most recent comments by a particular commenter, or have a list of commenters you follow, or some such.
by thm on Jul 27, 2012 4:58 pm • link • report
by Tom Coumaris on Jul 27, 2012 5:43 pm • link • report
by Rob on Jul 27, 2012 6:02 pm • link • report
FWIW/2, years ago I read an article in Municipal World (the public admin. magazine for Canada) about Internet information generation and consumption. Most people consume information they don't produce it. About 15-20% of Internet users actually generate content (I'm not clear about how much is good/how much superfluous).
The data is summarized in this slide, but I didn't provide a cite on it I see.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rllayman/5786939304/
In my experience, managing lists and blog comments for people who are primarily "consumers" of the info, in an attempt to generate more comment merely constricts the abilities of the actual producers of information-content to produce, and to produce quality information.
Since the likelihood of changes generating a significant increase in response/content production, it doesn't seem worth changing.
by Richard Layman on Jul 27, 2012 9:52 pm • link • report
Since the likelihood of changes generating a significant increase in response/content production is limited, it doesn't seem worth changing.
by Richard Layman on Jul 27, 2012 10:00 pm • link • report
And I kind of miss lance because he always kept me on my toes and I actually agreed with him more than once. I welcome opposing viewpoints as long as you dont immediately jump to a straw man about how I want to ban cars or force people to live in windowless high rises.
by Drumz on Jul 27, 2012 11:36 pm • link • report
This would be a better discussion if it was a Monday post though.
I don't understand the complaints about captcha.
by selxic on Jul 28, 2012 1:58 am • link • report
by Wayan on Jul 28, 2012 2:37 am • link • report
Threaded comments are valuable in a way, but I think it's worth considering the possibility that they might have a negative impact on the comment culture here. Currently, without threaded comments, I can respond to several different comments in my own single comment that synthesizes the others with my own ideas. With threading, it's possible that this kind of cultural ferment between different ideas would be replaced with more of an echo-chamber, or point-counterpoint effect. You would be replying to one comment or thread of comments rather than to a broad body of ideas.
I favor keeping reCaptcha, just for the value of its work to digitize text. I don't know if any easier spam deterrent systems have such cultural value.
by Lucre on Jul 28, 2012 10:56 am • link • report
Formatting. No more < b > stuff in bold < /b > writing.
I don't get the Captchas since my contact info is saved on this computer.
User profiles?
by Jack Love on Jul 29, 2012 11:50 am • link • report
by Jack Love on Jul 29, 2012 11:51 am • link • report
by selxic on Jul 29, 2012 8:56 pm • link • report
Imaging a blog being a little like a coffee shop. Sometimes you're sitting there by yourself having a drink and some people at a nearby table are having a really interesting civil conversation that makes you want to join in. Sometimes you're sitting there and the people are at a nearby table are having the same conversation but acting like obnoxious jerks.
The comments on GGW are like the discussion at the latter table. I have no desire to join in that.
I don't have a real suggestion for you here, sorry. I figure controlling the jerks is difficult if not downright impossible. But I wanted to let you know why some of us have no desire to post here.
by New Commenter on Jul 29, 2012 9:00 pm • link • report
by New Commenter on Jul 29, 2012 9:19 pm • link • report
Also on a mobile, I think the default is "preview" rather than post, which means sometime you accidently have to enter the captcha twice.
Perhaps a more community orientied "spam" button would help ID spam quicker. I know you can do that in the "report" button but maybe made it more top choice -- have "spam" and "report" as the two option on the front.
by charlie on Jul 30, 2012 9:10 am • link • report
Quite a stretch to paint GGW comments like that but oh well. My guess is that you wouldn't be more inclined to post even if the commentary is more to your liking...which is why you've decided to be a longtime reader rather than an "occassional" commenter. I'm hoping these aren't the sort of "anti-tone" e-mails DAl gets because if so, it's HogWash.
If so, chill D...just chill.
by HogWash on Jul 30, 2012 10:37 am • link • report
1) Threaded comments, where you can collapse and expand the groups of replies.
2) Just because you have threaded comments doesn't mean you can't allow an individual to toggle between threaded and unthreaded views of the same comments.
3) Self-moderated comments by allowing others to thumbs-up or -down individual comments. I like having comments hidden when they are lowly rated but I also like the ability to dig in and see what they were if it's on a thread I'm interested in.
4) User profiles? Perhaps people would be more civil if their faces were attached to their comments?
Thanks for a great site!
by MDE on Jul 30, 2012 1:20 pm • link • report
5) Ability to go back and edit comments already posted. I hate those typos I leave for the hole world to see.
by Jack Love on Jul 30, 2012 3:48 pm • link • report
Thanks for the love, Jack Love. Also, thanks for providing good example of the need for editing: "hole world."
However, editing comments provides an opportunity for someone to respond to something that then gets changed. So, if you were to edit your comment my comment wouldn't make much sense, but there'd be no mechanism to have my comment edited or removed. Perhaps comments can get edited until they're responded to, then they're locked?
by MDE on Jul 30, 2012 3:52 pm • link • report
Skipping through the dreck is easy. Usually in the first few words of a response, you have an idea of the value of a contribution. There are always straw man and troll comments here, yet GGW is by far more civil than the vast majority of boards.
If you don't want to contribute, that's fine, but in a topic on how to improve the commentary section of an on-line community, I find it slightly disingenuous to post on how you have no suggestions for engaging us "obnoxious jerks."
by Jack Love on Jul 30, 2012 4:01 pm • link • report
As some others have said there are some issues with the CAPTCAS one some mobile devices. This may be to the commenting system used, the sites design, or the resolution of the devices, not exactly sure but I have had issues on this with some Android, Symbian and Meego devices.
The ability for a commenter to go back to previous comments made themselves without search sometimes hundreds of comments.
No Facebook commenting system or even better offer users a choice twitter, disqus, facebook etc.
by kk on Jul 31, 2012 5:05 pm • link • report
by Stacey on Aug 1, 2012 10:14 am • link • report
by Rod on Aug 1, 2012 11:34 am • link • report
by dcseain on Aug 1, 2012 11:38 am • link • report
by Rod on Aug 1, 2012 12:44 pm • link • report
by dcseain on Aug 1, 2012 12:52 pm • link • report
by Rod on Aug 1, 2012 10:54 pm • link • report
I look forward to brand new updates and will talk about this blog
with my Facebook group. Chat soon!
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