Suggestions Regarding Comment Quality on Newsvine

Nicely said, and I agree. Just last night I got involved in a comment discussion that I found upset me. So I walked away from that discussion and haven't looked back at that thread since. Not worth it. Sometimes the best approach is to ignore hurtful comments. Besides hopefully not perpetuating the thread, you sleep better!

I dunno, I don't really like your parent/child analogy. The AP posts, probably the most professionally and objectively written content on here, tend to generate a lot of irresponsible responses. Any news regarding evolution or global warming is greeted by a chorus of "Oh, that's bull@!$%#." Yeah, I guess I can ignore it, but it annoys me.

Regarding "Accept Ownership" - I dunno, man, sometimes I just seed stuff cuz I thought it was interesting. Why do I need to be for or against it? Frequently I have a view, but not always or even most of the time. You seem to be saying that all seeds have two sides, and one should be either for or against but defaults to "for" unless otherwise specified. That's pretty black and white, isn't it?

Regarding the "Ignore" advice - what if there are comments which strike me as irresponsible to a degree that they become immoral? When people misrepresent evolution, or revise history, or present a slanted interpretation of current figures/events, and then present that as a fact - well, that's dangerous. Other people who are interested in learning may not realize that what they just read is a politically motivated and/or ignorant assessment of the situation, and I see a moral imperative to set the record straight. Some points are controversial, and that's fine, but things like "Evolution is just a theory and so is ID, so they are equally valid" or "We went into Iraq to free the people, not to find WMD" are not controversial, they are false. I could ignore them, but I would be failing in my moral duty as an informed individual to make sure the truth is not misrepresented.

Regarding the notion that you should be willing to vote for everything you comment on - well, for the same reason, no. Someone may post some ignorant slop as fact, and I may want to comment to rebut their points without voting for what they have written. I don't want to encourage people to read the 50th article about why ID is science - I would rather they read something intelligent and researched on the subject with that time. But just in case someone does stumble into it, I want to present counter-evidence so that they don't mistake the view expressed their for canonical fact.

Brian, I usually like what you write so I'm sorry for disagreeing so vehemently with almost every point you make, but I feel strongly about this. What do you think?

If you're not for or against something this seems like a perfectly good reason to follow my next suggestion which is to be willing to let go of that ownership. If you feel compelled to respond to a comment I would think that probably means that you do have an opinion one way or the other.

Well, what do you mean "one way or the other"? I probably have thoughts about it, and to me the purpose of comments is to mix my thoughts with the thoughts of others with the outcome being a more well-formed conclusion than any of us could have arrived at on our own. I don't comment to convert others to my way of thinking - I comment to sincerely express my views and open them up for revision by others writing in the same spirit of sincerity.

If someone posts something that is immoral, responding to that comment is only going to provide that person a chance to comment again. You're' never going to reason with that person and therefore responding is futile and counter-productive. This is where it becomes vital to distinguish between someone who is purposefully misrepresenting the truth to provoke your reaction or is merely uninformed. I didn't suggest that you ignore the latter case.

Again, if I comment in response to some inflammatory post it's not to convince the author that I'm right and hes' wrong - it's because I want to put my ideas/resources in the open, and if there is opposition or if I feel that he is flat out wrong then let the opposition speak. I'm not afraid of allowing people who are spewing filth to respond to me - I believe in my arguments, and if they are able to prove me wrong then I am the one who will learn. But there are more than two players - everyone who reads the thread will see who writes the better post, and decide for themselves who is making the better argument. When I debate with some red-faced IDer, let him respond to all of my points - even if he isn't interested in learning, his arguments will reveal the holes in his own reasoning and present a more complete picture to the world than if I just "ignored" his comments.

I realize that comments and votes both push a story up, but I find that threads with low votes and high comments are generally crap - this is why we have "vote" and "comment" both recorded. I don't think the two have anything to do with each other.

I think your advice is right on, Brian. Articles I seed just out of interest, without much of an opinion, will probably be things like the one eyed kitten. And my comments of those articles will probably be along the lines of "wow, wtf" -- useless perhaps, but not particularly inflammatory.

All in all you're suggesting some common sense. I'm with you. There's no need to censor comments or protect us from negative views. It's all part of life.

The problem with these is that it completely relies on good authorship. I already see unmoderated discussions and a lot of seeds without introduction, even though a larger part than after release will be enthusiastic, I suspect. The suggestions you make are all based on the idea that inflamatory comments are a given fact, and that the best you can do is try to prevent them for a bit, and ignore them if they are shown.

Although that too needs to be done, the 'bad' comments and commenters need to be caught, too. And as long as not every author is going to moderate the discussion belonging to his / her post, their needs to be a fallback, such as selected moderators. It really is about punishment for bad behaviour and reward for good behaviour.

I agree that technical solutions won't solve it. But doing the appeal to people you do now won't be enough either. If everyone would behave that way, there wouldn't be any 'bad' comments.

If someone posts something that is immoral, responding to that comment is only going to provide that person a chance to comment again. (...)

You're not just debating with the person you're responding to, or not. A debate primarily is in front of an 'audience'. Therefore, responding to comments which misrepresent the facts can be necessary. You shouldn't respond to flames or trolls, because that won't help a bit. But setting records straight and such will.

All in all you're suggesting some common sense. I'm with you. There's no need to censor comments or protect us from negative views. It's all part of life.

Moderation doesn't have anything to do with censorship. Plain flames and trolls should be removed from discussions. Comments which don't add anything such as 'great post' should be discouraged if a debate is possible, as the former hinder the latter. If the comments deteriorate I for one won't be reading them.

Brian: I know. But as I said in my comment: 'as long as not every author is going to moderate the discussion belonging to his / her post, their needs to be a fallback,'. I fear for these levels of immaturity, I keap repeating, but maybe I will be proven to be wrong.

Isn't that what we should be striving for?

Very true, but it is, as you say, about the last resort.

I certainly agree that there needs to be a last resort method of dealing with those who just won't give up. I just don't think it should be a built in feature of Newsvine.

I do think so, I do think, however, that it shouldn't be a burdon on the system. Not all the users should be troubled with it, but I doubt the newsvine team can deal with this on their own. But still, maybe I'm completely wrong. I'd very much like to be.

very well put

I agree entirely!

but I never seem to remember to vote for articles... *mental note*

Good post as usual, Brian! And your solution is perfectly in keeping with the main idea behind Newsvine: that the news is selected, commented on, ranked and sorted by people. I think the fear is that this will turn into Digg with inane one-liner comments, but already Newsvine is getting a different vibe. I think that with time, we'll all get an idea of who is capable of writing good posts, seeding good posts and commenting intelligently on posts. The trolls and idiots will wind up as dead leaves on the vine and will probably stop showing up before too long.

That said, maybe there is one kind of technological way to assist in ignoring trolls: you're on my Watch list because I've already realized that there's a lot of thought, intelligence and value in your writing. So, how about a personal "ignore" list, managed by each individual, so we can filter out objectionable idiots just from our own view. Any thoughts?

Brian's post and the supporting comments are indicative of the direction Newsvine will take as long as we are all vigilant using the Strengths of Newsvine to create the place where we can foster this kind of thought.

If the number of comments remain small (

Well put, I really think that the success of this website will be in the overall quality of its comments. Honestly, having been a reader of digg and /. at one time, what drove me away was the poor quality of the comments. Here i am already seeing a trend of people going around and posting things like "take xxxx out of the title to make it more tidy". Comments like this are a waste of space. People loose sight of the idea that comments are about THE STORY not about the formatting of the authors headline. Here some of that responsibility lies in the authors hands to delete such comments, and i think that is very good. Another problem that will ruin newsvine for me is people posting things like "Here are 12 cool icons for your website". Did these people miss something? - NEWS - vine, not - free advertising - vine. That's what i really got tired of on digg was people posting their bookmarks. There is a website called delicious for that. I come here to read the news not to read about the new tutorial on how to optimize windows xp. Just my 2 cents but take it for what its worth. Props to this author, you have some excellent points and i hope people listen.

"take xxxx out of the title to make it more tidy"

I'd suggest using the 'contact the author' button for such things, as long is there is no other way authors are told putting (multiple) exclamation marks in their title isn't a good thing.

yes i agree, but its irritating to go to a story and have the first comment be something like that. You mean titles like: OMG LOOK AT THIS L33T NEW NOTEBOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! arent good? haha just kidding.

Interesting article from PBS' new Media Shift blog which might add to this discussion. Talks about comment moderation on blogs, in response to the flap over the Washington Post's shutting down their comments on one of their blogs due to a barrage of negativity aimed at one of their writers. I think the consensus seems to be agreement with much of Brian's thoughts.