I think we can learn a lot from Stack Overflow about the structure and moderation of comments.
Creating and sustaining useful environments for web comments is a difficult task for anyone, but there are methods that can make the experience better.
In a related note, YouTube is trying out different approaches for their own comments sections, integrating them more closely with Google+, as detailed here:
"You'll start to see a new set of comments rise to the top: those by the video's creator, "popular personalities" (i.e., YouTube celebrities), "engaged discussions" with a long thread, and people you know and interact with — both on YouTube and Google+."
http://mashable.com/2013/09/24/youtube-comments-upgrade/
I think the last one is key -- surfacing comments from people you know and interact with seems like a sensible way to weed out the trolls.
But this suggests moving to a tiered presentation of comments, rather than a chronological one, which is a big departure. We experimented with this approach with the Article Feedback Tool, which shows 'featured' comments by default, and tucks away comments found inappropriate or requiring no action.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Article_Feedback/Help/Editors
Note that tiered comments doesn't mean that you can't have chronological conversations within each discussion items. But this approach ranks conversations in the initial display to the user (unless they wish to change their filters).
In our environment, this could possibly be done by tracking who you interact with -- and eventually providing the option to 'follow' users you find interesting, which I think is long overdue.
This whole field is particularly challenging, as nobody has found a killer app yet that solves all these issues. Until we do, I think comments will remain an important component of interacting on the web, even if their crude and unsatisfying form. But there are some promising approaches which we might want to learn from and possibly adapt for Wikipedia.
-f
On Sep 25, 2013, at 8:40 PM, Matthew Flaschen wrote:
On 09/25/2013 09:58 PM, Steven Walling wrote:
Yeah how does all this compare to your experience with comments on StackOverflow Matt?
(For those who don't know Matt is a big time StackOverflow contributor.)
Stack Overflow is pretty good about this. I don't see a lot of blatantly bad posts (ad hominem, etc.). I think this is partly because of who ends up on the site to start with, partly because of the structure the technology imposes, and partly because of good moderation):
StackOverflow is *very* structured (I think enforcement has also gotten stricter over time) in terms of what you can post.
- If you post a question that is off-topic (you'll be sent to the appropriate other Stack Exchange site, if any), a duplicate (you'll be linked to what it's a duplicate of) or just unreadable/spammy/very bad, it will be closed. Questions can also be -1'ed.
- If you post a bad answer, it will be -1'ed. If it's very bad/spammy, it can be deleted, though this is not as common for just badly informed posts. An interesting case is that "Thank you!" answers are also deleted, because they're not, well, answers.
- Comments should be used when you're actually commenting on someone's question or answer. "Thank you!" comments can also be deleted.
There is a review tool (http://stackoverflow.com/review) specifically to ensure adequate moderation. Since it's StackOverflow, you can get badges for reviewing (http://stackoverflow.com/help/badges)
The review tool currently has (parentheticals are my own explanation):
- Close Votes (closing questions requires a quorum, so this lets you support a close, if appropriate)
- Suggested Edits (Stack Overflow is a wiki, but if you have < 2000 reputation your edits have to be approved Flagged Revisions style).
- First Posts (pretty self-explanatory; first posts are more likely to need moderation)
- Late Answers (these can also require moderation; "Thank you!" posts are common here)
- Low Quality Posts (moderate posts the Stack Exchange software flagged as potentially problematic)
- Reopen Votes (similar to Close Votes, but voting to reopen).
Some moderation can be done simply by higher-repped users (http://stackoverflow.com/help/privileges), but there are also diamond moderators with extra powers (http://stackoverflow.com/help/site-moderators). These are elected, except for new sites that don't have an electorate yet.
Matt
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