Chris Cillizza skriver “The Fix”, en politisk blogg på Washington Posts hemsida:

RESOLVED: Comments sections need to go

Efter att ha borrat i den problematik som Anne Applebaum skrev om igår i samma tidning och som jag också kommenterat i två blogginlägg blir detta hans slutsats:

Rather than use resources on people who try to make comments sections smarter, I’d rather do what the Post IS doing: Hire more content creators who can widen our community in ways that make more and more people want to be a part of it. That seems to me to be the way to be the best steward of our growing online city.  And the bigger the city grows, the harder it is to hear the loud guy screaming nonsensically down the block.  Win-win.

Bakgrund:

Reuters recently got rid of comments on articles. ”Much of the well-informed and articulate discussion around news, as well as criticism or praise for stories, has moved to social media and online forums,” the editors wrote in explaining their decision. ”Those communities offer vibrant conversation and, importantly, are self-policed by participants to keep on the fringes those who would abuse the privilege of commenting.”  Vox, the site run by former WaPo-er Ezra Klein, doesn’t have comments at all.  The New York Times heavily curates its comments sections.

What the current configuration of comments sections does is allow the loudest person — whether or not they are representative of the broader community — to appoint himself (or herself) as mayor of the city. It’s like if the most obnoxious guy on your block all of a sudden asserted his right to make all decisions related to the neighborhood for you.  Not so good, right?

The problem with this model is that while self-policing — think of it as a sort of neighborhood watch for the online community — can work, it becomes harder and harder to do the larger the community grows.

Washington Post