One of the largest online commenting systems in the world is getting an overhaul over the next few months. YouTube is changing their system from automatically showing the most recent comments at the top to a new algorithm based on popularity, replies, and Google+ connections. The idea behind this in Google’s view is to dissuade users from leaving comments that are unnecessarily negative or don’t promote conversation. The algorithm is also being supplemented by mandatory Google+ integration, so all comments will now be attached to a true name instead of a user handle. This is already optional for users to implement right now, but would be required once YouTube converts the website to the new system.
Popular Science recently opted to turn off comments entirely on their site, as a vocal minority of readers were propagating unhealthy views on scientific discipline and alternative science. They felt this was emblematic of the wider view today, particularly in the United States, that scientific research is only merited by the strength of the debate on each side of the argument, and not by the fact that the research and studies have been reviewed and verified to be one of the most accurate assumptions that we can currently make. Popular Science still aims to have comments open on articles that they believe will lead to “vigorous and intelligent discussion”.
Local events where comments have gone sour and unhealthy are often on videos or posts released by the University or its departments. The Elon Musk video, released as a tongue-in-cheek, light-hearted poke at his comments while demonstrating the quantity and mental quality of women in the Faculty, originally received supportive comments before reaching Reddit, which has seemingly become one of the largest repositories of cynical and bitter commenters on the Internet. The uWaterloo subreddit in particular has had a habit of posting things they dislike about Waterloo to the cringe subreddit, a forum self-described as “the place for those videos you see that are too embarrassing to watch all the way through.” Once posted to both subreddits, opinion on the piece rapidly decreased as a flood of negative and often personal comments about the video unleashed across the subreddits and the YouTube comment box.
Vox Media, a newer company that runs the well-received sites Polygon and The Verge, spent much time carefully determining how to run their comment system to avoid attracting the negativity surrounding the comments sections from other sites covering similar news. On the video games side, particularly from the view of a Nintendo gamer, IGN has undergone a massive conversion in the last ten years, from a fairly representative and friendly video gaming coverage site to a hostile environment where it’s hard to enter a comment section and not notice highly negative or cynical comments towards the author or the games described in each article. Polygon has thus far managed to avoid that, with most articles managing to foster a conversation between those who are excited in the product or are skeptical because of proven past experiences or fair uncertainties. The harshest articles are often on ones about SimCity or Electronic Arts (EA), due to the extremely rough launch and questionable business decisions pushed by EA in the past. Polygon also has very quick and conversational moderators, who will banish those who leave intentionally unhelpful comments and open conversation with those who appear to be negative but with reason.
The Verge has had less success with this, perhaps due to the fierce nature of technology wars. Many editors of The Verge hail from Engadget, which grew a reputation for having a fierce and divided readership that grew to leave such negative and unhelpful comments that the editor at the time (Joshua Topolsky, who now runs The Verge) posted that the comments would be shut off until they had time to weed out the hurtful commenters and let everyone calm down. The Verge launched with seemingly intelligent debates in the comments, but open any article on mobile phones and you will notice the many comments that split themselves between somewhat intelligent and entirely useless. Perhaps it has more to do with the types of people that comment on mobile phone articles, but if they found a method to remove the unhelpful comments more effectively it would be a win for editors of technology sites across the Internet.
The way websites deal with their commenting systems varies, but most try their best to keep the discussion insightful and helpful, to the point where it should be complimenting the article instead of detracting from it. The opinion of the readers can be very useful for the authors or other readers, particularly when it debates a questionable point in the original article, but should always be civil and useful for others to read. Some sites appear to be successful in making the switch to more insightful comments, but it will take time to determine what the correct approach is in the end.
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