How do you solve a problem like commenting?

So way back in the Dark Ages of the Web, I used to post on a now-defunct message board for a site called Hissyfit, and one of the traits of every thread was that each discussion got capped at 50 posts. Talking about the discussion within the discussion was prohibited, as was writing like a meth-addled monkey or making personal attacks.

As a result, the discussions were bright and funny, and I'm still friends with some other regulars to this day. And I got my recapping gig at Television Without Pity thanks to my posting on Hissyfit, and then it was on me to moderate the discussion boards for the shows I covered, and that was when I learned three immutable truths of online "community"

1. A community rises and falls on the accountability its members feel to it and to each other.
2. That accountability is tied to the contributions everyone makes, and to the recognition of those contributions by members. That, in turn, causes members to feel invested in the social space.
3. Accountability, recognition for contributions and investment in community are typically nurtured and reinforced by community moderators.

When I blogged for the San Francisco Chronicle, the comments for the blog were unmoderated. As I understood it, this was due to two things: First, moderators would have added overhead to a shoestring operation. Second, having commenters run wild was excellent for pageviews. I couldn't argue with either point, but I could react by refusing to engage in what was not so much a commenter community but the online analogue to a failed nation-state.

My point is: Good online communities require time and attention. As Matt Gemmell wrote on Nov 29, 11:

Comments create a burden of moderation on the blog owner. Various systems exist to ease the burden, but with the burgeoning spam problem on blogs, there’s always going to be a trade-off between getting people’s comments published as quickly as possible, and keeping the comments relevant and spam-free.

Moderation is not only emotionally consuming (people tend to forget there's a human being on the other end of the network), it's a time suck. Per Seth Godin, in 06:

I think comments are terrific, and they are the key attraction for some blogs and some bloggers. Not for me, though. First, I feel compelled to clarify or to answer every objection or to point out every flaw in reasoning. Second, it takes way too much of my time to even think about them, never mind curate them. And finally, and most important for you, it permanently changes the way I write. Instead of writing for everyone, I find myself writing in anticipation of the commenters.

Here's the thing: I was lucky to have mostly really great commenters on the Rage Diaries and then the Filthy Commerce experiment. About 95% of the credit goes to those folk. But the remaining 5%, where I tried to stay engaged and make sure we all played nice in the comments, etc.?  I didn't love the time that took.

I love blogging. I am hoping to get back into the swing of a four-posts-a-week schedule. I want to spend my time researching and writing posts that add something of value to the Web. I don't want to spend my time playing defense in the comments.

Yet I believe -- like it says in "The Web Is a Customer Service Medium" -- that one of the most exciting things about this medium is that it can engage readers in a dialogue and improve the overall quality of information. The questions I am trying to answer: How do I open the lines of feedback without adding another obligation to my time? Is that even possible?

Some of you have responded to blog posts via Twitter. I'm also playing with the idea of starting discussions in Google+, as that reduces the odds of drive-by anonymous cowards. I don't know if there is a good solution. But I'm opening up the comments here to see what any of you can suggest.

Comments

[Marylynn]

One of the horrors of the internet is anonymous commenting. It can have its place but it's largely the thing that seems to contribute the most to terrible web interactions. So I would say that anything you do that could force people to be personally accountable for what they say would help. You're putting your name on this so anyone who wants to interact with you and have an opinion should be expected to do the same. This isn't the sort of site where I would expect someone to really need to anonymize their comment for some legitimate reason. (I signed in with Twitter to do this comment but you could do Facebook commenting which may or may not be a pain - I have no idea - but that seems to at least tie comments to an existing specific identity).

Also, maybe not everything needs commentary so maybe not opening everything up so it's not an ongoing time sink but maybe sometimes encouraging it could be good?

[Becky]

Have you considered Disqus? Reduces the anonymous drive-bys, because you need to go to the trouble of getting a pseudonym, but that way you don't need to use your full name. And so many sites use Disqus that lots of people already have an account.

Besides, does anyone actually use Google+, even if they have an account? I kind of keep forgetting it exists.

[Aericks]

...and then there's needing to pick some other 3rd Party system to comment from. And those systems tend to be tied to social media. And if you're not sure whether you want to comment from a social media source then you're left to choose another option and it may be something you're unfamiliar with.

Anyway. I don't have a real good answer here but I agree with your whole post. And the comments at SFGate were HORRIBLE! I kept wanting to make a profile so I could jump in and defend your perfectly SANE and well-done articles but I was afraid to get locked in with that lot.

Glad you're posting again! I've missed your writing!

[Alexandra]

Becky, I could almost see Google+'s "wait, do I even have one of those?" nature as something of a plus (pardon the pun). There is a local news site that I frequently would love to comment on, but I don't, simply because you can ONLY comment on their stuff with your Facebook. I don't want every colleague I have ever had, or ever will have, potentially seeing my random musings on the poor decisions of Community Board 12; and I don't trust that Facebook will ever allow me to maintain in the future whatever privacy boundaries it allows me to maintain today. As someone who was in college when FB was first a (very private) "thing," and who didn't even share anything terrible but still felt kind of embarrassed to have jokey midnight comments about cute professors or obnoxious dorm-mates slowly become more and more public in front of people who have only ever known me as an adult professional, I can say: fool me once, shame on you.... I'd be way more comfortable using Google+, in part because fewer people would notice if all my comments were shared with all my connections but in part because I feel like there's some stability in how the policies of today will relate directly to the policies of tomorrow.

I do have a Twitter account. I rarely use it but I don't have any of the same ickiness about commenting from Twitter as I do about commenting from FB.

The SFGate comments could be atrocious. I think my favorites were the ones like on the storage-unit article, where the commenters had so clearly not read a word written but had just seen a lightning-bolt phrase and, as if by rote, typed out the same rant they've undoubtedly shared countless times before.

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[WeliSkere]

An interesting discussion is worth comment. I feel that you should certainly write alot more on this topic, it might not be a taboo subject but generally men and women are not sufficient to speak on such topics. To the next. Cheers

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