content + commentary: how media brands invite, manage, and benefit from user commenting and...

Content + Commentary | September 2008

How Media Brands Invite, Manage, and Benefit From User Commenting and Participation Online

CONTENT + COMMENTARY

Content + Commentary | September 20082Image by lemontwist301 "Race Crowd" on Flickr

The general interest of the masses might take the place of the insight of genius if it were allowed freedom of action.

If you ever want to lose faith in humanity, read any comments

section on the internet.—Denis Diderot, French philosopher (b. 1713)

—Benjamin Dolnick, American author (b. 1982)


POWER TO THE PEOPLETraditional media brands are accustomed to being in power, defining the message and controlling the conversation.

+ Magazine and newspaper editors publish, and people read.

+ Radio hosts speak, and people listen.

+ Television producers broadcast shows, and people watch.

On the web, these former audience members are now users, which means they take an active role in shaping the message and contributing to the conversation.

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– David Carr, All of Us, the Arbiters of News, August 10 2008

For the last few years, the locus of control

has been shifting and consumers not only expect to

customize their media experience, they demand it as a condition of engagement. The horizon line for when a newspaper on the street is

serving as a kind of brochure of a rich online product does

not seem far off.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/business/media/11carr.html?_r=1&scp=4&sq=david%2520carr&st=cse&oref=slogin





Instead of a 1-way push of information, media brands now enable conversations among their audience members.

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MediaBrands

Audience

BRANDED DIALOGUE


OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS?Every media brand is wrestling with how to deal with the internet — how to profit from new revenue streams, how not to be left behind as consumer behavior changes.

Finding constructive and engaging ways for users to participate is one critical way that media brands stay relevant:

+ Some brands want to take advantage of this new discourse but don’t know how to integrate it with their own content

+ Others are wary of diluting the editorial credibility of their brand

+ Still others fear that the voice of the people can be cacophonous and uncontrollable

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Nec audiendi qui solent dicere, Vox populi, Vox Dei, quum tumultuositas vulgi semper insaniae proxima sit.

Do not listen to those people who keep saying “the voice of the people is the voice of God,” since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness.

—Letter from Alcuin to Charlemagne, 798

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We examined how media websites balance the need to facilitate reader participation with the desire to maintain editorial integrity and serve their paying advertisers.

We reviewed:

+ Mainstream media brands with well-established editorial POV and growing audiences online

+ Web publications with frequent publishing schedules and significant user participation

We found some good strategies and some common pitfalls in how they’re coping and adapting.

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The First Hurdle: Set Appropriate Barriers to EntryTypically users are asked to register in order to participate. This registration process can be a short hop or a long climb, based on the site’s goals and brand.

The Carrot and the Stick: Encourage Quality DiscourseThe dream of citizen journalism dies a little after seeing the comments people post on YouTube videos. There are ways to raise the quality.

The New World Order: Treat Comments as ContentUser contributions can languish in the comments ghetto if they aren’t actively repurposed as content. Valuable contributions should live alongside editorial.

OUR FINDINGS

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THE FIRST HURDLE: SET APPROPRIATE BARRIERS TO ENTRYWho should be able to post comments on your site?

When and how should people register to contribute?

What information should you require during registration?

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THE 1% RULEIn any online community, the majority of users don’t actively participate — they read, they observe, they lurk. For a traditional media brand which doesn’t expect much audience interaction, this may not seem like a problem.

What it means, though, is that the majority of comments come from a tiny minority of contributors.

Is this a problem? It depends on the goals of the site and the type of people who come there.

Some sites may want to set low barriers to entry, to encourage more people to participate.

Others may want to set the bar higher, assuming that asking more from participants will weed out lower quality contributions.

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Jakob Nielsen, Participation Inequality: Encouraging More Users to Contribute, October 9, 2006

90% Lurkers

9% Intermittent Contributors

1% Heavy Contributors

The First Hurdle: Set Appropriate Barriers to Entry

10% of postings from 9% of users

90% of postingsfrom

1% of users

No postings from 90% of users

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/participation_inequality.html





REGISTRATION OPTIONSAllow Anonymous Comments

Ask for Name + Email

Require Registration + Password

Ask for Optional Demographics

Charge a Registration Fee

Keep Login and Registration in Context

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ALLOW ANONYMOUS COMMENTSData gathered by Topix, a news aggregator and community forum, indicates that “systems that require registration get an order of magnitude less commentary than systems that don’t.”

Anonymous posts account for three times the comment volume, even if they also account for approximately 50% more deleted posts.

The non-registered user base provides the majority of acceptable comments, so “eliminating anonymous comments is only going to limit the number of comments at the end of the day, not dramatically improve the quality of discourse on the web.”

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Chris Tolles, Anonymous Comments — By The Numbers, January 8, 2008Mark Glaser, Traditional Media Ready to Elevate the Conversation Online — with Moderation, January 16, 2008

Anonymous Users

Registered Users

0 10,000 30,000 50,000 70,000

Accepted Posts Rejected Posts


http://blog.topix.com/archives/000190.html


http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2008/01/digging_deepertraditional_medi_1.html



The real issue here is that the Internet’s real mission is to empower many-to-many conversations. The long-term play is thousands of conversations between the people in the forums, not an editorial opinion being foisted on them by a battery of editors. With regard to anonymity — it’s pretty much a misnomer. We know roughly the same about people who post anonymously, as we do about people who register with an email address, and can ban people either way. We’ve found roughly the same amount of abuse from both kinds of people, and all you’re doing with registration is making people jump through hoops. Bad people jump though hoops more or less as much as good folks, at least with regard to commentary.

— Chris Tolles, CEO of Topix

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Mark Glaser, Traditional Media Ready to Elevate the Conversation Online — with Moderation, January 16, 2008




ASK FOR NAME + EMAILAsking for only name and email (with no password) sets a low barrier to entry. This communicates to users “please share your ideas, we want to hear them.”

With an interface that makes it so easy to contribute, users may be more likely to comment first and think later. This also makes it easy for spammers to contribute, so some form of automated review is required.

Because login information isn’t saved, users need to enter name and email every time they comment (or accept a “remember me” cookie for their computer.)

This also means that users don’t maintain an identity or profile across the site, which limits the ability to recognize, reward, or restrict people on the basis of their comments.

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Users submit the minimum amount of information on some of the New York Times blogs. Information is not saved.



I am not a supporter of registration or other prior-restraint gating processes that ultimately only hinder the conversation. Our role is to activate and engage the conversation, not stifle and control it. Our role is to open ourselves and our sites to all kinds of communities and all kinds of people — not just those who fit our demographic filters or don’t like to cuss or don’t get rambunctious or don’t sometimes just say stupid things just to make a point.

—Scott Anderson, vice president of shared content for Tribune Interactive

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REQUIRE REGISTRATION + PASSWORDAsking users to register before they can submit a comment places a higher barrier to entry, and site owners can expect that as many as two-thirds of potential users will leave without completing the form.

This dropoff may be acceptable (or even desirable) if it reduces the amount of noise in the system. We assume that only users who have something valuable to say will invest time entering their personal information.

On the other hand, too high of a barrier to start may prevent a lively community from getting off the ground. Users need to feel like their contributions are wanted and that there are other people to share ideas with.

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Fast Company requests personal information that is appropriate for the site content and purpose, and it is used to start a personal profile.



ASK FOR OPTIONAL DEMOGRAPHICSMany sites wish to gather a significant amount of data from users during registration, since this information can be used for marketing and to target online ads.

Asking for demographic information like gender, age, job title, salary, or industry requires real engagement from users. Even if these questions are optional, users may still perceive the form to be too complex and abandon the process.

One option is to ask for the minimum information to start, and then ask for additional information as they use the site. Rolling profile creation allows users quick access to the site, and then asks them for information in context.

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BusinessWeek asks new users to make a significant number of decisions and respond to numerous fields before they are able to register for a site-wide profile.



CHARGE A REGISTRATION FEECharging a fee helps to cover costs of maintaining and moderating the site, but it also provides an incentive for good behavior.

Users who have paid the fee have a stake in “ownership” of the site, and may be more inclined to behave appropriately. By charging for registration, users risk losing their investment if they are banned by site moderators, so they may post more cautiously.

Sites which benefit from an international audience should offer an alternative fee structure for users in developing nations, or tell these users to contact site moderators to have the fee waived.

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Metafilter charges a $5 registration fee to become a member and participate in its discussions.

Freakonomics, Can $5 Improve Reader Comments?, April 10 2008


http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/10/can-5-improve-reader-comments/



You take a site like Metafilter, and the commentary is the content, for a lot of folks. Not everyone, granted—tons of folks use the front page of the site as a link dump and never click into individual threads, and that’s fine. But the gateway of having to sign up (for which the $5 fee is a speedbump to scare off those who wouldn’t quite be fazed by a free signup process) does a good job of reducing the number of driveby yakkers, which helps keep the signal high.

—Josh Millard, Metafilter Moderator

Freakonomics, Can $5 Improve Reader Comments?, April 10 2008

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KEEP LOGIN IN CONTEXTHaving to register or login to a site can be an obstacle to users who want to comment. Because users have to shift their focus to a different task, they can become distracted or decide to give up.

Ideally, users should be able to log in or register for the site without losing the context of what they’re doing and forgetting their place.

Overlays and expanding forms allow users to log in or register and then quickly return to the task at hand.

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USA Today allows users to register without navigating away from the article page.

On the Huffington Post, users can log in via an overlay and are not taken away from the article page or the comment list.



THE CARROT AND THE STICK: ENSURE QUALITY DISCOURSEWhat strategies help create useful and intelligent commentary?

How should comments be moderated?

How do inappropriate comments become a social liability?

What measures are needed to ensure comments aren’t overrun by spam?

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XKCD, YouTube


COMMENT QUALITY

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This is the crux of the issue: if media brands are going to invite users to participate in the conversation, they want it to be good.

Of course, standards for quality discourse are different online than they are in other media.

Should the conversation stand on its own, as messy and uncontrolled as discourse can be in the real world? Or should it be shaped and guided by editors?

Who has the right to judge whether someone’s comment is appropriate, topical, or worthy? What tools are available to help site owners and site users make these assessments?

The Carrot and the Stick: Ensure Quality Discourse

XKCD, YouTube

http://xkcd.com/202/

http://xkcd.com/202/


Leaving a comment on someone's weblog is like walking into their living room and joining in on a conversation. As in real life, online there are some people who are a pleasure to converse with, and some who are not.

—Gina Trapani, Lifehacker

Having lots and lots of comments is not a sign of success if those

comments are racist, sexist, homophobic, ad hominem, or just

generally obnoxious. It doesn't help your brand, and it doesn't

encourage the ninety percent of lurkers to either participate, or

look well upon you.

—Suw Charman-Anderson

Suw Charman-Anderson, Is participation inequality actually a problem?, July 6, 2007

Gina Trapani, Lifehacker's guide to weblog comments, July 6, 2007

http://strange.corante.com/archives/2007/07/06/is_participation_inequality_actually_a_problem.php




http://lifehacker.com/software/top/special-lifehackers-guide-to-weblog-comments-126654.php





COMMENT QUALITY INFLUENCERSThe Commenting Interface

Automated Moderation

Human Moderation

Community Moderation

Commenting Guidelines

Ratings

Reputation Systems

Social Liability

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THE COMMENTING INTERFACEThe quality of comments begins with the input fields. A well-designed interface for commenting will result in more thoughtful replies.

The height of the input box will influence the length of the post, so use it as a way to signal users how much they should write. Sites that have a maximum post length should alert users as they type.

Forcing users to preview their comment before submitting it will cut down on typos (and hopefully reduce insulting comments submitted in haste.)

The system should review comments and alert users to spelling errors or words that are banned under the posting guidelines.

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New York Magazine forces users to preview their comments before they can submit them, and alerts users if they enter “banned” words.

Twitter prominently counts down the number of characters left for the post.



AUTOMATED MODERATIONThe first line of defense is an automated review.

Comment spam is a significant problem but can be controlled using tools like Akismet or Mollom.

Automated tools can also be used to filter out posts with profanity or other banned character strings. These tools can also convert ALL CAPS shouting to mixed case.

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Publishers provide comments so that their

readers can easily share their thoughts and ideas. Making it easy

for readers to add comments makes it more likely that readers will do so.

The problem is that by making it easy for readers to add legitimate

comments, you also make it easy for spammers to abuse your

comment system.


– Six ApartSix Apart Guide to Comment Spam http://akismet.com/stats/

http://www.sixapart.com/pronet/comment_spam.html



Choosing to actively moderate comments is a complex decision for many publications. The desire to ensure that only high quality comments appear on the site trades off against the cost and effort required to approve them.

Some publications believe that comment moderation diminishes the immediacy of the conversation, essentially going against the open ethos of the internet. Others choose to focus and shape the discussion, choosing the most thoughtful and weeding out the incoherent, profane, and repetitive.

Many companies are concerned about legal liabilities associated with moderating comments. Under U.S. law, site owners usually are not liable for comments made on their site, even if they have reviewed them before posting. International law may differ.

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HUMAN MODERATION


Derek Powazek, Just One Question for Jason Schultz, July 30, 2008

Does moderating comments on a website make the website

owner more liable?

This is an important question that a lot of website owners have. The short answer

under U.S. law is that you are right, website owners generally are not liable

for comments on their site, even if they moderate them.


—Jason Schultz, Electronic Frontier Foundation Fellow specializing in intellectual property



http://powazek.com/posts/1092



I’m a big believer in the conversation. I believe the conversation makes us all smarter, when it’s a good conversation. The great, wonderful beauty of the Internet is that it enables everybody to join the conversation. In order for us to really benefit from the conversation, and not see it crushed by bad actors, [we need] to try and guide that conversation. I think there is a role here for journalists to play in elevating the expectations for that conversation…That’s the high ideal behind what I’m advocating, even as it flies in the face of the wide-open ideals of some digerati.

—Howard Owens, director of digital publishing at GateHouse Media


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COMMUNITY MODERATIONIt’s appropriate to enlist users in helping to moderate contributions.

Users can flag content they deem inappropriate, which increases the sense of communal responsibility, and removes some of the burden of moderating comments from the editorial staff.

Sites that do not have editors actively review comments before posting should do this.

Some human intervention may still be required to review and evaluate comments that have been flagged.

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Readers can flag comments as “abusive” on the Huffington Post.

Don’t think that you can tidy up comments any better than you can tidy up the world. I would kill the worst, most spiteful and off-topic

comments and let the rest speak for themselves.


– Jeff JarvisHow to Interact, January 30, 2006




COMMENTING GUIDELINESSites should create a set of guidelines that communicate how user-contributed content will be moderated, and what constitutes acceptable use of the site.

These guidelines should address your policies towards:

+ Profanity, obscenity, personal attacks, and defamation

+ Copyright, including your license to publish user-generated content and your approach to dealing with copyright infringement

+ Commercial promotion, including spam and paid commenting

+ Violations and how they will be handled (by requesting changes from the user, deleting the comment, or banning the user)

+ Changes to these terms of service and how they will be communicated

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Jeremy Steele, What A Comment Policy Should Cover, July 9th, 2007


http://www.nusuni.com/blog/2007/07/09/what-a-comment-policy-should-cover/



Past deletions have prompted charges of censorship. Let’s define some terms: If we attempted to pass a law preventing you from saying something terrible, that would be censorship. If you showed up in our living room attempting to say the same thing, we’d have the right to throw you out. The First Amendment forbids Congress from passing laws that abridge freedom of speech on a national level; it does not in any way apply to our right to delete posts on this site.

—The Onion A.V. Club

A.V. Club, Why we delete comments. (And how you can make us stop.), July 14, 2008

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http://www.avclub.com/content/blog/why_we_delete_comments_and_how_you



RATINGSSystems that allow users to rate and recommend comments provide another way to filter.

The simplest approach is to include a button to recommend the comment. Highly recommended comments can then be highlighted more prominently.

Another approach is a thumbs up/down rating, which enables sites to hide comments that don’t meet a minimum threshold.

Ratings also provide a quick and easy way for users to participate in the discussion without having to write their own ideas.

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Readers can recommend insightful comments in the New York Times Opinion section. The number of recommendations is displayed next to the comment.

Readers can vote comments up or down on Digg. Comments are hidden if they do not meet a minimum standard.



REPUTATION SYSTEMSRewarding users for good citizenship can be managed by tracking positive behavior and then displaying it publicly.

Points can be awarded for writing comments, receiving high ratings or recommendations from other users, or for providing their real name or extended demographic information.

Sites usually give users only a general description of which behaviors result in more points, to avoid users gaming the system.

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Folio: MediaPRO displays points on a user’s profile, and top scorers appear in a leaderboard.

Amazon.com rewards users with “badges” for their performance.



SOCIAL LIABILITYUsers may be more circumspect in their comments if they know their words will follow them around the site.

By aggregating all of a user’s comments onto a profile, clicking on a username will enable people to get a sense of that person’s previous interactions and tone.

This is an easy way to create an identity for users with no explicit profile creation. Users do not have to set up a profile themselves because the system does it for them.

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On Slate, clicking on a user’s name displays their comment history.



Perhaps a reputation system with a mix of human and automated filters — and having positive and negative reinforcement — is the answer to that long-standing conundrum of opening up the conversation online but keeping it civil.

—Mark Glaser, PBS


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What’s the best way to expose commentary?

How do publishers foster community and reward participants?

How do publishers use commenting to their benefit?

THE NEW WORLD ORDER: TREAT COMMENTS AS CONTENT

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The New World Order: Treat Comments as Content


COMMENTARY IS CONTENTReader responses and discussions are becoming a popular form of online content for users to consume, just like they would an article or photo gallery.

Sites with an engaged audience and vigorous or even controversial debate are becoming more popular, as interest in the community sometimes outstrips interest in the original content.

For many media brands, opening their minds and hearts to the opportunities created by multi-directional conversations is the most difficult aspect of change.

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If you treat interactivity, and the people who do it, with

respect, good things will come of it: traffic, engagement, content,

collaboration.

–Jeff Jarvis, How to Interact, January 30, 2006


http://www.buzzmachine.com/interact/



Interactivity isn’t easy. I must confess that when I wrote for large publications, I said that I loved my audience … but that didn’t mean I wanted to actually meet or talk with them. The people who reached out to me as often as not did so with crayons and crackpot conspiracies, and that helped set my view of interactivity. I think the same is true for much of mass media. The old forms of interactivity helped make us into — or rather, gave us an excuse to be — isolated snobs. The internet changed all that. Online, for the first time in my career, I developed eye-to-eye relationships with readers. And I learned to respect the knowledge, intelligence, goodwill and good taste of those I saw as a mass. I embraced interactivity with obnoxious fervour and would not stop repeating, “News is a conversation …”

—Jeff Jarvis

Jeff Jarvis, How to Interact, January 30, 2006

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COMMENTARY DRIVES COMMERCEThere can be huge benefits to fostering lively debate and featuring this discourse prominently. Make use of reader comments to generate interest in and drive traffic to editorial content.

New reader commentary keeps content fresh longer, extending the shelf life of articles, and giving readers a reason to visit even when no new content has been published.

Displaying the level of activity on a post or articles enables readers to quickly scan and assess the level of controversy, drawing them in to debates.

Featuring commentary prominently begets further discussion — a virtuous circle of content generation.

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I think the most remarkable result we’ve seen so far is the

dramatic increase in frequency of reader visits. Our most loyal readers now come back many times, and that

creates lots of opportunities for commerce. Increased interaction with the site is not only a better user experience,

it’s a better commercial opportunity for publishers looking for loyalty

and engagement.

– Ed Sussman, President of Mansueto Digital FastCompany.com and Inc.com


USING COMMENTS AS CONTENTInvite the Discussion

Display Comments Appropriately

Don’t Bury Good Comments

Show Off Hot Topics

Highlight the Best Comments

Make Comments Part of the Story

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INVITE THE DISCUSSIONOne of the best ways to bring users into a conversation about your content is also one of the simplest — just ask them.

By asking a specific question, you invite your readers to participate. That simple act can make the site feel more open and interested in reader comments. As any good teacher could tell you: people who are uncomfortable sharing their ideas in a public forum will be more inclined to respond to specific questions.

Authors should write a specific query at the end of each article to spark discussion. It’s surprising how few publications actually do this.

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Including specific questions in posts definitely helps get higher

numbers of comments. I find that when I include questions in my headings that it is

a particularly effective way of getting a response from readers as you set a question in their mind from the first

moments of your post.

– Darren Rowse, 10 Techniques to Get More Comments on Your Blog, October 12, 2006

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2006/10/12/10-techniques-to-get-more-comments-on-your-blog/





DISPLAY COMMENTS APPROPRIATELYComments should appear at the bottom of article pages, and it should be easy for users to read and engage with the replies.

Putting the comments in chronological order encourages people to read and then respond. On the other hand, displaying comments in reverse chronological order makes users who come in late to the discussion feel like their comment will be read — not buried at the end of several pages of replies.

Putting the comment box at the top of the replies also encourages replying before reading, but makes it easier for people to comment.

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Women on the Web displays comments in chronological order and indents replies.



DON’T BURY GOOD COMMENTS

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Some sites (like Wired, which should know better) don’t feature commentary at all.

Despite having active comment threads on article pages, the homepage and magazine table of contents don’t mention how many comments each article has.

This makes the site seem unnecessarily static and top-down.

Other sites relegate commentary to separate pages or sections of the site, creating a “user-generated ghetto” that benefits no one.



The worst thing you can do is separate the “community section” away from your content. That creates a backchannel, where people feel safe being inappropriate because, why not? They’re at the kids table, anyway.

So link stories to community conversations as closely as possible. This will give the conversation a central topic.

—Derek Powazek, author of Design for Community

Derek Powazek, 10 Ways Newspapers Can Improve Comments, July 28, 2008

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SHOW OFF HOT TOPICSMany sites highlight their “most viewed” or “most emailed” articles, but “most commented” is often treated like a second-class citizen.

Highlighting the number of comments prominently shows the level of engagement users have with the stories.

A site may draw roughly the same number of readers for most articles, but some will garner significantly more comments than others.

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The Huffington post prominently displays the number of views and comments in a most popular box.



HIGHLIGHT THE BEST COMMENTSSites are always looking for ways to drive increased page views, particularly by helping users “stumble across” articles they might not actively seek out.

By highlighting interesting quotes from readers, sites can use comments as a way to highlight articles on the homepage or in a sidebar.

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The In Your Face feature on the BusinessWeek homepage highlights one comment in particular.

Women on the Web features reader comments prominently in the right column, and includes responses from the author.



We are rewarding our readers who make comments on our site by going to the reader and saying, “We like what you’re saying and want to feature it in a prominent way, can you send us a digital picture of yourself so we can put it on the home page?”

This is about elevating our conversation and giving credence to the idea that the web is a dialogue and not a lecture. The truth is that very few people are delivering on it, having reporters really engage with readers or elevating comments and saying, “This is as important as any story we have, any video we have, any audio we have.”

— John Byrne, BusinessWeek.com executive editor


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MAKE COMMENTS PART OF THE STORYGawker maintains control and makes comments part of the experience through weekly “commenter executions.”

Commenters feel that they are part of the experience, helping to craft the brand, and they know that site editors are actively trying to maintain quality.

A clever play on using commentary as content, and perfectly on brand, this approach may be too controversial for more traditional news outlets and print titles.

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Gawker highlights witty comments and features weekly “commenter executions.”



The tsk-tskers treat the web as if it is a media property and they judge it by its worst: Look what that nasty web is doing to our civilization! But, of course, that’s as silly as judging publishing by the worst of what is published.

It’s even more wrong because the internet is not media — no matter how much media people insist on seeing the web in their image. Instead it is, as Doc Searls points out, a place where we talk.

—Jeff Jarvis

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Jeff Jarvis, Comments on Comments on Comments, July 28 2008

http://www.buzzmachine.com/2008/07/28/comments-on-comments-on-comments/



METHODOLOGY

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METHODOLOGY

Bond Art + Science looked at user participation across a broad range of sites, from traditional, long-standing print publications such as National Geographic and The New York Times, to newer web-only publications such as Women on the Web and The Huffington Post. By examining sites across a range of criteria, we were able to identify trends in how these brands address user participation and identify best practices and common pitfalls.

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Amazon.comThe American ProspectBusinessWeekCool Hunting Cut&Paste Fast CompanyFolio: MediaPRO GawkerGood MagazineHuffington PostMetafilterNational GeographicNew York MagazineThe New York Times

NewsweekPitchfork Popular SciencePortfolioScientific AmericanSlate Time MagazineTime OutThe Times (UK)US News & World ReportUSA TodayThe Washington PostWiredWomen on the Web

Criteria:

Barriers to EntryProminence of CommentingIntegration Within ContentEase of UseRatingsUser Submissions and UGCCommentary As ContentAccountability and Community PolicingForumsQuality of Discourse

Sites Examined:


SOURCESWe also spoke with several experts in managing user comments, and researched additional sources in blog posts, articles, and comments online.

A.V. Club, Why we delete comments. (And how you can make us stop.), July 14, 2008Chris Tolles, Anonymous Comments — By The Numbers, January 8, 2008Darren Rowse, 10 Techniques to Get More Comments on Your Blog, October 12, 2006David Carr, All of Us, the Arbiters of News, August 10, 2008Derek Powazek, 10 Ways Newspapers Can Improve Comments, July 28, 2008Derek Powazek, Just One Question for Jason Schultz, July 30, 2008Derek Powazek, This is Not a Comment, July 26, 2008Freakonomics, Can $5 Improve Reader Comments?, April 10, 2008Gina Trapani, Lifehacker's guide to weblog comments, September 21, 2005Howard Owens, Chris Tolles brings some stats to the anonymous vs. registration debate, January 9th, 2008Jakob Nielsen, Participation Inequality: Encouraging More Users to Contribute, October 9, 2006Jeff Jarvis, Comments on Comments on Comments, July 28, 2008Jeff Jarvis, How to Interact, January 30, 2006Jeremy Steele, What A Comment Policy Should Cover, July 9th, 2007Lorelle van Fossen, Comments on Comments, September 17, 2005Mark Glaser, Traditional Media Ready to Elevate the Conversation Online — with Moderation, January 16, 2008Suw Charman-Anderson, Is participation inequality actually a problem?, July 6, 2007 The Onion, Local Idiot To Post Comment On Internet, August 6, 2008Virginia Heffernan, Stet, July 20, 2008



















http://www.howardowens.com/2008/chris-tolles-brings-some-stats-to-the-anonymous-vs-registration-debate/

http://www.howardowens.com/2008/chris-tolles-brings-some-stats-to-the-anonymous-vs-registration-debate/









http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2005/09/17/comments-on-comments/

http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2005/09/17/comments-on-comments/





http://www.theonion.com/content/news/local_idiot_to_post_comment_on

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/local_idiot_to_post_comment_on

BOND ART + SCIENCE


By providing insightful user experience design services, Bond Art + Science makes the internet better for the people who use it.

+ We are a leading firm in New York City focused on delivering better user experiences through our expertise in information architecture and interaction design

+ We offer workshops, expert assessments, and persona research, in addition to our core offerings of concept prototyping and user experience design

+ We primarily work with clients who expect to derive significant business value from increased user engagement, participation, and loyalty online

+ We were founded in 2006 by four veterans of the interactive services industry

+ Everyone on our team shares a passion for making technology work better for the people who use it

The Women on the Web

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