By Jess Eng and Rachel Auslander
The comment section needs a makeover. Readers today often comment on news articles or videos without thinking twice about what they write, or considering whether their comments will stifle productive conversations. Comment sections often have no filter, which leads to an abundance of trolls and angry commentators. In an open comment space without direction for what the user should think about when commenting, the potential for context collapse is huge. Users approach the comment section from an infinite array of angles, from posting questions to paragraphs of personal anecdotes to debates with other users. The wealth and diversity of content in the comment section generally leads to confusion among readers, rather than increased understanding of an article or point of view of the commenter.
The typical user who flocks to the comment section most likely comes from a specific demographic. The Engaging News Project at the University of Texas at Austin found that frequent users of the comment section are 64% more likely to be men and 53% less likely to have a high school education than those who rarely engage with the comment section [1]. How can we diversify who participates in the comment section and contextualize comment sections to promote helpful discourse? Through this project, we want to explore why other users are not engaging in the comment section, through interviews, prototype testing and other methods.
News outlets have widely recognized that unfiltered comment sections can result in toxicity and trolls. NPR found that only 1% of its readership participated in its comment section, so it removed the comment section from its website. Vice News and USA Today also eliminated their comment sections. In a letter to their readers in 2016, Vice News said the following: “Unfortunately, website comments sections are rarely at their best. Without moderators or fancy algorithms, they are prone to anarchy.” News outlets that still use comment sections have to relentlessly moderate the comment section, which is no easy task and difficult to scale.
Existing comment plug-ins such as Disqus and IntenseDebate are popular on many smaller media and news outlets, but they are optimized for the volume of discussion rather than the health of a discussion. These plug-ins prompt users with “Join the discussion” and “Leave a comment…”. These open prompts do not ensure that users are on the same page about what a helpful response would be, or inform users how to communicate why they may hold a certain perspective. Designing a user friendly, mindful comment plug-in is no easy task. One comment plug-in startup, Civil, shuttered after a few years in production. The most successful comment assistant to date, Coral by Vox Media, is oriented around moderating discussions and uplifting journalists’ voices in a conversation, rather than promoting healthy discourse from the start of the commenting process.
To solve this problem, we wonder: How might we turn the once dreaded comment section into a forum for civil discussion and healthy online dialogue? How might we create a positive user experience when reading an article, contextualize discussions in a single space to reduce context collapse, and increase the diversity of comment section users?
Ultimately, our goal for this project is to design, prototype, and build a comment plug-in that stimulates mindful discussion through curated prompts and suggestions.
2 replies on “Fixing Comment Sections”
So, you’re taking on one of the hardest problems in social media design… which you clearly know. Kudos for doing your research and understanding that many people have taken this on and failed in the past.
I like the idea that a specific prompt might be what we need to solve commenting. You might consider what you do with people who ignore or abuse the prompt – are their comments removed? Deprioritized? Who writes these prompts? The article author?
One thing to consider is that communities establish norms through priming. In introducing this new form of comments, you may need a team of people posting appropriate comments to help demonstrate how this functionality should be used.
I’d like to see design sketches, some examples of what prompts might be and how they appear in context. I’d also love it if you would try some prompting in your own social media – use FB or instagram to prompt people to respond in a specific way and see whether your levels of engagement improve…
Really great background research and an exciting are to think about! Making comment sections healthier is a big problem space to tackle though — I recommend narrowing in on one of the more specific questions you had, like “How might we contextualize discussions in a single space to reduce context collapse?” or “How might we increase the diversity of comment section users?” Those are still big questions, but could lead to a more specific and creative approach to this problem.
For even more scoping, I think it could also be helpful to decide on a specific news site that you would want to implement a solution for — this could help you hone in on the audience. For example, Buzzfeed is a pretty different kind of news site with a different audience from a site like The Wall Street Journal.
I’m excited to see where this goes!