How to run a good set of comments
Maxine Clarke
Wednesday, 25 February 2009 21:09 UTC
I am rather taken with this post from one of the Times journalists who runs the paper’s Alpha Mummy blog:
I’ve decided to try something different for comments. During the week, when I’m frequently checking comments, they will go up automatically. On weekends, we’ll have moderation so comments that violate our Ts & Cs don’t go up and stay up for an extended period.
Please do send a message to alphamummy@timesonline.co.uk if you see “bad” posts and thanks to everyone who keeps the conversation interesting and thoughtful rather than of the “anyone who thinks that is a Nazi” variety that seems to proliferate on the web.
Being in charge of commenting on a website is quite challenging: how to promote free and stimulating debate, while not encouraging “Nazis” who, for example, complain en masse when a BBC TV programme features a presenter with only one hand. “My children don’t like it” is the politest summary (for “children” read “I”. Disgraceful.) I think there are two main aspects: policing and removing the illegal; and encouraging free but relevant debate.
Issues seem to me to be:
(1) to attract any comments at all (without being crass and resorting to headlines about squirrels whatever the post is about)
(2) keeping out the riff raff
(3) discussing something pertinent and arresting, that hasn’t been discussed a thousand times before on a thousand other forums
(4) exhaustion and/or time limitations of the moderator/blogger.
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Replies
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Maxine, that’s an interesting list (do squirrels really work?).
I’ve been wondering whether the formula for a lot of comments is this simple (not including the silly posts): write about a topic of very broad interest that is easy to read for a large number of people. Although (as you point out) this shouldn’t be something that’s been discussed to death, it also shouldn’t be a brand new idea – rather something relatively well-worn that a lot of people have thought about before. The topic may be a little controversial (but not too much), and it helps to add some half-finished ideas and thoughts in there that the commenters can pick apart.
Of course there are exceptions, but that has been my general impression. If it’s true, this means that most sciencey-posts (similar to interviews) will never attract a very large number of comments – but hopefully they’re an interesting read.
And I see that you knew about being whimsical all along…
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Good point, Steffi – familiar without being too familiar.
I’m told that squirrels do work, and so does octopus. I do wonder though….I have tried writing squirrels and octopus in the title of a post on my personal blog and for once I will go and look at the stats in a few days to see what happens.
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