Ulterior Motive to VICE Disabling All Comments
Removing the comments section helps obscure low reader engagement.
Yesterday Vice announced that it will be closing down all comments on vice.com. Naturally my skepticism was piqued because Vice never really had much of a comments section. Therefore, deleting the comments section would serve as way to obscure how many people engage with their content.
I asked the author of the announcement, editor-in-chief Jonathan Smith, why not alternatives? Silence. As usual.
It’s easy to dismiss Vice’s move as an industry trend. However, things are a little more nuanced. Reuters disabled most comments but keeps some open for the opinion section. The New York Times keeps approximately 10 percent of articles open for comment. The only notable site lacking a comments section is Vox which launched without comments, promising them later, and then never following through.
The Guardian decided to keep their comments section after an analysis of 70 million comments. They found that only 2% required blocking and 2% were considered spam. “For the most part, Guardian readers enrich the journalism.” The Guardian is only removing comments on “stories relating to a few particularly contentious subjects, such as migration and race.”
Maaayyyybe: Vice fully considered the loss of a comments section and decided to delete it or maybe the deciding factor was that Shane Smith and Vice executives have a board meeting in January to discuss an I.P.O. and they want to obscure their lower than advertised traffic numbers for banks doing due diligence. One takes effort and a commitment to dialogue the other makes a conman rich.
How to Reduce Trolling in Comment Section:
- Approval-first system. Hide comments until they are approved by moderator. eg: Kinja (Gizmodo, Gawker) “The following replies are approved. To see additional replies that are pending approval, click Show Pending. Warning: These may contain graphic material.”
- Members only. Mainly sites that have subscription fees can use this. Alternatively, sites can allow frequent or reliable users priority or ability to moderate.
- Hire more paid moderators. Ultimately these decisions are due to a lack of resources. A quality comment section can be had.
- Only comments on opinion articles. Reduce moderation workload by limiting comments section to articles that are meant to spur discussion.
FURTHER READING
Anil Dash “After building online communities for two decades, we’ve learned how to fight abuse. It’s a solvable problem. We just have to stop repeating the same myths as excuses not to fix things.” “If your website (or app!) is full of assholes, it’s your fault.” RE: The Immortal Myths About Online Abuse
Ernst-Jan Pfauth “Most people in the news industry hate comments. But that’s only because we invest too little in them. It’s like complaining about your relationship, but never being home for a good heart-to-heart.” “Honor good questions with a good answer, stick to the facts, thank readers for providing invaluable tips that can take your project a step further, and calmly urge the rabble-rousers to tone it down.” RE: Let’s give reader comments another chance — and for real, this time
PARSE.LY “Rather than settling on one “golden” metric for defining audience engagement though, many publishers combined multiple metrics, such as “page views per visitor” or “shares plus comments.”” RE: Define the Jargon: Audience Engagement
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DANIEL VOSHART works in Virtual Reality and Architecture; dabbles in Cinematography and Forensic consulting; and occasionally writes about Vice.
