News Site Trialling No Comments Unless You've Read The Story

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News Site Trialling No Comments Unless You've Read The Story

engine

3:08 pm on Mar 2, 2017 (gmt 0)

A Norwegian news site is trialling a new method of commenting by restricting users from contributing until they've actually read the story.
It runs a simple test taking 15-seconds which defuses the immediate reaction to comment on the comments without having actually read the story.

"We thought we should do our part to try and make sure that people are on the same page before they comment," said Stale Grut, one of the site's journalists.

"If everyone can agree that this is what the article says, then they have a much better basis for commenting on it."News Site Trialling No Comments Unless You've Read The Story [bbc.co.uk]

Marshall

7:50 pm on Mar 2, 2017 (gmt 0)

Think you got 2 threads on the same subject - [webmasterworld.com...]

lucy24

9:33 pm on Mar 2, 2017 (gmt 0)

Stale Grut, one of the site's journalists

I had to look this up, because it sounded so goofy--and I’m Norwegian. It's really Ståle. What a difference 28 letters make...

robzilla

10:26 pm on Mar 2, 2017 (gmt 0)

@lucy24: It sure doesn't sound very appetizing.

So is this like a CAPTCHA for knee-jerk reactions? I generally prefer the point systems used by sites like reddit; the good stuff floats up and the worst gets hidden.

graeme_p

6:38 am on Mar 3, 2017 (gmt 0)

The problem with a points system is that it only real works with a sufficient volume of comments and a sufficient proportion of regular users. It works for discussion sites, but not for sites where users read a lot but rarely comment.

I think this is simple, ingenious, and more likely to work than machine learning or other high tech approaches. Some times simple approaches are the best (as pagerank was once up a time...).