CONTENT + COMMENTARY
How Media Brands Invite, Manage, and Benefit From
User Commenting and Participation Online
Content + Commentary | September 2008

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
—Denis Diderot,
section on the internet.
French philosopher (b. 1713)
—Benjamin Dolnick,
American author (b. 1982)
Image by lemontwist301 \"Race Crowd\" on Flickr 2 Content + Commentary | September 2008

POWER TO THE PEOPLE
Traditional media brands are accustomed to being in For the last few
power, defining the message and controlling the years, the locus of control
conversation. has been shifting and
consumers not only expect to
+ Magazine and newspaper editors publish, and people read. customize their media experience,
they demand it as a condition of
+ Radio hosts speak, and people listen. engagement. The horizon line for
when a newspaper on the street is
+ Television producers broadcast shows, and people watch.
serving as a kind of brochure of
a rich online product does
On the web, these former audience members are now
not seem far off.
users, which means they take an active role in shaping the
message and contributing to the conversation.
– David Carr, All of Us, the Arbiters
of News, August 10 2008
3 Content + Commentary | September 2008

BRANDED DIALOGUE
Instead of a 1-way push of information, media brands now enable conversations among their audience members.
Media
Brands
Audience
4 Content + Commentary | September 2008

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
5 Content + Commentary | September 2008

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
6 Content + Commentary | September 2008

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.
7 Content + Commentary | September 2008

OUR FINDINGS
The First Hurdle: Set Appropriate Barriers to Entry
Typically 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 Discourse
The 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 Content
User contributions can languish in the comments ghetto if they aren’t actively
repurposed as content. Valuable contributions should live alongside editorial.
Content + Commentary | September 2008
8

THE FIRST HURDLE:
SET APPROPRIATE BARRIERS TO ENTRY
Who should be able to post comments on your site?
When and how should people register to contribute?
What information should you require during registration?
Content + Commentary | September 2008
9

The First Hurdle: Set Appropriate Barriers to Entry
THE 1% RULE 90% of postings
from
In any online community, the majority of users don’t
1% of users
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.
10% of postings
What it means, though, is that the majority of comments from 9%
of users
come from a tiny minority of contributors.
No postings from 90% of users
Is this a problem? It depends on the goals of the site and
the type of people who come there. 1% Heavy Contributors
9%
Some sites may want to set low barriers to entry, to Intermittent
Contributors
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.
90% Lurkers
Jakob Nielsen, Participation Inequality: Encouraging More
Users to Contribute, October 9, 2006
10 Content + Commentary | September 2008

The First Hurdle: Set Appropriate Barriers to Entry
REGISTRATION OPTIONS
Allow Anonymous Comments
Ask for Name + Email
Require Registration + Password
Ask for Optional Demographics
Charge a Registration Fee
Keep Login and Registration in Context
Content + Commentary | September 2008
11

The First Hurdle: Set Appropriate Barriers to Entry
ALLOW ANONYMOUS
COMMENTS
Data gathered by Topix, a news aggregator and
community forum, indicates that “systems that require
registration get an order of magnitude less commentary Anonymous Users
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.
Registered Users
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 0 10,000 30,000 50,000 70,000
quality of discourse on the web.”
Accepted Posts Rejected Posts
Chris Tolles, Anonymous Comments — By The Numbers, January 8, 2008
Mark Glaser, Traditional Media Ready to Elevate the Conversation Online — with Moderation, January 16, 2008
12 Content + Commentary | September 2008

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
Mark Glaser, Traditional Media Ready to Elevate the Conversation Online — with Moderation, January 16, 2008
13 Content + Commentary | September 2008

The First Hurdle: Set Appropriate Barriers to Entry
ASK FOR NAME + EMAIL
Asking 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
Users submit the minimum amount of information on some of the
profile across the site, which limits the ability to New York Times blogs. Information is not saved.
recognize, reward, or restrict people on the basis of their
comments.
14 Content + Commentary | September 2008

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
Mark Glaser, Traditional Media Ready to Elevate the Conversation Online — with Moderation, January 16, 2008
15 Content + Commentary | September 2008

The First Hurdle: Set Appropriate Barriers to Entry
REQUIRE REGISTRATION
+ PASSWORD
Asking 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.
Fast Company requests personal information that is appropriate
for the site content and purpose, and it is used to start a
personal profile.
16 Content + Commentary | September 2008

The First Hurdle: Set Appropriate Barriers to Entry
ASK FOR OPTIONAL
DEMOGRAPHICS
Many 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.
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.
17 Content + Commentary | September 2008

The First Hurdle: Set Appropriate Barriers to Entry
CHARGE A REGISTRATION FEE
Charging 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.
Metafilter charges a $5 registration fee to become a member and participate in its discussions.
Freakonomics, Can $5 Improve Reader Comments?, April 10 2008
18 Content + Commentary | September 2008

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
19 Content + Commentary | September 2008

The First Hurdle: Set Appropriate Barriers to Entry
KEEP LOGIN IN CONTEXT
Having 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 USA Today allows users to register without navigating
or decide to give up. away from the article page.
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.
On the Huffington Post, users can log in via an overlay
and are not taken away from the article page or the
comment list.
20 Content + Commentary | September 2008

THE CARROT AND THE STICK:
ENSURE QUALITY DISCOURSE
What 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?
Content + Commentary | September 2008
21

The Carrot and the Stick: Ensure Quality Discourse
COMMENT QUALITY
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?
XKCD, YouTube
XKCD, YouTube
22 Content + Commentary | September 2008

Leaving a comment on someone's
weblog is like walking into their
living room and joining in on a
Having lots and lots of comments
conversation. As in real life, online
is not a sign of success if those
there are some people who are
comments are racist, sexist,
a pleasure to converse with,
homophobic, ad hominem, or just
and some who are not.
generally obnoxious. It doesn't
help your brand, and it doesn't
—Gina Trapani, Lifehacker
encourage the ninety percent of
lurkers to either participate, or
look well upon you.
—Suw Charman-Anderson
Gina Trapani, Lifehacker's guide to
weblog comments, July 6, 2007
Suw Charman-Anderson, Is participation
inequality actually a problem?, July 6, 2007
23 Content + Commentary | September 2008

The Carrot and the Stick: Ensure Quality Discourse
COMMENT QUALITY INFLUENCERS
The Commenting Interface
Automated Moderation
Human Moderation
Community Moderation
Commenting Guidelines
Ratings
Reputation Systems
Social Liability
Content + Commentary | September 2008
24

The Carrot and the Stick: Ensure Quality Discourse
THE COMMENTING
INTERFACE
The 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.
New York Magazine forces users to preview their
Forcing users to preview their comment before comments before they can submit them, and alerts
submitting it will cut down on typos (and hopefully users if they enter “banned” words.
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.
Twitter prominently counts down the number of
characters left for the post.
25 Content + Commentary | September 2008

The Carrot and the Stick: Ensure Quality Discourse
AUTOMATED
MODERATION
The 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.
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
– Six Apart
comment system.
Six Apart Guide to Comment Spam http://akismet.com/stats/
26 Content + Commentary | September 2008

The Carrot and the Stick: Ensure Quality Discourse
HUMAN MODERATION
Choosing to actively moderate comments is a complex Does moderating comments
decision for many publications. The desire to ensure that on a website make the website
only high quality comments appear on the site trades off owner more liable?
against the cost and effort required to approve them.
This is an important question that a lot of
Some publications believe that comment moderation website owners have. The short answer
diminishes the immediacy of the conversation, essentially under U.S. law is that you are right,
going against the open ethos of the internet. Others website owners generally are not liable
choose to focus and shape the discussion, choosing the for comments on their site, even if
most thoughtful and weeding out the incoherent, profane, they moderate them.
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.
—Jason Schultz, Electronic Frontier Foundation
Fellow specializing in intellectual property
Mark Glaser, Traditional Media Ready to Elevate the Conversation Online — with Moderation, January 16, 2008
Derek Powazek, Just One Question for Jason Schultz, July 30, 2008
27 Content + Commentary | September 2008

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
Mark Glaser, Traditional Media Ready to Elevate the Conversation Online — with Moderation, January 16, 2008
28 Content + Commentary | September 2008

The Carrot and the Stick: Ensure Quality Discourse
COMMUNITY
MODERATION Readers can flag comments as “abusive” on the Huffington Post.
It’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.
Don’t think that you can tidy up
comments any better than you can
Sites that do not have editors actively review comments
tidy up the world. I would kill the
before posting should do this.
worst, most spiteful and off-topic
Some human intervention may still be required to review comments and let the rest speak for
and evaluate comments that have been flagged. themselves.
– Jeff Jarvis
How to Interact, January 30, 2006
29 Content + Commentary | September 2008

The Carrot and the Stick: Ensure Quality Discourse
COMMENTING GUIDELINES
Sites 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
Jeremy Steele, What A Comment Policy Should Cover, July 9th, 2007
30 Content + Commentary | September 2008

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
31 Content + Commentary | September 2008

The Carrot and the Stick: Ensure Quality Discourse
RATINGS
Systems 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 Readers can recommend insightful comments in the New York
Times Opinion section. The number of recommendations is
comments can then be highlighted more prominently. displayed next to the comment.
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.
Readers can vote comments up or down on Digg. Comments are
hidden if they do not meet a minimum standard.
32 Content + Commentary | September 2008

The Carrot and the Stick: Ensure Quality Discourse
REPUTATION SYSTEMS
Rewarding users for good citizenship can be managed by
tracking positive behavior and then displaying it publicly.
Amazon.com rewards users with “badges” for their performance.
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.
Folio: MediaPRO displays points on a user’s profile, and
top scorers appear in a leaderboard.
33 Content + Commentary | September 2008

The Carrot and the Stick: Ensure Quality Discourse
SOCIAL LIABILITY
Users 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.
On Slate, clicking on a user’s name displays their comment history.
34 Content + Commentary | September 2008

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
Mark Glaser, Traditional Media Ready to Elevate the Conversation Online — with Moderation, January 16, 2008
35 Content + Commentary | September 2008

The New World Order: Treat Comments as Content
THE NEW WORLD ORDER:
TREAT COMMENTS AS CONTENT
What’s the best way to expose commentary?
How do publishers foster community and reward participants?
How do publishers use commenting to their benefit?
Content + Commentary | September 2008
36

The New World Order: Treat Comments as Content
COMMENTARY IS CONTENT
Reader 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 If you treat interactivity, and
interest in the community sometimes outstrips interest in the people who do it, with
the original content. respect, good things will come of it:
traffic, engagement, content,
For many media brands, opening their minds and hearts collaboration.
to the opportunities created by multi-directional
conversations is the most difficult aspect of change.
–Jeff Jarvis, How to Interact,
January 30, 2006
37 Content + Commentary | September 2008

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
38 Content + Commentary | September 2008

The New World Order: Treat Comments as Content
COMMENTARY DRIVES COMMERCE
There 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 I think the most remarkable
editorial content. result we’ve seen so far is the
dramatic increase in frequency of
New reader commentary keeps content fresh longer, reader visits. Our most loyal readers
extending the shelf life of articles, and giving readers a now come back many times, and that
reason to visit even when no new content has been creates lots of opportunities for
published. commerce. Increased interaction with the
site is not only a better user experience,
Displaying the level of activity on a post or articles enables
it’s a better commercial opportunity
readers to quickly scan and assess the level of controversy,
for publishers looking for loyalty
drawing them in to debates.
and engagement.
Featuring commentary prominently begets further
discussion — a virtuous circle of content generation.
– Ed Sussman, President of Mansueto Digital
FastCompany.com and Inc.com
39 Content + Commentary | September 2008

USING COMMENTS AS CONTENT
Invite the Discussion
Display Comments Appropriately
Don’t Bury Good Comments
Show Off Hot Topics
Highlight the Best Comments
Make Comments Part of the Story
Content + Commentary | September 2008
40

INVITE THE DISCUSSION
One of the best ways to bring users into a conversation
about your content is also one of the simplest — just ask
Including specific questions in
them.
posts definitely helps get higher
By asking a specific question, you invite your readers to numbers of comments. I find that when I
participate. That simple act can make the site feel more include questions in my headings that it is
open and interested in reader comments. As any good a particularly effective way of getting a
teacher could tell you: people who are uncomfortable response from readers as you set a
sharing their ideas in a public forum will be more inclined question in their mind from the first
to respond to specific questions. moments of your post.
Authors should write a specific query at the end of each
article to spark discussion. It’s surprising how few
publications actually do this.
– Darren Rowse, 10 Techniques to Get More
Comments on Your Blog, October 12, 2006
41 Content + Commentary | September 2008

The New World Order: Treat Comments as Content
DISPLAY COMMENTS
APPROPRIATELY
Comments 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.
Women on the Web displays comments in chronological
order and indents replies.
42 Content + Commentary | September 2008

The New World Order: Treat Comments as Content
DON’T BURY GOOD
COMMENTS
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.
43 Content + Commentary | September 2008

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
44 Content + Commentary | September 2008

The New World Order: Treat Comments as Content
SHOW OFF HOT TOPICS
Many 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.
The Huffington post prominently displays the number of views
and comments in a most popular box.
45 Content + Commentary | September 2008

The New World Order: Treat Comments as Content
HIGHLIGHT THE BEST
COMMENTS
Sites 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 Women on the Web features reader comments prominently in
use comments as a way to highlight articles on the the right column, and includes responses from the author.
homepage or in a sidebar.
The In Your Face feature on the BusinessWeek homepage
highlights one comment in particular.
46 Content + Commentary | September 2008

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
Mark Glaser, Traditional Media Ready to Elevate the Conversation Online — with Moderation, January 16, 2008
47 Content + Commentary | September 2008

The New World Order: Treat Comments as Content
MAKE COMMENTS PART
OF THE STORY
Gawker 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.
Gawker highlights witty comments and features weekly
“commenter executions.”
48 Content + Commentary | September 2008

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
Jeff Jarvis, Comments on Comments on Comments, July 28 2008
49 Content + Commentary | September 2008

METHODOLOGY
Content + Commentary | September 2008
50

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.
Criteria: Sites Examined:
Barriers to Entry Amazon.com Newsweek
Prominence of Commenting The American Prospect Pitchfork
Integration Within Content BusinessWeek Popular Science
Ease of Use Cool Hunting Portfolio
Ratings Cut&Paste Scientific American
User Submissions and UGC Fast Company Slate
Commentary As Content Folio: MediaPRO Time Magazine
Accountability and Community Policing Gawker Time Out
Forums Good Magazine The Times (UK)
Quality of Discourse Huffington Post US News & World Report
Metafilter USA Today
National Geographic The Washington Post
New York Magazine Wired
The New York Times Women on the Web
51 Content + Commentary | September 2008

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

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
The Women on the Web
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
53 Content + Commentary | September 2008

WE’D LOVE TO HEAR www.bondartscience.com web
info@bondartscience.com email
@bondartscience twitter
YOUR COMMENTS. 38 West 21st Street
3rd Floor
New York, NY 10010
212-226-6344 main
212-898-0369 fax

HAHA You guys are dumb!11!1!! This article is st00pid! LULZ!
— Commenters Everywhere
55 Content + Commentary | September 2008