Awesome Comments

Xianhang Zhang Bumblebee Labs iSchool Research Conversation - October 24th 2008

2 person team
4 months old
Goal is to build “provocative social software”
2 product releases, 1 more in the pipeline
Happy to talk more after this about collaboration.
iSchool Research Conversation - October 24th 2008

For many people, commenting is their first
and possibly only foray into the social web

“ Communications tools don't get socially
interesting until they get technologically boring ”
– Clay Shirky

There has not been much innovation in the comment space
Slashdot pioneered their “Karma” system in 1997
To this day, I’m not aware of any other system of that level of complexity
most major sites are still using the most basic commenting systems despite their obvious flaws

Signal/noise ratio is too low
Insightful comments get lost
Lack of readership due to low quality
Hard time keeping track of the narrative thread of the conversation
Despite this, people yearn for conversation (Herring )

“ When all you have is a hammer,
all you can see are nails”
Sociability problems CAN be fixed through design. But…
They cannot be fixed through Interaction Design , a new discipline is needed

As HCI researchers, we have been neglecting the development of tools to help designers solve sociability problems

Small, personal blogs read largely by friends and family
Social networking apps
Highly targeted blogs aimed at a professional audience
Sites cultivating return audiences rather than drive by, search engine traffic

Large sites
Sites with high traffic per page
Sites with low traffic per page
Entertainment sites
Sites with an influx of new users
Sites with controversial topics
Sites with low community involvement

Poor explanation:
There’s a lot of stupid people out there

Better explanation:

Human behavior is governed by sets of constraints
iSchool Research Conversation - October 24th 2008 Laws of Physics Evolution/Genetics Cultural Norms/Legal Systems Contextual Norms Other People Free Will = Hard constraint = Soft constraint

With virtual systems, there are an additional set of constraints:
iSchool Research Conversation - October 24th 2008 Hardware Interface Software Social Systems = Hard constraint = Soft constraint

Individual constraints can be accomplished at different layers

iSchool Research Conversation - October 24th 2008 Works Doesn’t Work Personal Blogs Large Sites Social Networks Mostly new users Professional Audiences Entertainment Sites Returning Users Low community Involvement

Comments work when there are strong social constraints and weak interface constraints
iSchool Research Conversation - October 24th 2008 Hardware Software Interface Social Systems = Weak layers = Strong layers

Comments fail when there are weak social constraints and weak interface constraints

Could Comments work when there are weak social constraints and strong interface constraints?

Increasing barriers to participation (registration, captchas etc.)
Moderation
Disemvowelling
ROBOT 9000
Rating
Sorting/Filtering

For conversation to happen, there must be a narrative thread .
If I refer to Comment X, you must have read Comment X to understand my reference
Rating systems must keep the chronology intact while making highly rated comments visible

This is most often done via threading
Heavyweight approach, lots of intricacies

Initial site developed over 12 hours
Very simple concept

How do we prevent this site from being just a flash in the pan?

Build remarkable content
Remarkable
adjective
Pronunciation: i-ˈmär-kə-bəl
Something which people will remark about.

Initial user impressions are generally very positive but the site can quickly lose it’s appeal
In order to support long term growth, we needed to build conversation around each question
Design constraints:
Anonymous everything
Heavy reliance on external/search engine traffic
Many questions, long tail of quality
Primary navigation mode is random

Large sites
Sites with high traffic per page
Sites with low traffic per page
Entertainment sites
Sites with an influx of new users
Sites with controversial topics
Sites with low community involvement

Commenting system designed from the ground up.
Goals
Drive out poor comments
Support remarkable content
Support real conversation
Give people a sense of ownership

Every comment has vote up and vote down buttons

New comment
Registered users: 2.0 points
Unregistered users: 1.0 points
Vote button
Registered users: 1.0 points
Unregistered users: 0.1 points

Progressively degrade comment readability at lower scores
Show undegraded comment to original poster

Voting is unbounded both up and down
but…
Makes it easy to find and promote remarkable comments
We are using the lack of information as a design feature
iSchool Research Conversation - October 24th 2008 Actual Score Displayed Score -2.3 -2.3 1.7 1.7 3.5 3.0+ 98.6 3.0+ 100.1 Awesome

Non threaded
Comments are sorted by displayed score, then by date posted
Reply button on all comments (coming!)
All replies to your comment are highlighted

Original posters are highlighted
Identity can be established while maintaining anonymity

Visiting a question/comment you made automatically upvotes all it’s children
Returning to a question/comment rewards your repliers
You are personally in charge of voting your repliers correctly

All comments at 3.0+ are displayed in chronological order
Conversation can happen at 3.0+
This is the default if you post as a registered user (2.0) who replies to a poster who regularly returns (1.0)

Commenting systems are generally horribly designed from a sociability perspective
Better conversation is a force multiplier for the social web
Awesome comments is a ground up rethinking of how commenting should be implemented
Still very much an experiment, details will change as the system matures

Bumblebee Labs: http://blog.bumblebeelabs.com
Am I Normal or Not?: http://www.aminormalornot.com
Email me: [email_address]
Need a designer? [email_address]

http://www.bumblebeelabs.com	195
http://blog.bumblebeelabs.com	66
http://blog.figuringshitout.com	12
http://static.slidesharecdn.com	5
http://www.slideshare.net	3
http://designyoutrust.com	1

Awesome Comments

by Xianhang Zhang on Oct 24, 2008

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Awesome Comments — Presentation Transcript