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]

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