I'd like to create a discussion around the blog post mentioned above.

Comments encourage trolling most of the time (hell, I'm even guilty of this from time to time). I think there's a big difference between someone being passionate about a topic, and someone simply being an asshole…

Matt, I totally understand where you are coming from -- a big part of my last job involved moderating the tens or even hundreds of thousands of comments we got every day at the newspaper where I worked, so I know what they can turn into. But at the same time, I think just turning off comments -- or handing them off to an invitation-only forum like Branch -- misses the benefits that can come from them.

Obviously not everything needs comments, and bloggers like you or Gruber or MG Siegler don't have to have them if you don't want them. But I think you need to realize you are giving up something as well as getting something in return. As Fred shows, a well-tended comment patch has real value, but it takes work.

First off, thanks so much for the kind words, Matt. Means a lot coming from you!

Here's some food for thought: Reddit's General Manager told me that one of the reasons he thinks Subreddits are successful is because they are hard to find. There isn't a great way to discover new subreddits, thus you only find yourself in the Scotch subreddit if you REALLY like Scotch. I think this relates to your point about the Open Mic problem. You should be talking because of the subject matter, not the stage.

Branch can be as open as you want it to be, Mathew. Look what Andy did here: branch.com

He's letting (nearly) everyone in who has something to say about the topic... You'd be surprised at how the smallest barrier to entry – clicking an "ask to join" button – eliminates a ton of noise.

Comments feel to me to be a shallow, wide place to find value. There is value in know what readers think, and there is value in knowing how to push their buttons. There's value in having participation and engagement.

At what point does the value there become less than the deleterious effects of angry trolling, and ego that comes with it? That's a hard question.

Would a system of commenting karma (cf. Slashdot) that follows a user around the net be valuable? To writers? To commenters?

I actually really like the "ask to join" feature. Helps separate people who are known to be jerks, or make off-comment remarks. I wish I had this every time I made a Facebook post.

Mathew, just wanted to point out that I absolutely am conscious of losing something by not having comments on my blog. I've not really had the issue of trolls in the same way that MG or Gruber have. But at the same time, I'm just not entirely sure that the benefit outweighs the requirement to moderate or the negatives otherwise.

I know, Josh -- I'm not saying it is totally closed, and you guys have done a good job of making it easier to bring people in. But it is still fundamentally invitation-driven, and therefore it is towards the more closed end of the spectrum by definition -- and my point is that doing this has consequences for the discussion, in that it will inevitably leave people out who might have worthwhile contributions to make. A more open approach brings noise as well, but that is part of the trade-off -- it's like turning down one dial simultaneously turns the other up. Different people will prefer different models for different situations I expect.

Roger that! Agree that different levels of openness are appropriate in different situations (see: medium.com).

For example, the Portland branch that I just started would probably be better suited for a tweet or Facebook post.

I guess that's the choice every blogger has to make, Matt -- whether the trade-off is worth it for them. I think the benefit outweighs the disadvantages, but that's just my opinion. And when I defend comments, it is usually in the context of public media like newspapers rather than on the individual blogger level (although I still think most would benefit from them).

Comment threads are a lot like bars or hotels when it comes to behaviour. If there's no one on front desk, cleaning up, throwing out the low-life or keeping tabs on who's drunk too much, they become places people feel they can abuse. Spaces without moderation and where publishers/writers don't respond to comments are spaces where people test boundaries and shout for attention. That means lots of noise, some of it pretty unpleasant.

One of the benefits of external comment systems like Facebook's - and like Branch, I suspect - is that people import the expectations of that community into your thread. But one of the disadvantages is that you don't get to set your own expectations for behaviour any more. It's a trade off.

Good point, Mary. I almost think the process of managing and filtering and moderating and responding to comments, the way that Fred and other bloggers do, has as many benefits for the author as any actual information or relationships that come out of the comments. It's a discipline, and an approach to engagement that I think is beneficial, rather than the oracle-on-a-soapbox approach.

Well put, Mary.

The newspaper comment piece is particularly interesting to me and one that I've given a lot of thought to.

My feeling is that the sheer volume of comments – a direct result of openness – dramatically reduces its effectiveness as an avenue for discussion. This is especially true in larger publications where the amount of comments can reach the hundreds and thousands.

I agree, Matt -- it can become unwieldy. I think the solution to that is to have a Slashdot-style community that moderates itself and forms its own sub-groups with their own rules or guidelines -- but that is not an easy thing to build or manage, unfortunately. I'm thinking sort of like Reddit or Metafilter, etc.

Thanks Mathew and Jonathan. Is it fair to say that every writer & site - maybe even every article - has their own threshold where the benefits of a good conversation get outweighed by the costs of creating it?

I think that is more than fair to say, Mary -- which is why it's really an individual blogger's choice. Harder to make that decision when it's a larger news or journalistic effort.