Obviously, I'm a bit skeptical of the premise, but the topic still seems to be a vital part of how web media is going to evolve. Can we fix commenting culture, and are the shortcomings of Gawker's comment intrinsic to the culture of its sites?

(Obligatory plug: schedule.sxsw.com )

I thought I'd pose the question to people who may have the most uniquely informed perspectives on the matter.

So I'm presuming that Nick has talked to you quite a bit about his New Commenting System that revolutionizes everything. Is he going to talk about this in public in Austin? And are you buying what he's selling? (Comments on everything! Comments on pictures! Comments frame by frame on videos! Comments on INDIVIDUAL SENTENCES in ARTICLES!* *Pending anyone's ability to like, make this happen, presumably.)

I'd heard a bit about it, but it was still in development when last he talked. I guess the higher-level question is, is this a *technology* problem? Do we think better features can make a better conversation?

First thing I thought of when I saw Branch for the first time last week was Denton's comment push. Because what I think is interesting to him is not really the question of whether comments have failed but whether blogs, in a sense, have failed. He's told people inside Gawker that the main role of an editor in a year or two may just be to start conversation topics. Blog posts, in a sense, are irrelevant compared to conversation.

One other smaller, fun ongoing debate inside Gawker: are they going to nuke all the starred commenter accounts when they launch the new system? And how awesome would THAT outcry be?

Technology so far seems to have made it better and worse at the same time. Third-party plugins made it easy for any schmuck to comment anywhere with (too much?) ease. But at the same time, they tied commenters identities to their full online identities... so their behavior and contributions improved. But then there's been no innovation in commenting yet, unless you count Soundcloud.

"And how awesome would THAT outcry be?" SO AWESOME.

Nick's been talking about replacing editors with some form of super-intelligent commenter for at least ten years. This is less about technology and media than about his misanthropy. He runs a business based on human editors, and he hates both editors and humans. So his fantasy has always been getting rid of them. It would have a beneficial side effect of improving his margins by 50% or so- but this isn't about money. It's about showing those stuck-up artistes who is in charge around here.

But let's put the Dentonology aside for a second and talk about comments in general. They haven't gotten worse- if anything, the addition of various ranking systems based on reputation and authentication, and multimedia commenting features, have improved things a little. Disqus was in here a few weeks back to demo their new system- it's got more of all that stuff, and since they're so widespread, the level of comments in general is about to rise dramatically across the board.

But will Nick ever be able to reach his platonic ideal of replacing all editors with a computer algorithm that spits out conversation topics for highly ranked commenters to write about for free? I think it's still a pipe dream. Even Buzzfeed, in it's original incarnation, had a human editor at the top of the meme-spotting algorithm. And Buzzfeed's direction over time has to become more human-powered, not less. So unless the internet works different in Budapest, I think the answer is no.

Put Dentonology aside? Fuck you Dobkin. Never!

For discussion: is Nick's belief that Gawker's new commenting system will put Gawker Media in competition with Facebook and Twitter completely genius or untenably insane?

*votes (with very slight hesitation) for untenably insane*

I think the invention of the new SuperMegaHighPowered commenting system was precipitated in part by the inherent scalability limitations of blogs. (If volume of content determines inventory, having your million readers generate it for free makes more sense than having however many paid editors.) As I understand it, Denton also believes we should all be scared shitless of Facebook and that scanning FB for headlines and comments is increasingly replacing reading anything longer than 20 words.

He's illin' Kinja-steez. Followup: why does someone as successful as Nick think that he's worthless if he's got less money than Ev or Zuckerberg?

"completely genius or untenably insane"

I object to "or".

Lock beat me to the comment. (Or the question, really.) Seconding Choire, though.

Don't Denton's beliefs--and Elizabeth describes them quite rightly--only apply if you want the whole WORLD, or much of it, to read your websites, which I think clearly he does? So I think you have to look at Denton's schemes in light of that. The rest of us don't want morons--the Observer certainly doesn't--so why can't we let the masses enjoy their Facebook, and let Denton worry about how to get as many of them as he can? (Still, meanwhile, commenting is kind of broken in our worlds too.)

I also think Denton's objectives have changed. The original raison d'etre of Gawker was enjoyable mischief-making, and a sideline to occupy Denton while he built what later became Kinja. Now it's a real business and I think the same grow-or-die mentality most entrepreneurs do. It's hard to argue that creating an ersatz Facebook scratches that mischief-making itch, but if successful, it would provide Gawker with a lot more reach .

3:39 PM AIM...
ajdaulerio I am going to discuss the Anil Dash comment discussion in the Gawker comments.
lockloct hahaha
ajdaulerio We'll see the potential/problems in real time.
lockloct Game on.
lockloct Now, or once new system launches?
ajdaulerio Now.
ajdaulerio I just want to discuss your discussion with people who are stupid to show how much needs to be overhauled.
lockloct Got it.
ajdaulerio Because, believe me, they'll have an opinion.

I instinctively want to "like" that last comment. (What can it meeeeean?!)

Dear Commenters: gawker.com

I just read through "all" the comments on that Gawker post- they didn't seem too fuckfaced to me.

> Is Nick's belief that Gawker's new commenting system will put Gawker Media in competition with Facebook and Twitter completely genius or untenably insane?

Neither. It's an unoriginal aspiration, unattainable by most. But Gawker has as good if better a shot than Buzzfeed.

Re: tech and comments. The OP/human editor/blogger frames the conversation for better or worse comments. If the blogger is trying to outsnark the rest of the internet, so the comment thread goes.

I am also busy trying to favorite Lock's comments. I have been trained pretty thoroughly, I think.

So, serious question: Are comments on Gawker sites *worse* than other places on the web? Worse than sites of comparable size? Or just similarly challenged?

I just went and took a really long nap! It was great!

I think we've all been trained to think Gawker commenters are "awful" or "horrendous" because Nick keeps saying it. But honestly, they're not at all terrible! Sometimes they're great. And also, have you SEEN, oh, every newspaper website in the world? I mean they need a full-time person just to keep the "Jews are evil" commenters at bay. (Ahem NY Post.)

(Ugh, why are there no hearts and stars on this Branch thing? How can I signal approval?)

Also the person who should be here really is Kaila Hale-Stern. She probably knows more about commenting than all of us. The poor thing.

All hail Kaila!

Nick emailed from Austin to say "what a moronic thing to write" about my previous comment about him hating human editors. How is he going to reinvent commenting when he can't recognize when he's being trolled?

Kaila is a saint. She should be in this conversation, as should Jessica Coen. IIRC, Jezebel has the largest and most active commenter community of all the GM sites, and getting a current EIC in the mix would be helpful.

Jezebel's community is robust and... unique. There are some very wonderful things about it. (I'm being politic! It also makes me crazy!) It displays most notably to me a commenter community problem that I don't think is something that can be fixed, at least not without great labor. (Metafilter has this; any big community does, not picking on Jez.) That is: that every commenter individually has to go through a process and grow up. It's great, because people learn, but it's exhausting on the way.