Publishers definitely still want comments but that doesn't mean readers want them too. How often do you guys (and gal) hit the comment section? Probably never; you take it to Twitter, Email, or Facebook (and hopefully Branch, soon). What's the value proposition for having a conversation on a publisher's site?

Josh Elman just made this same point...

I hardly ever "comment" any more. I feel like my thoughts would be drowned out in a sea of nonsense and noise. With Twitter, FB and systems like Branch here, I can be heard. Honestly, if it's discussion you're after, I don't see why you'd really care where that discussion took place. I'm not sure why, exactly, a publisher would want to host that discussion.

For me, I've disabled comments everywhere I've written for years. The quality of discussion just wasn't worth the time spent managing it.

Let's be real: most publishers want comments simply because it gives the illusion that they care about their community.

Every time I read "let us know what you think in the comments" I want to puke. What bullshit. What they're really saying is "please comment so it looks like we have some engagement and traffic on our site!"

If the majority of comments were actually thoughtful and useful, this may be different. But they're not. Everyone knows it. Anyone who says otherwise is lying. Welcome to the Internet.

Not only is it too much work to moderate and curate a good comment section, it's ultimately impossible. It's a never-ending game of whack-a-mole with more and more moles appearing the more popular the site is.

> Every time I read "let us know what you think in the comments" I want to puke. What they're saying is "please comment so it looks like we have some engagement on our site!"

Really? Maybe ad sales teams think this way, but in my experience, every smart editorial person is genuinely invested in making sure their writing generates great discussion, regardless of platform. Period.

Separately, there are a lot of reasons (brand, financial) for wanting this discussion to happen onsite. Right now, comments are the only way to do this. Some have succeeded at keeping their comments sections great (e.g. Fred Wilson, Atlantic's Ta-Nehisi Coates), but only after a huge investment of time and effort that many—though not all!—feel doesn't pay off.

comments are also a cheap source of content that makes the publisher's initial post seem more alive and relevant. most publishers dont have the time to curate comments but also havent seen any dynamic user-generated curating tech except at amazon. it seems like amazon orders comments based on "most useful".

Libby (and Josh) - I think you might be on to something there. Commenting systems are hard to manage, and even smart editorial folks who want that kind of engagement (and, let's face it, not all do) have a hard time managing it. I know the reason I've avoided comments on my blogs (and didn't pay attention to them much when I was working for Lifehacker) was that, almost by nature, it was too hard to deal with and the discussion devolved almost every time. There was too much spam, too many voices not adding any value, etc. So I gave up.

So maybe it's not really about where, it's more about the tools we use to manage discussion, regardless of where that discussion happens.

A couple takeaways so far:

1. The perception that comments are "cheap" is a result of them existing on every post. Not all posts warrant comments and while curating the individuals participating in the section is good, sites should also be curating where discussion opportunities even show up.

2. I really think authors should be responsible for the quality of their articles' discussions. The reason Fred Wilson's comments are successful is because he takes the time and does the work involved to keep them that way. If an author doesn't want to curate, they shouldn't have a discussion section to begin with.

tl;dr: New tools are helpful, but ultimately editorial and authorial curation is needed.

you want to be everywhere the convo is taking place with tools that improve the usefulness/interestingness (borrowed from flickr) of the convo

@Cap - Sure, there's a correlation between the success of comments sections and the amount of editorial curation they get, but I still think it's worth focusing on the structural issues this presents, no?

Plenty of people (Sounds like Keith falls into this camp?) still feel overwhelmed by the volume of that effort. Fred, for instance, publishes roughly once a day. Many journalists and bloggers—whose job is itself publishing—publish 5-10x that often, if not more. And maintain their Twitter. And Facebook. And research and write stories. And etc. I like the personal responsibility angle a lot, but does it take those constraints into consideration?

This all strikes me as a "right tool for the right job" conversation more than anything.

@Libby - That's why I also included that not all articles should have comments at all. It should be up to the blogger to attach comments to a specific article instead of all of them. There is simply no way that a blogger's 10 articles a day need user commentary/discussion.

Over the past few years, commenting has changed quite a bit.

A lot of people will utilize their own platforms, like twitter or fb, to share their thoughts instead of posting in the comments.

Not all posts are really conversational and so they don't warrant thoughtful comments. And when a really well written post is conversational, comments become more valuable than the post itself.

Beyond that, comments live in so many places today. Blogs, facebook groups, forums, twitter, branch, quora...

The platform matters. Branch and quora have extremely high quality comments due to curation and moderation. Youtube is an example of a horribly moderated community with extremely low quality.

Yes we still want comments, in the right environment.

Another example of comments still being implemented successfully is Huffington Post, which gets tens of thousands of comments every day.

They have a highly intelligent moderation system of humans and machines working to keep the comment sections clean. The conversation is very much a large part of the content there.

I think over the past few years the Internet has outgrown comments. For me, they're are an outdated (and lazy) mechanic for driving conversation.

As a local and regional news publisher, do we want comments? Not really. We want conversations. Conversations that add meaning and relevance to our often static and infrequently updated content.

Unfortunately within the regional media sector, editorial departments are struggling to embrace digital journalism and often lack the resource (and desire) to drive, manage and moderate conversation - whether on their own sites or across various social platforms.

I still think there's a place for comments, I just feel that nowadays they're a small part of a much larger picture.

Thanks David,

There's a big difference between Comments and Conversation. "Comments" are crap wherever you get them, online and in real life. Very few people care about someone saying some random one liner to nobody in particular, whether that's online, in a bar or amongst friends.

Value and interest is when two or more people have a conversation and actually engage each other.

Sadly most of what we have on the internet these days are "comments" and not "conversations". Look at most news sites, blogs, and most of Twitter and it's one liners shot into the dark. It's people talking *at* the internet instead of *with* it.

If you want value, create conversation, not comments. But that's hard, so most people just "turn on comments".

+1 Justin

@Cap - I'll disagree with you that not all articles should have comments. If it's not worth discussing, it likely shouldn't have been published in the first place.

If it is worth discussing then someone out there probably has something valuable to contribute and should be given the opportunity to have that discussion with the author or with other readers.

If you are publishing stuff that other people can't engage with, then you are also talking *at* the internet which is arguably just as pointless as "comments" and missing the value of the interwebz.

Also, speaking of comments vs conversation, why on earth doesn't Branch have a reply to function?

@Justin Come on. Not everything that's published is worthy of discussion. In a perfect world, sure. But let's be honest. Out of all the blog posts in the world, how many are worth a true debate/discussion and how many are informative (or worse, fluff) pieces, where comments currently only serve as a troll-ridden circlejerk?

My guess is the latter far outweighs the former. Asking for a little editorializing and authorial oversight seems like a reasonable solution to me.

Justin, your statements are coming from a very privileged place. The Huffington Post cuts corners in many areas so that it can support a large Community staff to moderate comments. That's wonderful but it doesn't mean it's the only model.

Also, this:

"I'll disagree with you that not all articles should have comments. If it's not worth discussing, it likely shouldn't have been published in the first place."

Is ridiculous. No comments does not equal no discussion. The Huffington Post can push comments all it wants, but I'm still gonna talk about your articles on Twitter, Facebook, in email (and on Branch).

@Cap - I totally agree with you. I guess I should have limited my scope more specifically to the realm of "publishers" that Josh specified in the original question. If you're posting something as a publisher and it has no intent to spark discussion or debate, then I (personally) think it's missed an opportunity. Even informative posts usually have some debate around the issues in them. Other than 1+1=2, there isn't much that doesn't have issues or concerns around it that people wouldn't find worth debating. And for the troll bait, it's hard, sure, but there can be gems of wisdom in there if you can keep the trolls at bay.

For personal bloggers, it's a completely different discussion.

@Josh - debating corners aside, you're right that the HuffPost model isn't the only one and I'd never say that it is. (and, for the record, these views are mine alone etc etc)

Now, to your point that "No comments does not equal no discussion." Definitely - people go where they can find good conversation, but if you believe that there's discussion to be had, why would you intentionally push it away from your site where it could spark new ideas, add to other readers' understanding of the issues, and possibly inform the original article or lead to new ones?

But, that is what makes Branch great: it's about conversation, not "comments" and you can easily create good conversation to go to if a site shuts it down.

Its interesting how the many of the initial contributors to this dialog dropped out of the conversation (including me). Just became too noisy. Wonder if there is a better way to pull out the salient points without having to read everything.

I didn't get an email invite but generally want to state that I agree with Cap.
Quality commenting requires moderation. It doesn't need to be pre-posting but it does need someone to spend time, be thorough and thoughtful. Anywhere looking for comment should also have a commenting policy.
Basically, it's UGC and should be treated as such.

Josh, I think that dropping off is analogous to a real world conversation. If you're at a dinner party having a conversation in corner, people will come and go, walk up and walk away, it's natural.

Plus, transporting mediums (from Twitter to Branch) isn't easy either. The vast of majority of our branches aren't started from Twitter and I presume it will remain that way.

The presence of comments act a signal. When that signal is flat and ubiquitous (same comment system in all places) the signal is lost or ignored. Most publishers build a universal commenting style and apply it across the board.

I'd like to see a range of commenting systems that could be applied as best fits the content. Some content doesn't invite discussion, some invites input from a broad community, some from specialists (Quora and Branch). Some content invites readers to weigh in with lists or votes.

Commenting and conversation on the web needs better moderators and better tools to moderate with.

That's a really interesting idea, Keenan: the concept that certain types of content warrant certain types of participation from non-authors. I think you're spot on, actually.