More than anything, Gather is about conversation. The comments on Gather introduce people to each other, establish friendships, and explore new thoughts and insights. They also engage those readers on the site who are not yet comfortable writing a full article, but have something meaningful to say. In fact, the best articles on Gather are often those that generate the best comments. The conversation that is woven together by the multiple threads of thoughts on any one article can change the entire tone of the author's thoughts, or introduce a side argument that had not been considered. In a positive flow, people learn a great deal, grow to appreciate each other, connect, and form bonds on Gather (and often beyond).
Unfortunately, comments can also disrupt a great conversation. A debate can turn on a dime from constructive and thought provoking to unproductive and argumentative. Striking out at others, putting comments on an article that doesn't add to the discussion, or a comment that presumes an understanding of another's point of view are some of the issues around comments that have arisen.
The best way to comment on Gather is to:
Support your peers. Our aim at Gather is to create a respectful, engaging environment. That means reading and responding to articles and comment threads in a thoughtful way. And recognizing that in a text/image medium, the way you say something can cause someone to read it the wrong way. As a result, you may come across as humorous, caustic, arrogant, or accusatory. It's all in the way you say and intend your comments. While everyone is not going to agree, some of the best comments may center on constructive disagreement. The more respectful you are, the more your viewpoint will be heard and appreciated.
Provide value in comments. There are a number of times when a comment is put on an article that says little, adds little, and tends to disrupt the flow of the conversation. These comments often serve more as attention-getters than debate-engaging dialogue. Fix this to focus on the people: My recommendation: just overlook these comments, and continue your discussion. As you do, the commenters that put them there will eventually step up to the level of engagement you want, or fade into the background.
Write articles that provide substance and solicit input. Sometimes people publish content solely in the interest of recruiting comments and gaining attention. While promoting good writing or good dialog is perfect on Gather (hey, we are all "salespeople" of some sort), there is a limit to how little one should write and still get comments. So make your articles count; fun and/or constructive comments will follow naturally.
Ask questions, rather than presume answers. Comments provide the opportunity for conversation. So why presume anything about a person or an issue, when you have the ability to ask? The great thing about a comment is that it can help inform the poster as well as those with the answers. There are so many people to learn from on Gather, that posing a simple question, rather than predicting the answer, will teach both a great deal.
A question for the audience:
What kind of enhancements to our comment functionality would benefit you on the site? Are there things about commenting now that prevent you from adding your thoughts?
David Cooperstein is Editor in Chief at Gather. His past The Editor's Desktop columns can be found at editors.gather.com, a group for people who want to connect around the content on Gather.
by
David Cooperstein
Member since:
August 31, 2005 Editor's Desktop: The Value of Great Comments
May 23, 2006 08:14 PM EDT
(Updated: March 23, 2009 12:53 PM EDT)
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Comments: 57
The comments mimic the wanderings of conversational paths. Why must someone always be ranting and criticizing, and suggesting and making new rules?
Make the font big enough for those of us in the bifocal set to be able to read it. Also, some kind of edit function.
There are some folks like George C who respond appropriately whether it be within minutes or the next day, but it's a bit much to expect that of most people. Sure, if i've asked a question of a writer, i will check back to see if they've answered but it's hard to check back to see if a writer has asked a question of me following a comment. You with me? And as we've been encouraged to connect connect connect it is basically impossibly to remember what we've said to whom and what we should check back on.
So, maybe an enhancement that would help would be the capacity to choose a tic box that says.. do you want to be notified when further comments are added to this thread? Maybe?
Anyway, thanks for asking.
You can't seriously believe that, do you? Look at the recent posts about the listing and commenting hubbub. I see "popular" entrants garnering hundreds of comments while actual literary pieces recieive less than ten, and are relugated to the back pages within hours of publication without ever being read by more than a few that actually seek them out.
I agree that Gather is a community of sorts, but I didn't think its intent was to become a chatroom.
For the most part I stick with an "I like it", if I do, and don't comment if I don't. I usually vote ten stars or nothing, I have never clicked to give anyone one star.
Since I never know how someone will react to constructive criticism, I usually don't. Attempts at bantering have had dicey results, but I enjoy it enough to keep trying.
I went through a phase of sharing the images that reading a piece brought to mind, but some writer's implied that they don't care for that kind of feedback. So I've mostly quit it.
It is never my intention to flame someone, but it's possible that I've lost my cool on an occasion or two.
My goal is to add positively to everyone's Gather experience, and also to receive as much positiva for myself, as well. Aren't we all trying to better ourselves?
I second Carolyn Madden's closing idea. Some function that would let me know when comments are made on articles I commented on. On the "My Comments" page perhaps?
Comments and ratings are the root of my Gather membership. I'm here for interaction. If all I wanted to do was post to the web I'd spend my time on GeoCities of My Space.
Wonderful and thought provoking article. I agree that we should all be positive and informative in our comments. I also believe in constructive critisism... I have been encouraged, motivated, inspired as well as hurt by comments on my articles. It seems that if we could all follow the rules of this article there would be a lot less "hurt" going around. The "you suck" or vicious attacking comments are the problem we all encounter some of the time. It is normally short lived because others will then come to the defense of the victim... however, this generates at least a days worth of "You suck" and then "You suck more" arguments.. although they are interesting "like a car accident" is there not a way that management could step in and delete the vicious comments in order to prevent the "jerry springer episodes" that we have going on some days. I know that everyone is entitled to their opinions but then again some of these comments have no other purpose but to hurt and distract from others work. The entire articles purpose is gone and the comments are the main focus... Any ideas for this sort of behavior?
I suspect the icons associated with the commenters are to blame for this. While the icons do make it easy to recognize commenters, they do seem to create quite a load on the server.
Maybe when one clicks on an article, the article could up without comments attached, but with a link to the comments. This would make it less frustrating to get to the article in the first place, and those who wish to comment or read comments could click the comment link and wait.
An alternative would be to limit the size of an image one could use as an icon, but this puts a burden on users who may not all have access to image processing software, or the knowledge to use it. Several programming languages have functions that will resize images and/or create thumbnails at upload time. Maybe such a function exists for jsp.
I think your statement: "the best articles on Gather are often those that generate the best comments." is very true, however may have been misinterpreted by some as a reference to articles that generate the 'most' comments. I agree that meaningful dialogue through comments can, at times, be as valuable of a contribution to the community as the article itself.
As for my recommendations on comments, there are many, and I have already published these to the Building a Better Gather group, which I am certain you have already viewed. Keep up the GREAT work..!
- I would like to be able to separate my comments on other writer's posts out from the responses I make to those who have commented on mine. In other words' I'd like to revisit all of my recent comments without scrolling through 20 pages of my responses.
- When revisiting my comments, being able to view more than 10 comments at a time would be great, 100 at a time would be more like it.
- As some have said before, email notification that I commented on something is not helpful, and makes Gather look clueless to the user. I don't mean that to sound harsh; it just gets the recipient wondering about the quality of the Gather brand.
i disagree with ron - i keep those emails if i've commented on someth and want to check back - it is easier to click on the link in the email than to scroll through tons of comments in the my comments section.
when i was at my parents, on dialup this weekend, i just skipped gather for the most part. it is too hard. there are too many slow-loading things. i left for 10 min and only the gather header had appeared in that time. for articles with TONS of comments, i couldn't even get it to load. frustrating. at least i could come back home and get on cable modem!!
i would like to have a way for the gather team to get rid of the mean or stalking or hostile comments. those have no place here. it drives me crazy.
thanks for listening, david!!
Other than that, I would suggest comments we make on our own articles not be counted in the total, and whatever rules are made about comments be enforced uniformly across the board.
I have a dry (and often misinterpreted) sense of humor that comes across as harsh in some of my comments. In the past I have even taken it upon myself to delete certain comments that seemed to offend an author at hand (which I could determine by reading follow-up comments). If I find that writers here are ultra-sensitive, I just don't comment on their stuff anymore -- as I'm not the type to say "wow, that was just magnificant" if it really didn't speak to me. It seems like some people here feel short changed if you don't respond with "WOW! That was the best thing I've ever read!!!" Next to that, any comment looks bad. To me, if you're that sensitive about your writing (or in need of an ego fluff) then you've either a) already determined your piece is good enough and is beyond critique, or b) probably have no sense of humor (at least when it involves you). Both of these scenarios mean the writer's sucess will ultimately be stunted anyway, and that my comment is a waste of both our eye strain.
Good conversation always has a devil's advocate. It's all in how you handle it that determines your class and ability to handle an online forum environment.
David, I commend your addressing this issue after all the recent issues on the site. I don't envy your position in trying to keep peace.
I like the "notify of comments on this thread" idea. Sometimes I'll ask questions and forget to go back and find out the answers! But NOT by e-mail!! Maybe by notifications on our Gather homepage??
The mean stalking and hostile comments are part of living in an open forum. We should sanction the PEOPLE who do this and not their communications. By golly, these things are only words and they don't hurt in a physical sense.
If you don't want to subject yourself to anything but lalalala everything is beautiful comments, don't publish to "everyone". Publish only to your connections, your groups or to specific individuals. Or, just publish for yourself.
Having author delete capabilities defeats the purpose of having a public forum.
But why discourage something that seems to work so well for these people?
Incorporating a "comments I don't like-delete button" would be nifty! It would bring an even deeper meaning to the phrase "virtual reality."
I think your point has been proven. Great article. Thank you. sincerely "L" 8/10
me, me, me, me.
carry on.
Jake's Desktop: The Value of Silly Comments
"I don't understand your opinion, and I'd like to question a couple of your statements" would be filtered to read "I understand you. I like your statements."
While my goal is to personally respond to every comment I recieve,
I also try not to respond to too many follow-up comments from the same person unless the comments add to the conversation the post started. The reason for this is I don't think a personal conversation belongs in the comment section of a post, unless it directly contrubutes to the subject of the post.
To me, the comments that accompany a post are another post in themselves. I prefer the comments that stay on the subject of the post they are attached to, because I want to know what those commenting have to say about the SUBJECT of the post.
Comments that attack the person who published the post they are attached to, or attack another commenter, are not very interesting to read.
I see nothing wrong with disagreeing with the author of a post, but personal attacks are, for lack of a better word, boring to read. There's no mystery to where the comments are headed when phrases like
"you suck" or "you're an idiot" are the basis of an exchange in the comment section of a post.
I don't know if there's a universal answer to this situation. Maybe something as simple as different color outlines around comment boxes for comments that are "on subject" and comments that are "off subject". would work.
Instead of authors deleting comments they could choose whether comments were "on subject" or "off subject". That way, anyone could still say anything they wanted when commenting on a post.
If I commented on a post and the author highlighted my comment as being "off subject" I wouldn't be offended. I might try to restate my case, but I wouldn't be offended.
Only Candida should have such power, because she clearly knows better than anyone on this site.
In fact, Candida should be granted the authority to not only remove comments at her will, but also entire articles and, in fact, members from Gather. It's the only rational solution.
If this is not a viable solution due to technical issues, please encourage authors to respond to others' comments in as few of their own comments as possible. A 1-to-1 ratio is really NOT needed here, as "polite" as it may be to the commenters.
1) the author's own comments should not be counted into total, whether they count Gather points or not.
2) If some comments intend to generate conversation with the author, a chat function should be easy to implement. When I leave a comment, I do not necessarily go back to the thread to see what answers the author would give.
I agree with Laura M. that authors should not receive points for commenting on their own articles.
I know you are trying to encourage civility on this site, but this article comes across a bit like you're trying to tell us how to behave. I think most of us are adults.
I also disagree with you that the articles that receive the most comments are often the best. I think this is very far from being true, from what I have seen.
I would be completely happy with a comment box that (1) let me EDIT for errors in a name, spelling, fat fingers, etc., without having to delete and re-enter a new one. That way it stays in the proper place in line as well. (2) I also agree that it wouldn't hurt if we could make the comment box bigger.
PS- from a function standpoint, it often takes forever for a "post" to load after hitting the button. I have given up waiting numerous times, and just moved on.
Thanks again.
In agreement with E. Nudelman, utilize an editorial team made up of gather editors and, perhaps, the more pedantic gather members.
Embed the comments in a tier-like fashion so that comments that aren't exactly related to the article - but to a comment - would be embedded under that particular comment.
The email notification of responses to your article is a valuable option that should be retained.
just the ability to edit our comments would be swell. I tend to make mistakes if I'm tired or if the phone rings etc. I don't want to delete and start over (I think we've all clicked on an e-mail to notify us we've got a comment and it's gone because someone deleted it before you could read what they wrote...)
- Removing comments on one's own articles from the points accrual process
- The ability to edit a posted comment, without deletion and starting from scratch
- A dedicated Gather resource for reporting any malicious activity, not necessarily the ability to arbitrarily remove a negative comment. We don't want bullying, but need to ensure that our culture doesn't become saccharine sweet at the same time.
- I'm also in favor of the tiered response system, for tangents of discussion that might evolve.
Thanks for soliciting suggestions ;)
Humanity is curious about what others think but we are adults and we are entitled to our opinions but as adults we have to take it or leave it as well.
Gather needs to listen to their people who live here and write and take care of the problems instead of passing the buck like this article is because why should we have to come up with ideas or follow rules when as professionals we give each other the respected courtesy that is due.
It is time for people to listen to their hearts and gather together and seek out the best way Gather.com can deal with the trolls as some have put it or the stalkers or the personal attacks on people within Gather.com.
Gather.com needs to see the reality of a possible failure as I did with another site that did not listen to its customers and it went down due to lack of people and the lack of input from the company who hosted it.
If problems were taken care of and action taken by them, they would of been still online but since they never listened, the hackers brought them down and the company went "ka-put" I myself and others left and went to the winds of change and we all totalled in the hundreds from that site, like here I have over 60 contacts imagine losing them along with the others who will eventually leave due to lack of action by Gather.com.
We are the writers, you need us to function, without us who would you be?
Rules? we are adults! ( well ..some of us)
You've given great advice and information on what makes gather work and what is expected.
Thanks.
How long are we going to keep playing with the dead frog?
I am not for being able to delete a comment - but perhaps the happy medium is to have a "Flag this comment as potentially inappropriate" option on each comment so that not only can the author tell Gather they think a comment is inappropriate, but any Gather member could as well. Then Gather could use that to police people and either tell the people complaining that what was said was not against Gather policy, or go ahead and remove the comment if it is deemed inappropriate. My understanding is that Gather does not want to get into policing content though and only removes in rare cases. This may not satisfy all members. But will anything ever satisfy all members?
I think what may help more than anything is to set up Gather where members decide which role they want to have on Gather. I have come up with three - there could be more. Are you a Social contributor- someone who is writing on Gather for pure enjoyment, not seeking to receive any feedback toward improving writing style and grammar unless specifically asked for on an individual piece. Or perhaps you are an Apprentice contributor - one who is here to have fun but also learn and grow as a writer. An apprentice may have taken courses in writing in the past, but is not paid to write or edit. They are seeking improvement in their skills and are open to giving and receiving constructive criticism. Perhaps you are a Professional contributor - and this should only be given to those that can prove professional publication or employment in the writing field. The Professional would be someone with experience and knowledge about the writing/publishing industry. They would also be open to giving and receiving constructive criticism.
I think if we had these three (or more) categories, it would make commenting easier. I would know that though there may be many ways I could suggest improvement on an article from a Social contributor, but this person is not seeking this type of feedback (unless they specifically ask for it). I would know who the people are that have gained success in the publishing world who might be willing to mentor me. It would also be great to have additional ranking systems to show not only how you rank within all of Gather, but how you rank compared to those in your same classification.
terry m."
I agree, TOTALLY. Seriously, are we adults here, or what? No one dies from hearing a negative comment, even a really, really mean one. I get so aggravated with the whole nicey-nice thing. If you can't stand it, then go somewhere else! There are billions and billions of moderated message boards, and they do nothing to forward intelligent discussion.
I'm not saying that nastiness is required. Obviously, courtesy is to be encouraged for the most part -- although some people just cry out for a good dope-slapping. What I'm saying is that people here spend entirely too much time whining about people being mean. Get over it.
There are people who simply do not like any controversy with their stand on an issue, and if you take an opposing view, no matter how nicely it's presented, they will delete the comments. I notice this becoming more and more an issue, so I am starting to change my way of dealing with this. If I think there's a possibility that my comments will be deleted, I am writing my own post with the refutation of the subject matter, rather than commenting at all on the post.
Editing the comment would also be nice.