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NPR Gets Rid of Comments Section

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Melody Bot, Aug 17, 2016.

  1. Melody Bot

    Your friendly little forum bot. Staff Member

    This article has been imported from chorus.fm for discussion. All of the forum rules still apply.

    NPR are removing comments from their website:


    In July, NPR.org recorded nearly 33 million unique users, and 491,000 comments. But those comments came from just 19,400 commenters, [managing editor Scott] Montgomery said. That’s 0.06 percent of users who are commenting, a number that has stayed steady through 2016. […] When viewed purely from the perspective of whether the comments were fostering constructive conversations, the change should come as no surprise. The number of complaints to NPR about the current comment system has been growing — complaints that comments were censored by the outside moderators, and that commenters were behaving inappropriately and harassing other commenters.

    Good for them. Moving all comments into our forum was the best decision I ever made.

     
  2. Yellowcard2006

    Trusted

    Sounds like they are more driven by keeping costs down versus managing the content of the comments. Makes sense to me when such a small percentage will be effected.
     
  3. dorfmac Aug 17, 2016
    (Last edited: Aug 17, 2016)
    dorfmac

    Trusted

    Despite all of the hubbub when you switched to chorus, I don't see any change to the way comments are done now compared to before. It's still "read post, click comment button" and then you're in the thread to comment. In practice, it's basically the same for the way I do things.

    The biggest reason why it's easier to maintain, I assume, is that Chorus started back at 0 users and so the community isn't nearly as large as it was at absolutepunk. A lot of people probably just never took the time to make a new account.
     
    slickdtc and chris-wrecker like this.
  4. y2jayjk

    Trusted Prestigious

    The ones complaining about censorship are ALWAYS the ones doing the harassing. Weird how that works.
     
    AshlandATeam, Luroda, EvanT.O and 7 others like this.
  5. atlastitsok

    Regular

    This. I don't notice much of a difference at all in how I read posts and comment. If it's easier for the site to maintain more power to em.
     
  6. WordsfromaSong

    Trusted

    we should get rid of all comment sections
     
  7. slimfenix182

    FUCKIN SAVAGES IN THAT FUCKIN BOX Prestigious

    Now if YouTube and Facebook would just get on board with this too.
     
  8. Saephon

    Regular

    I believe every site has the right to maintain their comments section in the way they wish, or not have one at all. That being said, I personally find it enlightening to let people say whatever they want to. It's ugly sometimes, but I kind of like seeing the ugliness front and center so I know just how bad people really are. I understand why some people disagree with that though.
     
  9. There are now more daily posters, and posts, on chorus than there were on AP.
     
  10. aniafc

    Trusted

    Do you think that's just because you moved it all to a forum and put the discussion in one place? Or something else?

    Legitimately curious
     
  11. I think that a core group of about 8k people are very active on the forums. We had roughly 6k very active users on AP and a lot of drive by users. We had a bigger number of registrations for 15 years (about 500k), but many were inactive. I think that a core, and dedicated user base, is better. We're at like 12k registered or something? But a god % of them post a lot on the forums. And some post a huge amount. Better engagement. More people returning and spending their days here posting. I had the numbers before, but we see about a 5% increase per day on how many posts go through this system vs the last three months on AP.
     
    slickdtc and Penguin like this.
  12. Bryan Diem

    Trusted

    This seems like a good place to say chorus is an improvement upon ap in every way (except I loved the numeric album scores of old). Website works like a charm on mobile, which is awesome!
     
  13. aniafc

    Trusted

    That's really awesome. I'm sure you were nervous moving everything over to a new website. It's been cool to watch it from an outside perspective, so I can only imagine what it's like from your perspective.

    Plus, now I get to be back on your website and make up for my idiotic statements from ap that got me in trouble :)
     
  14. SoundInTheSignals

    @Bake_Wear / soundinthesignals.com

    I think comment sections/forums are great if done correctly. One thing I think that has helped this reboot with the community, comments, and interaction is setting expectations and holding users to them. I think you did a great job with that right out of the gate with this new site. Sadly enough places just don't do that and it makes having any type of good conversation impossible.
     
  15. derekjd

    Slow down, Quentin Supporter

    Well that's partially because you've done one hell of a job setting up this site, man. It's simplistic and useable whil still being enjoyable. The interface is sleek and elegant. Great community, good posts, great writing staff (Craig Manning, looking at you), and definitely one of the most screen reader friendly places that I frequent. Keep up the good work, pal. We're proud of, and rooting for, you. Thanks for building such a great playground, and thanks even more for opening up the gate and letting this raggity mob in.
     
    Spencer Rhoton and JRGComedy like this.
  16. rst

    Regular

    So they eliminated the comment section because it was more cost effective for them. Good for them I guess.

    Do comment posts even matter for a site's overall valuation? I always assumed what mattered most was unique and total visitors. So like a site with 100,000 unique visitors with 5,000 comments would be way more valuable than a site with 5,000 visitors and 100,000 comments. I assume advertisers want to reach the bigger audience and don't care about overall post counts?
     
  17. KyleK

    Let's get these people moving faster! Supporter

    I think the problem you can run into is that providing a forum for people to express hateful ideas can sometimes serve to validate those ideas (in their own minds), especially when compounded with others of similarly hateful ideas joining in one place. Maybe I'm cynical, but the most negative and hateful people in comment sections (typically) aren't open-minded to changing their perspective, they just want an audience for their opinions, and rarely does it turn into a meaningful or enlightening conversation.
     
    Jason Tate and Penguin like this.
  18. dorfmac

    Trusted

    I wouldn't have guessed that - interesting to know. I just assumed that before it was a lot of people with fewer posts, and on Chorus it's fewer people with a lot of posts.
     
  19. Will Montei

    Guest

    NPR's comment section (especially on Facebook) has continually been host to some of the most toxic online conversation I've seen, which is especially bizarre given that NPR's own presence in the media is the opposite of that. I'm glad they're ridding themselves of it.
     
    jpmalone4 likes this.
  20. Micool1

    Trusted Prestigious

    At least now we don't get the "I thought this was absolutePUNK!!1!1!" comments!
     
  21. domotime2

    Great Googly Moogly Supporter

    I think all news organizations should remove comments sections
     
  22. Michael Schmidt

    Don't recreate the scene, or reinvent the meanings Supporter

    Or the, "why is this news" comments.
     
  23. More pageviews, usually, meant more revenue. Basically for years it was:

    How many ads you can show = more money. More comments = more pageviews. More pageviews = more pennies.
     
    rst likes this.
  24. Why thank you! :teethsmile:All those things are things I spent a looooot of time thinking about, and so it's always really great to see people enjoying them.
     
  25. I agree 1000000%.