Posted by Orin Kerr:
Commenting About Commenting:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_12_14-2008_12_20.shtml#1229290087
In his 2000th post at [1]Simple Justice, Scott Greenfield expresses
his frustration with moderating comment threads:
[I]t's the one aspect of this Blawg that makes me think I should
hang it up. It gets unbearably tedious after a while, and sometimes
painful to watch a topic veer off onto a tangent because the one
commenter didn't get it (while insisting, always, that he did). . .
.
The comments are often as more fun than the post itself. It pains
me to acknowledge this, but it's true. I enjoy the comments most of
the time, and that's why I engage commenters regularly. But I don't
enjoy the emails I receive after I ban someone, or delete or edit a
comment, accusing me of intellectual rape. I don't need this from
people who have never contributed to the discussion here and whose
thoughts are, in my view, less than worthy of much discussion. I
will tolerate a lot more from people who I like and have been
regular contributors, even when they get testy with me. I won't
tolerate much from people I don't know or don't like. That's how
things work in real life, and they are no different here.
Blogs are still pretty new, so blog comment threads are, too. But I
wonder if we're beginning to see a trend in comment sections already.
As a blog becomes more popular, it becomes harder and more frustrating
to moderate comment threads. There are just too many commenters out
there to moderate each thread really effectively. Bloggers who try to
moderate in good faith end up wasting great deal of time on a handful
of individuals who feel that the world has wronged them somehow and
that blog commenting is an effective form of revenge.
For most high-traffic blogs, useful comment threads just aren't
realistic. The two choices become an unmoderated thread or no comment
thread at all. (A blog that has extremely high traffic numbers can try
a [2]Slashdot-like ranking system to try to bring attention to the
best comments, but that requires enough traffic and the right reader
culture to make it work.)
If I'm right about all of this, readable and useful comment threads
may end up largely only on blogs with traffic in the range of around
1,000 to 10,0000 hits a day. Traffic below that usually won't generate
enough commentary, and traffic above that usually won't allow
effective moderation. My vague sense is that we're pretty much seeing
this already, although I can't say that with certainty, as I only read
a dozen or so blogs regularly. But I wonder if the realities of
comment moderation will cement this trend over time.
References
1. http://blog.simplejustice.us/2008/12/13/post-2000-a-retrospective.aspx
2. http://slashdot.org/
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