Do you think comments below articles are valuable?

[rpm]

Eyewitness News has announced that it will close its comments section (more here).

Do you think comment sections add value? If so, why do you think big publishers are closing their comment sections?

 

[Herr der Verboten]

[X] Never read them since they are being scrutinized for being acceptable.

 

[Charlesjjm]

I wouldn't say 'valuable', but it's definitely entertaining to watch total strangers argue over whose opinion is more valid.

 

[saor]

If they aren't moderated they turn into a pile of mess and insults.
If they are moderated the moderators are accused of bias.

Imo there's no good to be had from article comments.

 

[Prawnapple]

Valuable for trolling and **** talking sure

 

[Azbubu]

They’re only valuable to the person who wrote them.

 

[rietrot]

Yes. It's a quick indication of what actual people think and it will quickly call out any BS in the article. That's why EWN don't want comments anymore they don't like people disagreeing with the nonsense they write and embarrassing them all the time.

They like to think their audience is made up of delusional SJW just like their journalist.

 

[Tabac]

Fokol. If it was of any value someone in the fckerment would have taken his finger out his but, stick it in someones nose and lift the cigarette ban.

 

[ActivateD]

With twitter, forums, facebook etc etc those comment sections are useless.

 

[Vorastra]

I liked using the comment section on MyBB articles, but now I'd rather make comments in the forum. The reason is that you can't seem to be critical about the article or the subject of the article without a MyBB disqus mod removing them.

Example: pointing out how useless the recent Huawei/iPhone comparison article was got my comment removed in disqus.

 

[Polymathic]

Does MyBB still have comments below articles?

 

[Bernie]

They publish their content on Twitter and Facebook, where people can have a field day commenting, either about the content, other commentators or anything unrelated. There is no benefit to having comments on the publishers site imo, there is still an outlet for people to make comment if they want.

 

[Brian_G]

Usually found them nothing more than occasionally amusing and not worth wading through to try get value from them. A forum is much better, especially this one which points to the articles of interest.

 

[koeks525]

Back in the day, the comments section on many news websites had meaning, and was generally friendly. Now days, the comment section of so many news websites is just toxic... guess this stems from people generally not being happy with anything, and the general sense of negativity going around.

 

[grok]

I refuse to read any article where they've closed down the comments. No voice = no read.

 

[JurgensBeMe]

Comments have SEO value.

 

[Mist4h20]

Should have a "trash" icon, and when you click it you get the comments.

 

[ShaunSA]

I wouldn't call them "valuable" exactly

But they did have some entertainment value

Kinda like @abzo's posts now that I think about it

 

[Dan C]

Never noticed any TBH. Let me check.

 

[Tim_vb]

There should be some sort of moderation and hiding the more off topic posts. Conspiracy cranks are very entertaining though