Do you think comments below articles are valuable?

Do you think comments below articles are valuable?

  • Yes

    Votes: 143 62.4%

  • No

    Votes: 86 37.6%
  • Total voters
    229
As someone who runs a news organisation I wonder what @rpm & journo's think about comments.
 
I like them, much better than what you'll find on the dark side of twitter.

Keep them but make them optional for those that don't care about them (like the toggle to load them or not).
 
saor said:
As someone who runs a news organisation I wonder what @rpm & journo's think about comments.
Click to expand...
Comments are not of much value because it is basically always the same - independent of the publication:
  • The articles are slated for being poor
  • The journalists are slated for being poor
  • The publication is slated for being poor
  • The publication and journalists are slated for being biased
  • The usual personal attacks on the publication, journalists and other commentators
  • And then the usual “It was better in the old days, but things have gone down”
There is a group of people who comment which our journalist respect and take very seriously, but that is more in the forum than the article comments.
 
rpm said:
Comments are not of much value because it is basically always the same - independent of the publication:
  • The articles are slated for being poor
  • The journalists are slated for being poor
  • The publication is slated for being poor
  • The publication and journalists are slated for being biased
  • The usual personal attacks on the publication, journalists and other commentators
  • And then the usual “It was better in the old days, but things have gone down”
There is a group of people who comment which our journalist respect and take very seriously, but that is more in the forum than the article comments.
Click to expand...

Why should this be censored or ignored. There seems to be a common theme.
 
Generally with MyBB articles, I'd say no.

On Discus there's this group of people that I always see commenting and it's always negative stuff/trolling.

I don't usually read the Discus comments.
 
I never read the comments. To be honest, I forgot their existence.
 
Comments play a very important role in modern reporting. Comments keep journalists and publications honest. They know if they publish drivel, they will be punished in the comments section.

Look at news24 as an example. While they had comments they were careful about what they published. Now they publish a lot of stories which would have been spiked in the past. EWN is an example of a publication being regularly punished in their comments section because their stories are mostly badly written and incomplete. They have also decided to block comments from now on. The number of clicks they get will drop dramatically.

I, for one, never read online publications that do not allow comments. In South Africa it has become so bad now, that there are only two or three publications left that allow comments. It means that I have to look to foreign publications for my news.
 
saor said:
As someone who runs a news organisation I wonder what @rpm & journo's think about comments.
Click to expand...
One more point to consider - what value does comments hold for a publication? The negatives are clear (more than what I mentioned above). What are the positives?

BTW – It is a fallacy that comments drive traffic.
 
rpm said:
What confuse us is why people continue to read the articles and visit the publication if they think it is so poor. The solution is easier than you think – just do not visit the site ;)
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It is the entertainment and kak-praat angle, but can you really blame us? However, that said, nothing stops us from toning it down and moving towards discussion like commentary.
 
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