First of all, I do not have any technical experience with administering a site, let alone one with community participation. I don’t know the technical challenges of managing the flow of community content—what is easy to program and what is difficult. But I do know what makes for enjoyable reading and participating for me.

Most of the current members of c99% have migrated over from GOS for various reasons. JtC, in setting up this site, gave it much of the look and feel of GOS. This is a good thing—we all knew how to navigate over there and we could quickly figure out how to use this site. The familiarity helped us feel at home.

I very much hope, as Cassiodorus wrote yesterday, that this site continues to grow. I actually think 10,000 users is too modest a goal. I would hope that c99% can become the big forum for progressive values that we all pretended existed at TOP.
Right now, “there’s nobody here but us chickens”. We’re know we’re are among friends, and the discussions are very civil and affirming. If this site grows, it will inevitably attract other elements, whose goal is to either aggrandize themselves or disrupt what we accomplish. Right now, the number of users, comments and posts is small enough that JtC and a small circle of admins can manually police the content for DBAA. That won’t last forever.

I am concerned that, in adapting the general framework of GOS to structure this site, c99% will run the risk replicating the mistakes that have turned GOS and many Reddit sites into abusive cesspools of nasty comments heaped upon themselves, not informing anyone of anything and creating more heat than light.

Why do we have comments?

Really. We take it as a given that we should be able to post comments in direct response to a post. Why particularly? What if we started from position that there is no commenting function and ask ourselves what commenting adds to the experience for both the poster and reader of the comments? As a reader of posts and their comments, what I am looking for is 1) additional information or insight that helps me understand the subject; 2) reasoned and respectful disagreement; and 3) moral support for the poster and the community. I absolutely hate being expected to scroll through 753 comments under a good diary, 95% of it pie, me too comments and flung poo combat, to find those few nuggets of real thought. I rarely get to the bottom.
As a writer of comments, I have somewhat different goals: 1) I want to support good writers and good causes; 2) correct misinformation and challenge opinions I disagree with; 3) help out where I can with any background I might have. The goals of readers and commenters are similar but not identical. Managing the tension between the needs of readers and commenters is difficult and crucial.

We have some unspoken assumptions about comments:
1. Every user should have the right to comment.
2. There is no limit to how often, where, and when a user may comment.
3. All comments should be generally and immediately visible.
4. Any comment can be commented on, I.e. chains of comments can branch and form “trees”.

Let’s examine each of those assumptions, and see if they help meet our goals both now and in the long run.

Should every user have the right to comment?
Is commenting on posts a right or a privilege? Should one be able to join and immediately be able to post comments? The upside is that new users can immediately move into a discussion they feel part of and be welcomed. The downside is that trolls can join a site and immediately start disrupting it, doing perhaps considerable damage before they are removed. Should all users be equal in their commenting privileges? JtC has said he wants to run this site on donations and not have to turn to advertising to pay for it. What if he said that only paying users could post comments? C99% could also have a ‘soft’ comment paywall, such as you can comment for free the first 90 days and then pay, or you only get 1 comment a day until you contribute. Upside: we would all be reminded that this site costs money to run and do the right thing. Downside: some of us are genuinely indigent and cannot afford to contribute. One tactic paid operatives use is to set up “Rip Van Winkle accounts” to use years later to shill whatever cause they are promoting. Requiring that users log on and participate with some regularity in order to keep posting/commenting privileges would counteract that.

Should commenting be unlimited?
We assume that one should have unlimited commenting privileges. One of the products of this is pie fights and flame wars between individuals with dozens or even hundreds of comments being posted to the same post by one individual. What if you were restricted to, say, 5 comments per day? You would make sure you used them well and wisely and made meaningful contributions. Or the number of comments a user was allowed per day or week on their standing as a users—how long have they been on the site, how often have they posted diaries, and how well received their posts and comments were.
Secondly, who owns the discussion attached to the post, the OP or the community as a whole? When I comment on someone’s post, I try to see myself as a guest in their space and behave accordingly. It’s wrong to go into someone’s post and attack them in their comments, unless their post is truly a piece of hateful garbage that should not be posted in the first place. Even then it should be about the ideas and not the person. Should OP’s have some say in who may comment? What if there is a user that trolls all my posts? Should I have a right to ban them from commenting on my posts, independently of whether admin bans them?

Should all comments be visible by default?
On c99%, GOS and Reddit, we are presented with all comments visible by default to everyone. There are alternatives: I also visit Medium.com, which hosts a wide variety of material, some of it quite good. What I like about Medium is that the default comment view is only comments that have been recced by the OP, moderators, or lots of people in general. I have to scroll down to the bottom of the comments view and click a button to “view all comments”. So the comments I get to see first are the most thoughtful ones. It’s a form of soft moderation that really works well, in my opinion.

Likewise, should a comment be visible immediately? I know it’s valuable when there is an exciting news event or dynamic discussion to be able to post right away. The downside is that this immediacy is also precisely fuel for a lot of the negativity that happens in online forums. People want to get their word in first. We don’t take the time to think about what we are writing, and things said can’t get unsaid.

Is commenting on comments the best way?
We relate and display comments in a “tree” fashion, i.e. comments are displayed starting from the oldest and with their subcomments nested under them. I never liked this view; it’s too confusing who is commenting on what, some of the best thoughts wind up buried deep in layers of subcomments, and good top-level comments that came along later are often ignored. There has to be a better way. Again Medium.com has a different approach: The top-level comment box is right under the post. To comment on a comment, or to even see its subcomments, you have to click on the comment first. This tends to keep the comment tree much “flatter” and easier to read.

I’m really glad caucus99percent is here. Here’s hoping it grows, attracts all the like-minded folks out there and keeps the “nattering nabobs of negativity” at bay.