If there is one thing I’ve learned from my work as a writer, it’s that you should rarely ever read the bottom half of the internet. What does that mean exactly?
In essence, although I’m also one of the staunch advocates for the belief that words rule the web, and that getting genuine customer feedback is of the utmost importance, I can’t say there is much use for the bottom half of the web, or the comments section on sites that host content (be they articles, videos, slideshows, etc.).
Outside of the burden of moderation that they cause the writer (distracting them from researching and creating better content), comments also tend to draw out the worse in people, at Matt Gemmell outlines in this post:
Comments encourage unconsidered responses. You’ve just read an article, you feel strongly about it, and you have a text field just waiting there. When disagreeing, people tend to be at their very worst when writing comments. They use language and tones which they’d never use in email, much less in person. If your blog allows comments, you’re inviting people into your house – but sadly, some of them don’t conduct themselves appropriately.
To make matters worse, you have research covered over on Roger Dooley’s neuromarketing blog that states the following:
A new study, described by two of the authors in the NYTimes, looked at the effect of comments on how other readers interpreted an article, and the results were surprising. Ordinary comments didn’t change opinions of the readers – a sad thing, perhaps, for thoughtful comment writers who expect to inform and persuade those who read the article.
The comments that DID affect the opinions of the readers were those that used insulting language. All readers read the same comment content, but half of the readers saw comments which included gratuitous epithets, like, “You’re an idiot,” and “You’re stupid if you…” instead of more neutral language. The readers exposed to the nastier language became more opinionated and actually drew different conclusions from the story.
This means that disrespectful comments were more likely to change opinions then well thought out responses! This is likely because people make snap judgments about the article, and then go the comments for confirmation.
From the NYTrimes coverage:
Uncivil comments not only polarized readers, but they often changed a participant’s interpretation of the news story itself… Those exposed to rude comments, however, ended up with a much more polarized understanding of the risks connected with the technology. Simply including an ad hominem attack in a reader comment was enough to make study participants think the downside of the reported technology was greater than they’d previously thought.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand the merit of comments for certain sites, but I believe for many blogs, the authors are doing themselves a disservice by having comments enabled.
