awesome comments
DESCRIPTION
What's wrong with current comment systems and how can we do better? We have built a new comment system from the ground up designed to support genuine conversation.TRANSCRIPT
Xianhang ZhangBumblebee Labs
1dub talk - October 2nd 2008
2 person team
3 months old Goal is to build “provocative social
software” 1 product release, 2 more in the
pipeline Happy to talk more after this about
collaboration.2dub talk - October 2nd 2008
3dub talk - October 2nd 2008
For many people, commenting is their first
and possibly only foray into the social web
4dub talk - October 2nd 2008
“Communications tools don't get socially interesting until they get technologically
boring”– Clay Shirky
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There has not been much innovation in the comment space
Slashdot pioneered their “Karma” system in 1997
To this day, I’m not aware of any other system of that level of complexity
most major sites are still using the most basic commenting systems despite their obvious flaws
6dub talk - October 2nd 2008
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8dub talk - October 2nd 2008
Signal/noise ratio is too low
Insightful comments get lost
Lack of readership due to low quality
Hard time keeping track of the narrative thread of the conversation
Despite this, people yearn for conversation (Herring)
9dub talk - October 2nd 2008
Small, personal blogs read largely by friends and family
Social networking appsHighly targeted blogs aimed at a
professional audienceSites cultivating return audiences
rather than drive by, search engine traffic
10dub talk - October 2nd 2008
Large sitesSites with high traffic per pageSites with low traffic per pageEntertainment sitesSites with an influx of new usersSites with controversial topicsSites with low community
involvement
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Poor explanation:
There’s a lot of stupid people out there
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Better explanation:
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We rely on social cues to determine acceptable behavior
14dub talk - October 2nd 2008
We rely on social cues to determine acceptable behavior
Online environments lack a richness of cues
There are no repercussions for pathological behavior online
Gresham’s law applied to commenting: Bad conversation drives out good
Some small percentage of misanthropic users (ie: trolls) ruin it for the rest of us
15dub talk - October 2nd 2008
Moderation Increasing barriers to participation
(registration, captchas etc.)RatingFilteringDisemvowellingROBOT 9000
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For conversation to happen, there must be a narrative thread.
If I refer to Comment X, you must have read Comment X to understand my reference
Rating systems must keep the chronology intact while making highly rated comments visible
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This is most often done via threading
Heavyweight approach, lots of intricacies
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Initial site developed over 12 hoursVery simple concept
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How do we prevent this site from being just a flash in the pan?
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Build remarkable content
Remarkableadjective Pronunciation: \ri-ˈmär-kə-bəl\
Something which people will remark about.
23dub talk - October 2nd 2008
Initial user impressions are generally very positive
But the site can quickly lose its appeal In order to support long term growth, we
needed to build conversation around each question
Constraints: Anonymous everything Heavy reliance on external/search engine traffic Many questions, long tail of quality Primary navigation is random
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Large sitesSites with high traffic per pageSites with low traffic per pageEntertainment sitesSites with an influx of new usersSites with controversial topicsSites with low community
involvement
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Commenting system designed from the ground up.
Goals Drive out poor comments Support remarkable content Support real conversation Give people a sense of ownership
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Every comment has vote up and vote down buttons
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New comment Registered users: 2.0 points Unregistered users: 1.0 points
Vote button Registered users: 1.0 points Unregistered users: 0.1 points
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Progressively degrade comment readability at lower scores
Show undegraded comment to original poster
29dub talk - October 2nd 2008
Voting is unbounded both up and down but…
Makes it easy to find and promote remarkable comments
We are using the lack of information as a design feature
Actual Score Displayed Score
-2.3 -2.3
1.7 1.7
3.5 3.0+
98.6 3.0+
100.1 Awesome
30dub talk - October 2nd 2008
Non threadedComments are sorted by displayed
score, then by date postedReply button on all commentsAll replies to your comment are
highlighted
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Original posters are highlighted
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Identity can be established while maintaining anonymity
Visiting a question/comment you made automatically upvotes all it’s children
Returning to a question/comment rewards your repliers
You are personally in charge of voting your repliers correctly
33dub talk - October 2nd 2008
All comments at 3.0+ are displayed in chronological order
Conversation can happen at 3.0+This is the default if you post as a
registered user (2.0) who replies to a poster who regularly returns (1.0)
34dub talk - October 2nd 2008
Commenting systems are generally horribly designed from a sociability perspective
Better conversation is a force multiplier for the social web
Awesome comments is a ground up rethinking of how commenting should be implemented
Still very much an experiment, details will change as the system matures
35dub talk - October 2nd 2008
Bumblebee Labs: http://blog.bumblebeelabs.com
Am I Normal or Not?: http://www.aminormalornot.com
Email me: [email protected]
Need a designer? [email protected]
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