Reader Comments [LWN.net]

Reader Comments

Posted Feb 1, 2007 23:36 UTC (Thu) by barbara (guest, #3014)
Parent article: An LWN reader survey

First, I'd like to echo the earlier reader comments about the overall
excellence of LWN _content_. This is the *only* site I'm willing to pay
for. I've been a faithful reader since 1998.

Second, I've noticed a deterioration of the quality of the _comments_ on
LWN. A few years ago I rated the reader comments as excellent. Over the
past year or two the signal to noise ratio has declined; I've especially
noticed negative and unpleasant posts to subscription-not-required
stories.

The best solution to this problem is to require readers to sign up
for an account at no charge if they want the privilege of commenting.
LXer.com (another excellent Linux news source) does this, and the reader
comments are respectful. It's just a great reader community with lots
of give and take, humour, insight, and just plain fun. LXer requires a
user name (it doesn't have to be your original name) and an email address.
It also requires the user to abide by their Terms of Service and Code of
Conduct.

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Reader Comments

Posted Feb 1, 2007 23:38 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

LWN has always required that commenters have an account. I think it does help keep the noise down somewhat, but it's a pretty small barrier.

Reader Comments

Posted Feb 2, 2007 17:32 UTC (Fri) by kael (subscriber, #1599) [Link]

I have an alternate spin here. I've been against comments since they were implemented, indeed I modified my account settings soley to comment on the survey, since no other form of custom input was provided (shame!).

LWN = Linux Weekly News. It's not /., not a discussion board, not a community forum. And it shouldn't try to be those things.

I subscribe to LWN as I consider it an electronic weekly paper of great quality. However, I use it in that manner; I read once a week the weekly edition. I'm not interested in daily stories and as I mentioned, comments, no thanks. The letters page is the proper response forum.

In closing I'd like to thank LWN and I will continue to thank you with my wallet.

Ps. Please don't respond for my benefit, as I'll be turning off comments again Real Soon.

Reader Comments

Posted Feb 4, 2007 12:56 UTC (Sun) by jrigg (subscriber, #30848) [Link]

The comments were one of the reasons I paid for a subscription. While some of them can be a waste of space, there are still enough informative and insightful comments to be valuable, especially on the more technical subjects.