Re: On comment abuse [LWN.net]

Re: On comment abuse

Posted Nov 20, 2003 18:18 UTC (Thu) by X-Nc (guest, #1661)
Parent article: On comment abuse

I would rather see LWN with no comment system but, of the choices given, comment posting privileges should be restricted to subscribers.

I have not been a big fan of the comments from the beginning. I don't hate them but I feel it diminishes the usefullness of LWN, for the same reason the Linux Gazette people bailed when LJ implimented a CMS. The reason I don't like the comments is that there's never any time to wade through them. If something worth while is posted it's not likely to be seen. Whereas if it was sent in as a letter to the editor then it will be seen and read. Using a CMS on a weekly publication defeats the purpose of having a weekly publication and turns it into something like Newsforge. Now, I like Newsforge, but it's no LWN. Unfortunately LWN is becoming less like LWN, too.

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"Less like LWN"

Posted Nov 20, 2003 20:47 UTC (Thu) by ksmathers (guest, #2353) [Link]

What is most enjoyable and useful about LWN is the quality of the editorial work. If by reading the weekly news I could get what Jonathan thinks are the most relevant five or six comments on a particular subject (in addition to the story itself), then that would be far more valuable to me than what the original poster thought would be witty, insightful, or informative, and quite a bit more valuable even than what other readers thought.

Just as you summarize the Kernel mailing list each week for those of us who don't have time to read it (and even do the research needed to help us understand some of the topics you summarize), in the comment system more isn't better. Better is better. Of itself, more is worse.

Attack of the Comments?

Posted Nov 22, 2003 6:34 UTC (Sat) by GreyWizard (guest, #1026) [Link]

What is most enjoyable and useful about LWN is the quality of the editorial work. [...]in the comment system more isn't better.

While a better comment system is certainly to be wished for, I don't understand why people object to the *existance* of comments. No one forces anyone to read them. Why can't you just visit once per week for the editorial content, ignore the unobtrusive notice at the end of each item and stop posting comments about how terrible it is to have comments?

"Less like LWN"

Posted Nov 20, 2003 22:56 UTC (Thu) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]

I think the problem is that to much useful data is showing up only in the comments. Yes I could just ignore the comments, but then I would permanently loose this data

pre-comments all info was in the articles or in letters to the editor (including e-mail to lwn.net) the staff acted as moderators and if the message was useful enough it became a new article. it was very easy to find the new info.

with comments on a daily (or more frequent) basis you need to not only check the new headlines, you need to pull up the last several weeks weekly edition to look through it to find if there are any new comments on interesting topics.

I will say that I don't see any comments from non-subscribers on any subscriber-only comment becouse I don't bother to try and go back a week and re-read the comments once non-subscribers are allowed to post to them.

even for things in the weekly edition I seldom bother going back more then a couple times to try and see if there are more comments, and I useually only go back more then once if there was a _really_ significant topic to deal with