Featured comments detract from site

[bennyf]

Maybe this is just me, but I've wanted to share links to several articles and stopped because the featured forum comments below the article are often inane and detract from the apparent quality of the site.

Would like to request that the article author or forum mods manually promote comments as seen on other sites instead of having the automatic mechanic currently in place. Or tweak the automatic algorithm to only promote "positive" (as in adding value or insight) comments instead of attacks or pointless "that took courage" comments. Or whatever the latest mindless snark of the day is.

 

[Weaselboy]

I'll pass your suggestion along to the site admins.

Right now it shows comments in the thread with the most "likes".

Comments like "that took courage" and "can't innovate my ass".... that sort of thing, are frivolous comments and we will moderate them if we (mods) see them. If you run across a comment like that, please report it.

 

[bennyf]

Will do. The trigger for this thread was the 20% of Windows users plan to buy a Mac article. It's to be expected that such an article will bring the haters out of the woodwork, just wish they nor the hater-haters posts were positioned so prominently below the main article. I ended up just using the source link even though I thought MR's summary was better than the source website itself.

My sense on the problem with # of likes being the sole measure is that it incentivizes "like"ing any post that is opposed to a response you didn't like in a vain attempt to return balance to the discussion, even if the topic of that post is irrelevant to the article. Suddenly the most popular posts are side arguments irrelevant to the heart of the article. I wouldn't want to add downvoting here, but maybe allowing users to flag topics instead of reporting and then use those flags to aid the promotion algo.

Not trying to quash controversy, but instead give the algorithms better data on which to base their promotions.

 

[willmtaylor]

Maybe this is just me, but I've wanted to share links to several articles and stopped because the featured forum comments below the article are often inane and detract from the apparent quality of the site.

Would like to request that the article author or forum mods manually promote comments as seen on other sites instead of having the automatic mechanic currently in place. Or tweak the automatic algorithm to only promote "positive" (as in adding value or insight) comments instead of attacks or pointless "that took courage" comments. Or whatever the latest mindless snark of the day is.

I had never thought about that, as I typically browse the front page and forums differently, but I agree!