Are comment sections dead?

Does the sight of hundreds of pages of comments on an article fill you with dread? Do you get fed up of reading the same comment again and again and again?

I read an interesting article today on TechCrunch by Nicolas Holzapfel. Nicholas claims that comment sections have become unruly and rarely add anything particularly constructive to an article because of the way they are structured:

“Lots of comments amounts to an enormous long list of entirely unstructured text. There are no dividers or subheadings, no logical progression of arguments or groupings of opinion and no distinction between unique, intelligent insights and throwaway expressions of approval and opposition. Because nobody can be bothered to read through such a mess before they add their own comment, there isn’t even the structure of a coherent conversation. Instead, there is endless, pointless repetition; conversations emerge, peter out and then re-emerge 50 comments later with new participants who haven’t noticed that the same issues were discussed 50 comments ago.” (his emphasis)

And I largely agree with this. When you get mainstream articles with lots of comments, I will instinctively read the first few and then skim the rest. I will rarely go onto a second page and never to a third.

So what is the answer?

From the looks of things, Nicholas clearly believes that his startup – Yoomoot – will provide the solution, but it is hard to tell from the website exactly how or why!

I’m a fan of Disqus (used on this blog) and the service mentioned in the article – Echo, a real-time comment engine – also looks interesting. However, neither service really solves the specific problem Nicholas highlights.

Should comments be subjected to more editorial control? Should there be more social or Digg-style elements where visitors can vote up popular comments (the BBC website does this, for example)? Perhaps the eagerly anticipated Google Wave will help with more ‘Wiki’-like technology allowing visitors to manage and control comment sections in a more democratic way.

Surely this is an aspect of blogging that is ripe for innovation and fresh thinking?

Danny Whatmough