Mojo: Beyond Comment Threads

The Problem: Comment threads are long, filled with trolls who spout slander and uninformed opinions, and the good comments and dialogue gets diluted in useless posts.

Require a login/password – by forcing a login process, you immediately increase the barrier for involvement. It's not a huge barrier, but it's enough to dissuade a lot of people who may otherwise leave less than thought-provoking comments. It also allows you to reward or discipline for good or negative comments, respectively.

Facilitate discussion – The problem with much online discussion is that people are free to comment on any aspect of a story, and there is nothing to organize whether you're talking about an issue, the personalities involved, the politics behind a decision, or something else entirely. When all of these discussions happen in the same comment thread, nothing is in place to keep any of of them on track to promote healthy discussion. The simplest method would be to build “Discussion Questions” into your article publishing process. If you had two or three questions leading to different forums the discussion would be more directed and focused to the topics specified. If there was a question like “Why is this a proposal a good or bad idea?” you'd get far fewer comments like “This guy is stupid.” In classic journalism terms, don't ask “yes or no” questions. Ask questions that require a more thoughtful explanation.

Make it a game/challenge – Like so many of the submissions, I believe that introducing a gaming or voting element inspires a desire to make quality arguments in your comment posts. Good posts get voted up, and bad posts get voted down. A good debate would have popular posts from both sides of an argument, without erupting into a flamewar. Awarding badges for quality posts, debate wins, and the like, would again, inspire people to post insightful and well written comments. Making the “debate” and the badges embeddable or shareable on Twitter, Facebook, and blog sites would allow your comments to be seen elsewhere AND invite more users into the conversation.