>"What percentage of comments on any site are valuable enough to be published on their own? One percent? Less? Based on the disparity in quality between emails we get and the average state of comments here and all over the web, I think the problem is a matter of the medium."
The problem is not the medium, the problem is sites seem to expect the medium to be something it isn't.
Vice seems to consider it an obvious flaw that most comments aren't publishable as standalone articles, as if users should be expected to run every comment through several drafts and past a copy editor before posting, and yet comments by definition tend to produce low quality content, because they're discussions between individuals, or between an individual and the site. The immediacy and lack of polish is the feature, not the bug. Do you want your community to be a tavern or a symposium?
Focusing on the comment as a standard of quality is understandable for a site which is using comments as an easy way to drive engagement, but I think doing so disregards the actual purpose of the medium. If what you want from a comments section is a steady stream of high quality, long-form content you can control then what you don't want is comments, what you want is to crowdsource copy writing without compensation.
Even on HN, which is obsessed with "quality" above all else, most comments are worthless on their own, but in aggregate the entire conversation has value. And yes, comments can be full of trolling and bigotry and stupidity and chaos. Hacker News has its share of that as does any active forum. But that has to be the price you're willing to pay, even with moderation, to have an open community. Many sites are discovering the return for the amount of effort required to maintain even moderate civility is not worth the effort.
The problem is not the medium, the problem is sites seem to expect the medium to be something it isn't.
Vice seems to consider it an obvious flaw that most comments aren't publishable as standalone articles, as if users should be expected to run every comment through several drafts and past a copy editor before posting, and yet comments by definition tend to produce low quality content, because they're discussions between individuals, or between an individual and the site. The immediacy and lack of polish is the feature, not the bug. Do you want your community to be a tavern or a symposium?
Focusing on the comment as a standard of quality is understandable for a site which is using comments as an easy way to drive engagement, but I think doing so disregards the actual purpose of the medium. If what you want from a comments section is a steady stream of high quality, long-form content you can control then what you don't want is comments, what you want is to crowdsource copy writing without compensation.
Even on HN, which is obsessed with "quality" above all else, most comments are worthless on their own, but in aggregate the entire conversation has value. And yes, comments can be full of trolling and bigotry and stupidity and chaos. Hacker News has its share of that as does any active forum. But that has to be the price you're willing to pay, even with moderation, to have an open community. Many sites are discovering the return for the amount of effort required to maintain even moderate civility is not worth the effort.