[AbrahamParangi]

I think many people have realized that the costs (filtering & moderation) vs. benefits (community engagement) of comment sections just don't make sense for most websites.

I suspect that for comment sections to be good the users need to actually be invested in the 'forum' they're posting in. Without any skin in the game (reputation or fear of moderation) there is little incentive for most users to add value and the system becomes dominated by 'low value' posts (like trolls, flamewars, spambots, etc.).

[seanalltogether]

This actually a good argument toward shifting commenting into a paid subscription offering. Give access to the site free of ads and allow you to comment on articles.

[rezashirazian]

I disagree, if people pay for the privilege of commenting, they will feel entitled and less likely to self-moderate.

It would make more sense to grant commenting privileges to individuals who have engaged with the site previously and are in good standing. Much like the Product Hunt.

[throwanem]

> if people pay for the privilege of commenting, they will feel entitled and less likely to self-moderate

Not if getting banned means they have to buy a new account to post again.

[saboot]

Yeah, this is the something awful forums model. It's not perfect but better than most places.

[dredmorbius]

Metafilter does this. It's surprisingly effective.

[cderwin]

I think a notable exception to this is comments on the wall street journal. They are typically well-informed professionals having reasonable opinions who take the time to write in-depth comments -- not unlike this site, I suppose. And of course commenting is gated on having a paid subscription to the magazine, and I believe there is an additional paid membership that gets ones comments promoted.

I don't know if things are still like this though -- I haven't had a subscription for several years.

[throwaw12ay]

This. A lot of news outlets in Europe actually do that. Only paid subscribers can comment. It's a good compromise. It reduces trolling AND finances moderation.

[gulperxcx]

The standard charge should be $0.02 per comment.

[Declanomous]

Even at $.10 a comment, trolling would still be incredibly inexpensive compared to many other hobbies.

[mc32]

What if you added a downvote multiplier, so if you get 5 downvotes it becomes $.50? With a max neg of score of -10. And same for downvoter. And you get meta mods who watch these mods to try to keep things from wratcheting in a runaway manner.

[Declanomous]

I don't want to pay just because people disagree with me though. For instance, I've had relatively innocuous comments get downvoted on Reddit because it's an unpopular opinion. A great way to get downvotes is to find a thread where people are complaining about speed locks in apps and post "studies have shown that distracted driving is at least as dangerous as drinking and driving."

You'll almost instantly get downvoted to at least -5, despite the verifiable truth of the statement.

It would make vote brigading really attractive as well. Imagine if /r/TheDonald users could have caused a financial impact to anyone just by downvoting their comments. Reddit would have been a nightmare.

[mc32]

I naively presumed mods and meta mods would dampen the impact of voting rings and disagreement votes. One additional tool might be requiring a "reason" for the downvote as /. used (still does?) to do (off-topic, irrelevant, inflammatory, etc.) and for people whose downvotes massively stray from the reason, revoke downvoting privs.

[Fnoord]

> What if you added a downvote multiplier, so if you get 5 downvotes it becomes $.50? With a max neg of score of -10. And same for downvoter. And you get meta mods who watch these mods to try to keep things from wratcheting in a runaway manner.

$0.50 is a lot of money in some countries in the world. It'd make trolling vastly more expensive for people in those countries.

If you don't deal with the unpopular/controversial opinion getting downvoted problem it also devalues the unpopular/controversial opinions of those from those countries.

If you're $local_news_paper in some small US town the above is irrelevant, but NYT is read worldwide, as is HN and Reddit. (Tho I suppose Reddit more than HN.)

If you still wanna go ahead with your proposal, I think a good model on downvoting would be to see use it as currency with a relative cost plus an absolute base. E.g. absolute_base + 5%_of_current_karma. The relative cost is to avoid hoarding, the absolute cost is to avoid efficiency of karma depletion.

[varjag]

It should however help eradicate industrial scale trolling by dedicated actors.

[notahacker]

Some industrial scale trolling, perhaps.

On the other hand, trolls and coordinated political campaigns tend to be a lot more willing to spend money to pursue their causes than people that just want to add a relevant anecdote or express their approval, so it might skew the balance of comments more towards trolling and brigading.

[Chris2048]

> the costs (filtering & moderation)

or, don't do this, and make seeing comments optional.