[superflyguy]

" it's the Comments section of any blog-shaped site."

Something I never read on any site. It's just pure racism/muppets talking shit. If there were a plugin to block them I'd use it; I feel dirty even knowing they're down there. L

[TuringTest]

You're reading the comments section of a website right now.

Places like Ars Technica or Stack Exchange have a healthy environment in the comments section, so it can be done.

[superflyguy]

This site works because of the small numbers of people who are educated and there's sensible moderation.

[TuringTest]

Yes, precisely.

So, it can be done.

[superflyguy]

So what? I should start reading Nazi's comments on other sites now?

[coldtea]

I always read them on any site. I want to know even about racism and muppets talking shit, rather than be surprised when it appears in real life. And usually it's just real people, living real comments, from their own viewpoints.

[superflyguy]

No, I'm talking about actual Nazis, racists, climate change deniers, conspiracy theorist and other idiots. I'm more than familiar with their "typing" - I don't need to see it at the bottom of every story I read.

[toyg]

> Something I never read on any site.

I feel sorry for you - the original early-'00 blogosphere was actually very good, with all sorts of people building connections and intelligent debate through comments. After a while, the conversation was so deep that comments ended up being too short, so they had to define Pingbacks so that people could post elsewhere while still connecting with the source material.

And then spammers and the political sphere co-opted the technology, and it all went downhill.

I think there is still space, for defensively-minded geeks, to create ways to communicate that can keep debate open while shutting down the trolls. It's clear we don't have such a thing at the moment. I fear, however, that well-intentioned researchers like OP will simply end up building new systems that will replicate the mistakes of somewhat-naive early pioneers.

[superflyguy]

I remember those blogs. Somewhere between Usenet and Facebook. I found the ping back things annoying. If I remember rightly it was four or five pages of a copy of the first line of the article plus a link to someone else's blog but with no reason given for why I'd want to roll my sleeves up and start clicking on them.

[toyg]

Pingbacks were a 0.1 implementation of a concept that never got a second chance, because then the walled gardens arrived and destroyed the ecosystem. The main problems they had were what you mention: each ping would contain only a few lines (which i think was a limit in the standard, to limit spamming) and the automation mechanism was a bit stupid (every reblogging ended up generating a superfluous ping). People who cared could fix the first issue (with a sort of "above the fold" summary), but the second was enabled by over-eager engines and ended up ruining it for everyone.

[theclaw]

You can use Ghostery or uBlock Origin to block comments sections on many sites. I found Ghostery quite easy to set up for this.

[pjmlp]

The reason I never added support for comments on my blog.

No patience to manage them.