In a different thread @Jon made the case for adding a Like button for comments and also proposed adding “threaded comments”. You may have seen threaded comments on other sites, where comments get clearly organized into categories so that below one post their can be multiple distinct conversations. In the case of very busy threads with 100’s of comments, it would make it far easier to follow the multiple simultaneous conversations.
Here’s Jon’s original comment that kicked this discussion off …
I haven’t posted here in a very long time, but given ALL the threads about elections, peoples’ feelings, assumptions, inferences etc., I would like to suggest two things: allow people to respond directly to a commenter so that the thread stays organized by topic. Seeing a response 10 comments down, then another 25 comments down, makes the thread disorganized and difficult to follow. Also, bring back the “Like” “Dislike” buttons. I myself am too cautious a person to comment, as the chance of being misunderstood or eviscerated here are high. The buttons might also provide some feedback to posters as to how their comments are received by the larger community.
Thanks Jon for the feedback, I think the site, as is, works reasonably well for the normal times. I totally agree that when there is a burst of 100’s of comments on a single thread it quickly becomes unmanageable and confusing. Both of your suggestions may help with those cases.
The Like button is a feature that can be easily turned off/on. It used to be on, then was turned off quite a while ago. I don’t remember the exact rationale for that choice.
I don’t know if “threading” the comments is a simple or difficult-to-make change to the site. We’ll check with our site admin and find out.
A third issue is whether or not to ban anonymous commenters. i.e. commenters with handles like LDS, Mary Mary Quite Contrary, Jon, fignewtonville, etc would be required to post under their real first and last name. It’s one of the most common requests we hear, with people strenuously lined up on both sides, each with their own compelling reasons. One thing you should be aware of is that we have no technical means to (reliably) verify that the person truly is who they say they are. The only enforcement mechanism is that if someone somehow determines that a person is commenting under a pseudonym they could be booted off the site for violating our rules.
We’d like to get some feedback from readers/commenters about their preferences. I remember when the Like button were removed there were various people on both sides arguing for and against,
Here’s a simple Doodle poll to voice your preferences on these three possible changes. Click each of the three boxes if you support each change, or don’t click if you don’t supports the change … and then click the Send button.
Once we hear back about the difficulty of implementing “threaded comments”, and compile your poll responses, the V14 posters will try to come up with a consensus among ourselves about whether or/not to make these changes to the site. To be clear, the results of the doodle poll will not necessarily determine the new features or policies, those results are just to provide more information from you about what your preferences are to help guide us when discussing the proposed changes.
Thanks @Newtoner for the good suggestion to move this to its own thread.
Jerry Reilly, thank you so much for taking the suggestions under consideration! I like your idea of taking the poll, it seems like the fairest way to go about this. Understandably, the threaded comments would be a complicated switch, but especially on the volatile, highly commented on posts it may be worth the try. Thanks again, Jon.
Deja vu.
https://village14.com/2019/05/13/about-village-14-and-anonymous-comments/
https://village14.com/2013/08/21/poll-is-it-time-to-end-anonymous-comments-on-village-14/
And I’m sure it came up a handful of other times. I’m not particularly excited about revisiting this topic. The pros and cons have been made clear, as well as the logistics. We could just move the discussions to something like Discus and let someone else handle the authentication problem, but we’d lose a lot of participants, and it’s not clear to me that the most offensive comments are coming from anonymous posters, or that ids are the answer (see FB Newton Civic Forum)
As for likes, we tried it for a while and, at least with up/down and counts, it was often weaponized.
Adam, I share your concerns, fwiw, along with the fact there are people who may be posting pseudonymously for legitimate reasons (personal safety, for one thing)
I love the idea of the LIKE button and the reply button!
I have been a loyal poster under my “nick name” for years. I don’t like the idea of revealing my whole name. If my name was Martha Washington, could I pick Martha? Martha W? Or do I have to always be known as Martha Washington?
And while my email shows my name, would that still remain hidden? I keep my email off sites. . . . .
And if my email isn’t shown how would you know my name really isn’t Martha Washington. Could I adopt a name like that and stick with it?
I agree that the thumbs were weaponized. It’s too easy to vote incognito. I remember one amusing one when one night a post had a few thumbs up at 10 pm and at 6 am (one of my three email check times), there were over 200 thumbs up. Someone didn’t get much sleep that night!
I like having a “like” button but keeping the comments in chronological order. I like having a way to show agreement with a comment without ending up with a long chain of “I agree”, “Me too”, etc. comments clogging up the discussion.
Forgot to say I also like having “like” buttons without having “dislike” buttons. Universal Hub is like that, along with having threading, and I think it works quite well.
If we require full names, certainly bring back the “like” button. I wouldn’t participate in commenting anymore, but I would like to participate in some way. Jane is right that some people bombard the like buttons/dislike, but I don’t think that’s the norm.
Universal Hub has threaded, anonymous comments and like (but no dislike) buttons. See this, for example:
https://www.universalhub.com/2021/think-boston-politics-are-nuts-we-have-nothing
Back when I was involved with V14 we looked for a WordPress plug in that allowed for only thumbs up/like but not thumbs down/dislike….or something similar. Couldn’t find one then but maybe someone can now.
I like the way threads work now. I never liked thumbs, either up or down. I would suggest that V14 not allow any new anonymous people to register or comment within 90 days of a local election.
I have no experience with it, but this WordPress plugin offers the configuration choice of just “like”s, which I strongly prefer.
https://wordpress.org/plugins/comments-like-dislike/
I don’t think banning pseudonyms will change anything significant.
If V14 moves to threaded comments, the page layout will have to change considerably. Universal Hub gets more horizontal text per line than V14, and even then texts gets all squishy to the right on deeply threaded controversial posts. I like UHub’s threading display, though, and the site in general.
@Greg: Google is your friend –> https://wpwebsitetools.com/adding-a-wordpress-upvote-thumbs-up-plugin-i-like-faqs/
@Gerard: Recall please a mentioned-in-email distinction between anonymous commenters and de-identified on-screen comments. With an enabling technology my firm prepared to help the Citizen Commission on Energy, it is possible to verify the claimed identity of a Village14 subscriber, for example by matching their name to an Eversource account number during sign-up/authentication processing, and still allow an on-screen handle.
The only way to avoid thumbs being gamed with cleared cookies, and I think they were gamed routinely to influence the perception of “prevailing” views when they were in use, is to require the voter to be logged into a v14 wordpress account. The Boston globe only offers thumbs to registered users for example. I assume they limit to one vote per comment but not sure.
If you are going to have a system that can be gamed, at least limit it to a more positive thumbs up, and include a visible disclaimer. Even then, people can thumbs up negativity and have the same effect as thumbs down.
I am in favor of the like button, but you can only like once. Not in favor of dislike button. If you post why you disagree with a comment, then people can signify their agreement with that sentiment by liking it.
I don’t think names should be required, and a handle is fine.
As for replies, I like it in theory but not if it makes it too clunky
How about first names? Does that make it feel safer?
I like the meandering conversations as they often offer new perspectives on a topic as the thread moves along. It’s easy to miss an insightful comment when the comments are clustered by topic.
I just voted for all posters using their full names, but after thinking about what happened on some of the FaceBook pages, I don’t know that it makes a difference. Some of the really nasty ones were people using their real names.
If only the anonymous posters would come to blog parties, I’d change my vote.
@Jane Frantz – you didn’t used to use your full name on V14. Would you have started commenting back then if we’d required it?
It turns out that nested comments is as simple as a check box on a settings page. Should we decide to go that route, its very easy to do
No, but I also never hid who I was in my commentary – where I worked, my family, and anyone who read V14 knew who I was.
It was also a different era – social media on the local level was in its infancy and no one really knew if it was safe for women to post using their whole name. As I recall, other than Gail, none of the women did. But at a certain point, it seemed silly not to and I moved to being JF.
And I always went to blog parties!!
When discussed in the past, some of the anonymous commenters noted that they couldn’t use their names due to their work (city employees) and others gave reasons I thought were quite persuasive. I went by “Lisa P” for a long time and I don’t at all mind being referred to as that. But I would hate to see a change of policy cause some folks like MMQC and Fignewtonville to stop posting. One compromise would be to say effective (future date) new posters will be required to provide a real name and verify their emails before being allowed to post. That would leave the anonymous contingent grandfathered to continue posting.
@Jerry: In that case I would definitely give nested comments a try.
Regarding nom de blogs:
We’re tracked to death on the Metaverse as it is without some comment taken out of context and Googleable forever. A few years ago, when The TAB still had a blog (post Greg and Gail) they started taking “quotes” off the blog and printing them in the paper. Not the whole thread, just individual quotes on Newton current events with the poster’s name attached. Without the context of a whole thread the comments had little meaning. Embarassing for those involved. Put your name on something and lookout!
I hardly post anymore. The blog is still entertaining and the only game in town for Newton mishagus and I prefer to be in the audience. As an observer I don’t see a difference between anonymous posters vs alleged actual names. If you want to use your name, fine. But if you want to whine about the unfairness go incognito. It’s a blog, not the NYT!
If the BlogGods want to register participants, to put real names with anonymous handles, that’s fine.
Or, as Jane alluded to, require attendance at a blog party and you can use any name you want. It’s amazing how fast the temperature drops when you actually know the person on the other side of the name.
Requiring attendance at a blog party is unfair to those who can’t attend them whether due to disability, family obligations, second jobs, or other reasons.
The only restriction I would be comfortable even considering would be saying that anonymous posters had to let one of the V14 blogging crew know who they are. But that would still exempt the people who use real-looking names that aren’t their own. We already require a real email address, and that’s impossible-enough to enforce.
MW – It was a joke!
Terry, Terry, Terry ….Where have you been? We’ve missed you. You and Kim – my favorite guys to tussle with on the blog.
I like the idea of nested comments. But I’d like to see an option to view by Newest, as well. Because if we get a storm of comments like we did on certain posts this week, it can be tough to find the newest comments once they are nested. Even the Recent Comments list couldn’t keep up this week!
I don’t think we should force people to use their real names. And I’d only want the Like button if it can be kept at a “once per comment” limit. And if that requires logging in or registering, I’d be less interested.
Dan I just tried out the new threaded comment feature over on this thread and I think the “Recent comments” menu choice as well as the Recent Comments sidebar both still display comments in strict chronological order … as you wished
longtime lurker, first time poster (like you might hear on the radio, sort of) but here are my votes
Yes for threaded conversations – intuitive and easy to follow.
No for the like button – dopamine rushes are not a substitute for meaningful text exchange.
No for doing away with anonymity – the internet is forever, and there’s no need to have people’s real names tied to comments they made years ago during heated discussions. Plus, some people take online disagreements too far. Go hang out on the Facebook pages if you want hear about people’s employers getting harassed because of some Facebook argument gone awry.
One thing about the like button, assuming we can avoid the dislike one, as discussed: there are probably a number of people who read but do not care to comment, but who may be moved to like posts- it creates a level of engagement we never had before, that may then encourage greater participation from there (maybe).
Just throwing my two cents all over the place on this thread
Thanks, Jerry!