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Tone of comments – what can we do to improve?

Viewing 5 posts - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
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  • #353544
    magon4
    Participant

    I was thinking it would be nice if we had a place where we could discuss the tone found in some of the comments sections in recent, might I say, years.
    I love a good discussion or debate, and I learn a lot from them, most of the time.
    But I don’t seem to have that experience too often any more, reading some of the comments and aggressive responses on the site.
    Maybe a group of people could come up with some ground rules, common sense rules, here in this forum. And if Keith is ok with it, we could make it into an article and discuss how we can improve the tone and, thus, the experience of coming here and sharing ideas.
    If this sounds nonsensical, I am very open to any other proposal that might help as improve the discussion and debate climate.

    #353701
    George
    Participant

    I don’t think there’s much you can do when there’s a spike in comments, it’s unfeasible to moderate and obviously people just appearing once to post their opinion won’t be interested in rules or punishments.

    For the most part I think it’s fairly civil when traffic is slow, you get the odd troll fishing for arguments but other than aggressive moderation (which would likely upset people) the best way to dis-encourage it is to refuse to engage. It’s also up to the regular commenters to help build a friendly atmosphere when they debate amongst themselves.

    #353718
    Siben Croswell
    Participant

    For the most part I think it’s fairly civil when traffic is slow, you get the odd troll fishing for arguments but other than aggressive moderation (which would likely upset people) the best way to dis-encourage it is to refuse to engage. It’s also up to the regular commenters to help build a friendly atmosphere when they debate amongst themselves.

    I agree with this. Don’t pay them any attention, and they’re going to run out of gas in the long run. As the saying goes – “Don’t feed the trolls.”

    #353722
    glynh
    Participant

    Sadly I don’t think there’s any one thing that can be done,it has to be a gradual change.
    This site, while one of the better ones, is subject to the same issues as everywhere.

    Unfortunately people tend to comment on the negative rather than the positive and I think people tend to instinctively argue with anything they don’t like as opposed to thinking things through. E.g. If someone says they don’t like Hamilton they get called racist instead of having a discussion about his achievements.

    All you can do is ignore the worst comments, enjoy the good ones and try and be decent when you post. At least it’s not the YouTube comments. :)

    #353742
    Siben Croswell
    Participant

    All you can do is ignore the worst comments, enjoy the good ones and try and be decent when you post. At least it’s not the YouTube comments. :)

    Yup, YouTube comments are the second worst that you may ever encounter, with Facebook comments in the lead.

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