Maybe We're Finally Ready to Move Past Internet Comments

by Robert Montenegro

The Lord descended to the top of Mount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain. So Moses went up and the Lord said to him, “Don't read the comments, Moses. Don't do it." -Exodus 19:20-22

Okay sure: Maybe the above is a slight paraphrase. Let's just say that if the God of Moses had any sense there would have been 11 commandments and the eleventh would have been: "Thou shalt not read the comments if thou shalt know what's good for you."

It's advice more and more websites are taking these days. Some are scrapping proprietary comments in favor of Facebook, Livefyre or (the DSN choice) Disqus. Others, like The Week and tech site Re/code have done away with them entirely. Is it time for the rest of us to follow their lead?

The internet and its stakeholders have reached the point where a decision ought to be made: Are most comments sections outstaying their welcome?

It's a tough topic to tackle because, in theory, comments sections are a great idea: An open forum for free discourse related to the content of the piece. Dialogue and debate becomes democratized. Anyone can join the conversation.

And for many sites this still holds true. There are plenty of places on the internet from which entire communities have developed out of the comments. You see this a lot when the vast majority of commenters share passions and objectives -- fans of a particular video game or sports team, for example. 

(And, much to your credit, the comments section here at DSN is mostly stellar, aside from the garden variety trolls and all the weird folks trying to buy/sell kidneys.)

This is important to remember. Not every section is a wretched hive of scum, villainy, and the Dunning-Kruger Effect, and not all commenters are misanthropes hell-bent on slinging hate-laced uninformed opinions.

But a lot of them are. And since all those folks have Facebooks and Twitter accounts from which they can do their thing, what's the point of a website dedicating time and effort to maintaining the civility of said forum? What's really worth saving here?

Below, Walter Isaacson on the tight-knit communities that form around new technology.

Here's a challenge: Take a look at the comments below any random Yahoo News article and try to build an argument that anything there would be missed. It's impossible. Even in our current age in which intelligent discourse is a rarity and this is what passes for "debate," there's very rarely anything of substance in the comments.

Often times, it's straight up toxic. As Jessica Valenti wrote last week in The Guardian, women writers tend to avoid comments like the plague lest they be subjected to abuse. The same goes for writers of color and other minority voices. I'm typically part of the sticks-and-stones crowd when it comes to the peanut gallery but I sympathize with any outlet that elects not to offer a stage for ignorance. I don't think the abuse angle is the strongest anti-comments argument but it's not insignificant. 

The main reason why comments sections are bad is because they're like candy or junk food -- they offer little substance yet can be so, so tempting.

I admit that I'm an occasional comments reader, most often a comments hate-reader. My ritual of reading ESPN articles can't be completed without sifting through the opinions of the troglodytes below. I can't simply skim an article about the presidential campaign; I must expose myself to all the radioactive opinions from Trump supporters spouting out about god-knows-what. It's a sick form of voyeurism, an actionable display of our distrust in the opinions of our fellow humans.

I know I'm not alone here. Comments rarely add anything of value but that doesn't mean they're not totally intoxicating. And if the counter-argument to "comments are bad for us" is "the commenters are there to call the writer out," then whose job is it to call the commenters out? Democratizing the conversation leads to a fallacious idea that all perspectives and commentary are created equal. That's just not true.

Here's Valenti's take:

"I don’t much understand the appeal of comments for readers either. Outside of the few places that have rich and intelligent conversation in comments, what is the point of engaging in debate where the best you can hope for are a few pats on the back from strangers for that pithy one-liner? Isn’t that what Facebook or Twitter is for?"

She points out that Re/code shuttered its comments section for this very reason. The same goes for The Week. Why should a site maintain a lackluster comments section when the best dialogue about a piece occurs on social media? If there's no community there, why keep it around?

It's a fascinating topic and a bold idea, ridding the web of some of its most popular forums. We'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter. For now -- well -- I suppose you can let us know what you think in the comments.

Photo credit: Getty Images