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Comment by spott | Hacker News Reader

I think there actually might be a market here for Reddit...

Create a subreddit for a news site, and each new article on the news site automatically gets a new post on the subreddit. Embed the relevant post on the news site.

Since "karma" is transitive across Reddit and across news sites, users are slightly less likely to troll. You could also do this with some sort of reputation system across websites (Disqus could add in something like that).

The big problem with news sites is that the communities aren't big enough that there are any negative correlations associated with being a dick. Even facebook runs into this problem because there isn't any way to "punish" someone for a rude comment. Transitive, persistent reputation is key to solving this issue (at least in my very non-expert opinion). Reddit helps, with comment karma and post karma... but it obviously isn't perfect.

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> Transitive, persistent reputation is key to solving this issue

Reddit/HN/etc make the username behind each comment as small and discreet as possible. As much as I dislike the low content/cruft ratio of BBForum, its design emphasizes each commenter's login, and registration date. This helps at least a bit, as even visitors can readily notice the correlation between certain avatars and the quality of their posts.

Whereas on Reddit and here, I even sometimes miss that the same account is just replying to a reply--i.e. just continuing the conversation. I think the aim is to judge comments by their content rather than the character who posts them, but context is always extremely relevant. It matters whether the poster is a Senator, a thought leader, or a habitual troll. And I often get too wrapped up in the content to dig for the source.

This has much simpler solution: user tagging. I think Reddit Enhancement Suite has it. I am working on a C Reddit/HN client (basically RES on steroids) that would implement these user remebering features such as usertags, usersets, bad/good users, total_upvote/downvotes_given_to_a_user etc.

I don't think Reddit helps much. I don't use my real name on Reddit anymore, so I have no qualms about making a controversial comment. If it gets too downvoted, I can delete the comment and limit the losses.

It's also super-easy to get comment karma. For example, AskReddit has a pretty much weekly repeating set of questions, and since it's a default subreddit, lots of people vote there. Find last week's top answer and repost it. (I got the highest-voted comment on Reddit once, via AskReddit. A few weeks later, someone reposted my comment and got more upvotes than I did! And more gold!)

If you want to troll on Reddit, you will have no problems doing so. The only thing that makes certain subreddits usable are diligent mods. (Though sometimes they are too diligent. I am banned from AskReddit for apparently posting something that was in the same format as a phone number, which is "personal information". My appeal was ignored.)

> Since "karma" is transitive across Reddit and across news sites, users are slightly less likely to troll. You could also do this with some sort of reputation system across websites (Disqus could add in something like that).

While technically accurate, "slight less likely" isn't statistical significant when it comes to trolling.

It does sound like the best option available.

Is anyone out there aware of a solution that currently exists (and is available to people like you and I?).

Reddit has made it easy to embed comments on a site since last year: https://redditblog.com/2015/03/23/announcing-embeddable-comm...

No, because the problem isn't really technical. Whilst Vice could probably improve the quality of their commenting by putting more effort into the software, the real problem is that they were receiving political opinions from a camp they didn't like much.

The article doesn't really try to hide it:

Without moderators or fancy algorithms, they are prone to anarchy

Anarchy?! I thought anarchy involved Mad Max style gunfights and burning oil barrels. What does "anarchy" mean in the context of a bunch of words on a web page? Oh, right, uncontrolled and uncensored discussion where people can say what they think.

Too often they devolve into racist, misogynistic maelstroms where the loudest, most offensive, and stupidest opinions get pushed to the top

So they don't like their comments (whereas they presumably did before) because over time the comments have become "stupid", "offensive" and - of course - racist/misogynistic/hate speech/bigoted.

I'm willing to bet that many of the comments that enraged them the most weren't particularly stupid or even racist, but rather belonged to a part of the political spectrum that Vice's writers wished they could make go away for real. If there's one thing 2016 shows it's the unlimited capacity for people to paint political views that they don't share of any kind, regardless of reasonableness or validity, as "racist" or "bigoted".

I'm not really a fan of removing comments sections entirely - proper moderation is possible, it just takes more time and manpower than most sites are willing to commit.

I think you're being extremely disingenuous here though. Have you actually hung around any of the poorly moderated comment sections on major news sites? Most of them are filled with flaming piles of word vomit, not the kind of enlightened right wing perspectives you claim are being censored.

Yes, I've hung around the Guardian's comments site. The problem there is exactly as I describe it.

> I'm willing to bet that many of the comments that enraged them the most weren't particularly stupid or even racist, but rather belonged to a part of the political spectrum that Vice's writers wished they could make go away for real. If there's one thing 2016 shows it's the unlimited capacity for people to paint political views that they don't share of any kind, regardless of reasonableness or validity, as "racist" or "bigoted".

Comments with relatively unpopular political opinions on the site breeds discussion and views.

Comments that are literally "kill all ___" don't, scare advertisers and put your brand at risk.

Most of those comments fall in the latter camp. Look at any comments section. There's a thread on my local paper's site right now about a bicycle theft: "This n* needs to get special treatment in the big house. Confiscate the home and demo it eventually they'll turn ____town into one big lot and then can start a rebuilding in the area."

>Create a subreddit for a news site, and each new article on the news site automatically gets a new post on the subreddit.

Amusingly, https://www.reddit.com/r/hackernews/

You can comment on this thread here: https://www.reddit.com/r/hackernews/comments/5jfgim/getting_... :)

I used to believe this was true and thought that Facebook comments was the end-game to these problems. Then I realized that there is a giant shift that occurs with people and the internet, because the crazy cruft that was being posted was still being posted, but now tied to a Facebook Identity.

I think this will likely be solved when human beings actually SEE others and see the reactions from others faces - thousands of years of evolution have honed this part of our social selves and that is what will be necessary to keep our less troll selves at bay.

Interestingly, this was almost the exact strategy that brought down digg back in the day. They tried to partner with some news sites to auto-submit each of their stories to digg, and their users revolted. Of course, they had a looser structure than reddit does and so the auto-posted "professional" posts began to dominate the main feed, while reddit has the opportunity to keep them within their own subreddit.

Posting to Digg's front page and a new subreddit are completely different beasts, though.

EDIT: a non-default subreddit.

yes, that's what the second half of my comment says.

I'm creating something to fill the void left by Vice. Estimated release around Boxing Day

Karma is only useful if you can't click a new account in 2 seconds.

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