What I don't like:

Filtering of comments that may be valid and important critiques of the work published as well as the publisher / online venue. The thing I like most about the Internet is that many to many communication mode. Basic things like fact checking and or just awareness of something not being inclusive are powerful things. They force authors to really think hard about what they write.

Obviously, there is a lot of noise too, and that's the standard excuse for strong moderation, but it's really difficult to understand when the moderation is strong in the sense of promoting signal and demoting noise, and when it's censorship or manipulation.

Frankly, I'll take the noise because I would rather determine this myself, or at least have the data needed to make that determination.

Traditionally, it's been an editorial thing. Major news outlets have been in the position to manage questions related to their product as well as themselves and aren't comfortable with the masses feedback. Though the noise level was high, it was also possible to see manipulations and just general lack of accuracy or inclusive commentary and reporting too. Net good, for those who went looking.

This also brought bloggers and basically anyone really interested in something on par with the majors. One guy who really cares can make an impact and fact check the biggest of the big. It's important we continue to make this a reality. We may not like it, but we need it.

The other bit that gets broken here is dialogs. People just saying stuff is kind of noisy. But where the moderation encourages dialog, that dialog can often have as much or more value than the effort being discussed does. Of all the things I appreciate about the Internet, having conversations with people all over the world is right there at the top! If anything, we should be finding better ways to have conversations. Efforts like this do not do that.

I also suspect the strong desire to do that will see some corrective type service or norm that the conversations will move to. Maybe back to critical blogs again? Something else? For sure it's not gonna be Facebook. At least not for me. FB is a raging mess. Useless for this.

Having a large degree of free speech online means our speech does bring others speech in response. So there will almost always be haters, but there will be validation and recommendation and augmentation in there too. We want this. It's important that we don't create a place largely filled with walled off, largely one way, broadcast type efforts no different than the already lame broadcast type, one way efforts that dominate so much media now anyway.

Really, I've sworn off most traditional media for this reason. It's much more informative and inclusive to seek it globally, get various perspectives and see those be critical as well as affirmative.

What I do like:

Low noise. Maybe comments are just doomed. In some places they aren't, but in many they are just crappy. Perhaps it is time to turn off comments, but what then? I really don't feel good about a "best of" type action where they pick some they feel are representative.

If they offer up something here, it could be meaningful. I have no idea what that would look like though. Here's to hoping...

To a degree, discouragement of hate and or just a lot of ugly speech. Many comment sections are filled with some vile stuff that does not add value, other than to remind us that a few too many of us do not get the basics of being a good quality human yet.

As for Sullivan, yes he did not allow comments, and I never did think much of his site for that. Mostly, I ignored it and read through the lens of other places, who would cite him, and then critical dialog could be incorporated as part of the experience. To me, this is vital. It's not that I didn't necessarily like Sullivan. It's more that I saw his work as a platform for discussion, not primarily consumption.

I really don't like one way productions for that reason.

This site is a great example. We link to a lot of stuff that may or may not allow comments, but then we enter into what generally is a pretty great dialog. There are lots of points of view, people adding value with other references and thoughts of various kinds, and fact checking happens fairly consistently. Additionally, as I get to understand others here better, that dialog improves in value. Sure, we've got some biases, but the dialog is constructive enough for it to work well anyway. Very high value here, and that value comes from "the hive mind" where our collective responses actually augment the piece and give us food for thought about that piece. Overall, given people actually do read and interact some, it's a great bull shit filter as well as a path to a more inclusive perspective.

Maybe people don't understand the value in that, or maybe worse, people aren't able to, or simply do not desire that value. I harbor hope the former is true and we can get more people there more of the time.

For me personally, it's just not acceptable to read and not go seek the thoughts of others related to some material I find online. I've simply lost the trust in the vast majority of cases related to media organizations. I do continue to trust individuals and some organizations that are focused in some way or other and who do not derive primary income from publishing.

Vice is a cool platform, and they offer up some frank commentary and news. I've enjoyed a lot of what I read there. Maybe they can replace comments with something that works and that I can trust. Hope so.