Comment Section Personalization: Algorithmic, Interface, and Interaction Design (2021)

Abstract: Comment sections allow users to share their personal experiences, discuss and form different opinions, and build communities out of organic conversations. However, many comment sections present chronological ranking to all users. In this paper, I discuss personalization approaches in comment sections based on different objectives for newsrooms and researchers to consider. I propose algorithmic and interface designs when personalizing the presentation of comments based on different objectives including relevance, diversity, and education/background information. I further explain how transparency, user control, and comment type diversity could help users most benefit from the personalized interacting experience.

## introduction comment sections provide a public digital space for users to exchange ideas, share personal experiences, and form opinions, which are all key elements of deliberative democracy @xcite . however, many comments ranked highly by comment sections tend to be early comments due to greater visibility and resulting in greater capacity for a high community rating @xcite , making other good quality and relevant comments less visible, and providing the same reading experience for all users. while comment sections can utilize different moderation strategies to promote high-quality comments @xcite and reduce the likelihood of uncivil conversations @xcite ), they lack the ability to promote diverse, and/or minority opinions and offer background information on the topics @xcite according to users' needs. personalization might help address this issue. news personalization has been defined as "a form of user-to-system interactivity that uses a set of technological features to adapt the content, delivery, and arrangement of a communication to individual users' explicitly registered and/or implicitly determined preferences " @xcite . 70 percent of 200 publishers personalize the content they deliver to their visitors @xcite . newsrooms have implemented different personalization approaches, including automatic content tagging and ad-targeting, documenting readers' locations, and reading behaviors (e.g., keywords and phrases in the articles), in order to customize the delivery of news and encourage users' engagement 1 2 . though many newsrooms have incorporated different personalization approaches, the personalization of comments is still under-examined. how will comment personalization help the audience better understand the topic and promote deliberative conversations online in the future? and how can researchers, developers, and journalists design comment sections to customize readers' reading experience while maintaining the comment section as a common ground for all users? this short paper seeks to propose different design and algorithmic approaches to support different personalization objectives. ## objectives and design of personalized comment sections people read news comments for various reasons: to learn about the opinions of others, to be entertained or amused by others' comments, to see how their opinion of the story or topic differs from others' views, to get more information on a story, to get additional reporting/updates on a story, or to gauge the pulse of the community. and people comment on news for various reasons: to express an emotion or opinion, to add information, to correct inaccuracies or misinformation, to take part in the debate, to discuss with others, etc. @xcite . how can newsrooms better personalize the comment sections according to these reading and commenting needs? this section will introduce several personalization objectives including relevance, diversity, education/background information, and how algorithms could support them.