Fred Wilson, a venture capitalist in New York has some thoughts on comment threads which bear on our upcoming one-year anniversary.
I agree that simply adding a comment thread at the end of a news story is a recipe for trouble. But it is only a recipe for trouble if that is as far as you go. An unattended comment thread will be full of garbage and many are.
But if the author of the news story, or opinion piece, or blog post, tends to the comments, replies to the good ones, signals the bad ones, chastises the loudmouth bullies, and generally runs the comment threads like a serious discussion group, a serious discussion will result.
We will soon be disabling anonymous comments. This is a long-planned move that is part of the natural evolution of a maturing blog. Wilson’s point is spot on. The effect, however, of allowing only registered users to comment is an initial drop in comments and traffic. My experience is an 80% drop in comments and 20% in traffic — initially. After a few months comments will surpass the previous numbers and traffic will jump. More importantly the quality of discussion in the comments will improve dramatically. This happens because loud-mouths and trolls are no longer commenting (they tend not to register) and more thoughtful people who had previously only lurked see a more calm environment and start to wade into the discussion.
I will make the switch around Labor Day weekend.