[weewooweewoo]

There's something to the idea that comments are "letters to the editor", as I believe that the biggest incentive for people to comment is when they feel that they have something to contribute. The problem, of course, is that hateful reasoning is usually something to 'novel' to contribute. It is especially easy to contribute something novel when you skim an article and you don't see any indication that the article is going to where your thinking.

I've been playing with this on a small side project (a literary journal, so the worst medium to try it out with), but it would be my dream to see a major publication try this out: Making commenting only available after correctly answering a quiz question that demonstrates that the reader has read the article. Initial questions have the ability to frame discussions, clarify controversial details, and discourage lines of thought - and on the other side, it requires little effort for an editor to implement.

[aphextron]

>There's something to the idea that comments are "letters to the editor", as I believe that the biggest incentive for people to comment is when they feel that they have something to contribute.

I don't think that analogy holds up, though. People are free to sit down and write a well thought out email to the author of an article if they have a specific point of disagreement. The problem with comment sections is that people often times aren't even reading the story or providing constructive commentary on it. The page just becomes a platform for them to go off on whatever nonsensical theories they have and troll people.