I'd like to increase transactions and have more discussion about the content that is posted. At the moment, loads of interesting articles and links get posted, but there are often no comments or little discussion arising as a result. I think the desire for 'thoughtful interaction' is preventing people from expressing less 'thoughtful' ideas (e.g. how a post makes them feel or maybe raising a small somewhat unrelated issue). However, I often find some of the best discussions that I have within good communities on reddit start from a really small idea or comment. As an observation, I think this may be in part driven by culture (the community seems to be a relatively narrow demographic) and in part due to design (the only way to interact with content is to share or write comments as opposed to interact in other ways). The share functionality doesn't seem that relevant to me, as there is still relatively little content being submitted, so I just use the global feed to find new interesting things. But beyond being able to share, there is no other forms of interaction I can have with posts/comments other than write something intelligent, which I often don't have time for or my limited knowledge may prevent (even though I might still have an opinion). It would be interesting to know the number of shares vs. the number of views for a post? Not always visible but just to see if people are interacting with the share button. I realise this has turned into a bit of a ramble without actually coming up with anything specific, but hopefully it's of some use.
It's an interesting observation. I agree that I'd love to spur more discussion on content, because often the comments are more interesting than the content itself. I have found that adding a bit of text with a link increases the chance that people will comment on the content. Typically we post things that we find interesting, so it doesn't seem much to ask that we comment on why we posted it. Maybe after adding a url, you should be prompted by the question: "Why did you post this?" I do believe that overuse of the moderation tools can have a stifling effect. But there may be other ways to encourage comments without changing moderation. I am open to any suggestions. We could add the 'shared by' number and link as seen in chatter to all comments. We've previously considered it.It would be interesting to know the number of shares vs. the number of views for a post?
Do that many people use the personal mod tools? I have never had a situation where I have had to mute anyone. Here's a very quick concept of some possible additions to the comments section. The 'discuss' counter could count up based on the number of child comments there are. A high number at the top of the chain would indicate that there's a good discussion below. For me, this is the most important indicator that it is worth reading on and more useful than seeing how many people have 'shared' at the comment level. I know the second has purposely not been included in the site, but being able to agree/disagree is a good micro-transaction that allows people to quickly engage in the conversation without having to spend time formulating responses or simply stating agreement. I personally don't think this will water down the quality of the comments and I think it could help strengthen the community and discussions. There may be room for more than one type of badge? Maybe one each for quality content / creative thought / hubski community. I'm not really sure where this idea came from or the purpose of it, but I didn't want to throw it in the trash. I only put links to the side because sometimes I feel they get in the way of discussion and interpretation, decreasing the quality of their application and original thought.
Thanks guybrush. Agree/disagree is interesting, but many comments make multiple points, or don't assert a position. It might feel odd to apply it universally. Would it encourage debate? What is the difference between agree/disagree, and a rating system? Would a 1-5 star rating system be better or worse? The child number is an interesting idea as well, and would be easy to implement. We do show badge number. Alternate types of badges or appreciation is worth considering. Not a suggestion at all, but it's worth contemplating how the addition of a heart icon that did nothing but count 'likes' would affect the discourse. Are the links based on those domains linked in the comment? I think I am going to test out how it looks to have share counts and/or child counts in the comment info.
Yeah that's a good point. I was trying to think of a more generic and word for 'agree' - maybe 'endorse'. I see it as a tool to be able to quickly engage in a thread when someone has made a valuable post, but you don't either have anything further to add or don't have time to add it. Likewise, I think it's useful to be able to know when people don't endorse something you have posted so you can reflect. There's obviously nothing wrong with having an idea or opinion that people disagree with, and so long as it isn't tied to magic profile points I don't see it preventing people from posting minority/controversial opinions. As you say, it's effectively a simple rating system. I personally don't like five star rating systems because I don't think they reflect human behaviour. Here's a couple of examples. There may be a comment thread with a high child count, then with each comment below making valid counterpoints and receiving high endorsements, highlighting a great quality of conversation. Or maybe I post something creative and I get a low number of endorsements and receive various critiques below, of which one comment has very low endorsements but another has high endorsements. I can then focus my attention on the points made in the highly endorsed comment to challenge my thinking. It would definitely need testing to see how people interact. The space for links may encourage people not to only post links as a response. I've seen on a few occasions (not that I can see any now) where someone has just posted a link as a comment. That's fine, but I usually want to know what you think about the content in the link.
I've always thought it would be cool to have both a relevant/good comment button similar to reddits upvote along with a personal agree/disagree for the content similar to how the reddit upvote is actually used. Not sure how this fits into the shares model though.