Annoyed By Web Comments? So Is The New York Times
Virginia Heffernan at the New York Times has taken the internet to task for the state of the web commentosphere. The charge is a familiar one. Newspapers in particular often create good content but they fall short of maintaining a community of intelligent discourse. Heffernan makes a good point when she says: “Someone should be paying more attention, especially since online newspaper commenters as a whole seem to have (at least) the stamina, drive and spare time to become a cogent part of online journalism.”
To that, I’d add that we all, including non commenters, have something to give. We all can become part of online journalism to an extent. The first barrier to entry just needs to be lower. And mechanisms need to be in place that limit the ability of ranters to derail conversations without preventing new, casual users from participating. Heffernan hints at this: “Perhaps the comments have become so reader-unfriendly, in part, because of the conventions of the Web-comment form.” She’s right. And we built the Qwidget to change the conventions of web dialogue.
Stories, Updates and Thoughts From the Qwidget Makers
The Qwidget is a tool that publishers and bloggers install on their sites to make it easier for readers to engage in dialogue around their content.
With the Qwidget, we are building a cross-web dialogue platform. We aim to make the web a better place for meeting new people and starting conversations about the issues and content that interest people.
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