<story><title>Why we’re removing comments on most of Inquirer.com</title><url>https://www.inquirer.com/about/philadelphia-inquirer-comments-section-changes-20210201.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>booleandilemma</author><text>I’m happy with the trend of removing comments from online publications. Too many are outright spam (“I make $500 per day on Facebook and so can you!”) or they’re the opinions of ill-informed people who try to spread one agenda or another.&lt;p&gt;I think having comments everywhere possible was an idea from the web 2.0 era that’s proven to be not all that worth it in most cases. Moderation is hard and it doesn’t make sense for newspapers and magazines to be spending resources on it. There are other forums (reddit, hn) for this sort of thing.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wirrbel</author><text>Never quite understood why comment section wasn&amp;#x27;t one of the premium subscription features for direct monetization. It could cover the moderation costs directly, provides an incentive for some to buy a subscription and sock puppet accounts are less likely if they cost money. Then, I would assume that if your comment is tied to your billing account, you may be more inclined to not write the worst comments (insulting, etc.).</text></comment>
<story><title>Why we’re removing comments on most of Inquirer.com</title><url>https://www.inquirer.com/about/philadelphia-inquirer-comments-section-changes-20210201.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>booleandilemma</author><text>I’m happy with the trend of removing comments from online publications. Too many are outright spam (“I make $500 per day on Facebook and so can you!”) or they’re the opinions of ill-informed people who try to spread one agenda or another.&lt;p&gt;I think having comments everywhere possible was an idea from the web 2.0 era that’s proven to be not all that worth it in most cases. Moderation is hard and it doesn’t make sense for newspapers and magazines to be spending resources on it. There are other forums (reddit, hn) for this sort of thing.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>xahrepap</author><text>I agree. I remember years ago a friend of mine was found dead (took his own life) and a local news site reported it and had a comment section.&lt;p&gt;It was beyond horrible. People were commenting about how glad they were that this person they *didn’t even know* was gone. “One fewer idiot” type of comments. It was one of those things where it was so bad you didn’t want to look away.&lt;p&gt;The moderation was non-existent.&lt;p&gt;I just don’t get why a website would want to harbor a community that toxic.</text></comment>