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At ksl.com we have been working diligently to create a strategy that will raise the level of dialogue on our comment boards. Over the next year we will launch our strategy in three separate phases. Our goal is to create a healthy and open dialogue with and between our users, while maintaining a civil and respectful atmosphere.
On February 16th we released phase one of this strategy which includes: a folksonomy and filtering system, a time filtering system and comment board discussion themes.
ksl.com Folksonomy and Filtering
Folksonomy is a classification system that allows users to collaboratively create and manage content. After receiving input from our users we have created a new voting system on our comment boards. Rather than voting a comment as positive or negative users can now "tag" a comment using one of the tags from the comment tagging system. The current tags include:
Another feature of the tagging system is the ability to filter all comment boards by the comment tags. For example if you only want to read all of the funny comments, all you need to do is check the box next to "Funny" at the top of the comment board page and the system will highlight all funny comments in blue while all other comments fade to a light gray. This new feature will allow users to quickly read and reply to comments that are most relevant to them.
Time Filtering
Another new feature on our comment boards is the time filtering feature. Because our comments are posted in a limited nested format it can become difficult to sort new comments from old comments. Many times you must read each and every comment again to try and find the new ones or you have to scan the post date. We realize that this makes it difficult to come back to a comment board and quickly see new comments made from the last time you visited the comment boards.
Users can now filter comments based on time increments of the last hour, 2 hours, 5 hours, 10 hours or 24 hours. We choose not to go back farther than 24 hours because all comment boards are closed to new comments after 48 hours. (If you would like to see other time increments please let us know.)
When you select a time filter the system will tell you how many new comments have been posted within that time increment as well as highlight all of the new comments posted in blue. This allows you to quickly scroll down the page and find all of the new comments.
Comment Board Discussion Theme
We have noticed that in many cases the first comment of a comment board can dictate a significant amount of the rest of the discussion. Sometimes the first comment made on a story has nothing to do with the story or it attempts to create an argument between opposing sides. For example, Utah fans vs BYU fans, Mormons vs Non-Mormons or Pro-Immigration vs Anti-Immigration.
On some of our comment boards you will see a topic or question posted for discussion. These topics will be relevant to the issues of the news story and will hopefully help keep the discussion around the news story. This is not an attempt to control the discussion, but an opportunity for KSL reporters and staff to interact with users and actively participate in the discussions. We also want comments to be relevant to the news story and for the discussion to stay on topic.
We want our comment boards to be a place of discussion where people in the community can respectfully talk about the news and events happening around them and share insight or knowledge related to the story or event.
Please let us know what you think of these changes and what we are trying to accomplish. Post a comment to this story as feedback.
