This is something I've always wondered for years but after reading the comments on Kotaku's Sigma's New 'Asylum' Skin Raises Concerns About Overwatch's Handling Of Mental-Illness Tropes article (and the really disgusting dismissal of mental health issues and the idea that fiction somehow can't portray real life issues or stereotypes but that's a story for a different thread), it made me feel this was the time to finally ask this aloud, why do gaming sites have comment sections?
Very few comment sections are actually moderated, Kotaku for example previously was but it and all the other Gawker sites years back fired their moderators due to company policy being not to pay their moderators. This has resulted in nearly anything and everything being allowed only comments, hate, toxicity, adbots, trolls, unrelated nonsense etc that bogs up any meaningful discussion and leads to anyone actually wanting to discuss the matter at hand open to harassment and trolling.
And that's not even going into how comment sections can be used to attack the authors of said articles and in a lot of cases reviews. Anytime I see a site bring up social issues, I'm guaranteed to see at least 6-50 comments screaming at the author for it. And of course reviews, I think we all of us know how fans can get... Defensive if a game they like gets "To low" of a score and what the comment section inevitably gets filled up with.
I'm not saying anything new of course, this is incredibly well known and at this point has became some what of a joke for some gaming fans about how bad and useless comment sections are... Which leads to the question, why keep them around at all, especially if the sites don't seem to care about them and let them be toxic. Surely it would be best for everyone and especially the authors just to close them down right?
And something I don't see being brought up, why have comment sections nowadays for gaming sites (besides say open threads for the community) when they are no longer needed for discussion? It feels like dedicated gaming forums have been where most of the main discussion is now. ERA for example, while not perfect, I've seen more worthwhile reads then I have in majority of comment sections ever thanks to moderation (can't speak for places like GameFAQ). And that's not going into how Reddit and Twitter have become a massive source for gaming discussion, both good... And really really toxic thanks to lack of moderation there as well, Twitter especially.
So why keep comment sections up?
And one final note, if you HAVE to have a comment section, DON'T USE DISQUS!!!! You're just asking for trolls, adbots and the like when you do that.
Very few comment sections are actually moderated, Kotaku for example previously was but it and all the other Gawker sites years back fired their moderators due to company policy being not to pay their moderators. This has resulted in nearly anything and everything being allowed only comments, hate, toxicity, adbots, trolls, unrelated nonsense etc that bogs up any meaningful discussion and leads to anyone actually wanting to discuss the matter at hand open to harassment and trolling.
And that's not even going into how comment sections can be used to attack the authors of said articles and in a lot of cases reviews. Anytime I see a site bring up social issues, I'm guaranteed to see at least 6-50 comments screaming at the author for it. And of course reviews, I think we all of us know how fans can get... Defensive if a game they like gets "To low" of a score and what the comment section inevitably gets filled up with.
I'm not saying anything new of course, this is incredibly well known and at this point has became some what of a joke for some gaming fans about how bad and useless comment sections are... Which leads to the question, why keep them around at all, especially if the sites don't seem to care about them and let them be toxic. Surely it would be best for everyone and especially the authors just to close them down right?
And something I don't see being brought up, why have comment sections nowadays for gaming sites (besides say open threads for the community) when they are no longer needed for discussion? It feels like dedicated gaming forums have been where most of the main discussion is now. ERA for example, while not perfect, I've seen more worthwhile reads then I have in majority of comment sections ever thanks to moderation (can't speak for places like GameFAQ). And that's not going into how Reddit and Twitter have become a massive source for gaming discussion, both good... And really really toxic thanks to lack of moderation there as well, Twitter especially.
So why keep comment sections up?
And one final note, if you HAVE to have a comment section, DON'T USE DISQUS!!!! You're just asking for trolls, adbots and the like when you do that.
