Interesting. Some of the Gawker Media blogs (LifeHacker, Gawker, and Gizmodo) have started including comments, but only by invited users. It’s a Gmail-like invite system, the FAQ explains, where these special invitees get more invitations to give to trusted friends and cyberacquaintances. (Via Steve Rubel.)
The murmur of the snarkmatrix…
August § The Common Test /
Robin § Unforgotten /
MsFitNZ § Towards A Theory of Secondary Literacy /
Jon Schultz § Bless the toolmakers /
Jon Schultz § Bless the toolmakers /
Matt § A leaky rocketship /
Greg Linch § A leaky rocketship /
Robin § A leaky rocketship /
P. Renaud § A leaky rocketship /
Jay H § Matching cuts /
2 comments
BRILLIANT. It’s not perfect — certainly some of the value of comments comes from out-of-the-ether expertise & perspectives that you never could have anticipated — but even so, this scheme is really clever.
I wonder if you could have a two-tiered comment system: one by invitation (viral or limited), where preferred commenters were greenlighted to have comments posted automatically, and a second that still allowed non-invited or anonymous users to drop in and comment, but would refer it to Movable Type’s spambusting filters.
Then, when you go to approve the new comments, you would have the option to either forever ban the user, permanently greenlight them, or just post their single comment. That’s one way you could encourage really good drop-in users to come back and comment again.
The snarkmatrix awaits you