Allow anyone to comment but hide low-rep users' comments until reviewed

Question

I've seen so many should-be-a-comment "edits" or "answers" in the review queues by new users, and it's pretty obvious that to them this was the only way to somehow interact with a question due to their lack of allowance to leave a comment. And sometimes (just sometimes) this comment would contribute something useful. So it's a shame to waste reviewers' time to first figure out that a suggested "edit" / "answer" should actually be a comment and then not exactly having tools to turn the former into an actual comment.

If the new user would instead have had the possibility to clearly indicate that they wanted to leave a comment which would then be put into a simple "comments (by low-rep users)" review queue, where reviewers could maybe even leave one of the (more specific) automated comments à la "You should ask this as a new question" (where new question might even not only link to the "ask question" site but put the users comment into the title or body). And until approval the comment would by default by hidden by a "on hold" line that only higher-rep users, say >500, could toggle to view (and vote to approve directly in place).

This is typical practice in many blogs' comments, and I think since we're community reviewing anyway this might be improve the hijacking situation.

edit Note that by design those automated comments would not need to trigger a notification to the post's OP but only to the commenter. Whether the un-reviewed comment should already trigger a notification to the OP or not is a different question. I propose not, since the obvious once-in-a-while spam comment would be easier detected by a reviewer who is currently concentrating on specifically determining the validity of a comment. edit2 As noted in the comments these auto-replies should not clutter the original post - once a comment has been determined "Actually I want to ask a new question" they (and the reply) won't show up below the post except for the original commenter who will also be notified if they registered.

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In summary:

• Low-rep user posts a comment -> Below the post there will be a "1 comment under review" link and that comment will be added to the comment-review queue (see images below). No notification will be triggered for the OP, since the high likelihood of an unjustified comment was the reason for comments originally not being post-able by just anyone
• If a reviewer approves the comment, it will show up like any usual comment and now a notification to the OP (and @replied-to users) will be sent
• If a reviewer rejects the comment (with an optional reason as reply), it won't be shown below the original post as "under review" anymore. It, together with the reply, will be visible to the original commenter who will be notified, but no one else will be bothered by it
• edit3 As per Arjan's suggestion: The commenter will not be able to post further comments until their comment is either reviewed or self-deleted. As Tim Post suggested, a negative review/flag should refute that user's ability to comment any more (or reduce a very low contingent of unreviewed comments allowed)

Answer 1

I agree that we're only partially solving the problem that comments were designed to solve by locking them up at 50 rep, or any level, because those who can't use them will continue to exhibit the behavior that they're designed to stop.

I don't want to put additional needless asks on people that spend a lot of time in review; indicating if a string that is often too short to be an answer is good or not good is just a waste of people's time. That would be turning /review into more of an unpaid Mechanical Turk than anything, I know this because I've spent years looking at comments left by new users that managed to earn 50 rep.

What I propose is simplifying it. Let anyone with a registered account leave a comment until n comments left by them have been flagged and deleted. If that happens, back to waiting for 50 rep they go. I know this is a little complicated, but enabling this softens one of the first sharp edges folks hit when deciding to engage.

Anything else I fear is going to require a hard look at our comment system and the tools available to moderate them (which, quite frankly, stink). I really think we should be looking at ways to reduce the amount of work comments create. While your idea would work, I feel very awkward about the ask involved with putting them through /review.

As for n - it would need to be quite low, as in 2 or maybe 3. Most people that would get access to this would end up being blocked until 50 rep anyway, and we need to be good with that. What this opens for is that occasional pearl that wants to engage and knows how to do so effectively.

If this sort of thing is too complex to introduce, then we really should find something similar that isn't - I don't want to put additional load on our machine or human resources to deal with comments as a matter of principle - they're just not that important in the grand scheme of things.

Update

This remains a problem that we want to solve, but the solution I've come up with and those in comments just have too many potential pitfalls. The biggest problem is comment moderation tools aren't that great, and opening them up earlier, or lifting the rep barrier altogether just opens up the door to too much potential abuse.

What we should be looking at is why we can't take any of the rather good suggestions here and go with them, which comes back to the fact that we don't deal with comments as well as we should.

We're going to aim to fix that, as a whole, which should solve the issue of those needing them not being able to use them altogether.

Answer 2

Everyone else seems down on this but I think this a great suggestion.

Putting comments beyond a karma wall seems like a low barrier to entry when you've had an account for a while, but for newcomers I think it is imposing and unfriendly. There is a reason the StackExchange people bootstrap new accounts for other sites at 101, because being under a 100 sucks, I think a lot of us veterans forget that.

Now I get that is suppose to kind of suck, because less than 100 means the system has close to zero confidence in you, but I think comment moderation is a good solution to that.

Since posting my rejected suggestion, Lower the amount of reputation needed to comment, back in 2009, I've continued to see newcomers misuse answers because they don't have access to comment. Sometime this posted information is valuable, and granted, a lot of times it's not. Regardless, the comment system remains unintuitive and hostile to new users.

Answer 3

On the surface, this is a perfectly rational idea.

However I think the drawbacks of this approach would outweigh the benefits. Comments have always been intended to be second class citizens. This is one of the larger educational hurdles we have to overcome with new users. By completely removing the function until they figure out how to use the question/answer functions at least once successfully, I think we start off on the right foot showing them what is important. By opening up the comment system to new users, I think the net result would be an increased focus on "discussion" and an overall drop in the signal to noise ratio.

Even if some of the comments are productive, the raw majority of new user comments I see are not good constructive additions to the system. If the percentage is already not in our favor with some minimal barriers in place to educate users on the proper time and place for different functions, opening the system up to a broader use is bound to further lower this percentage.

Answer 4

I'm seeing another possible problem with this proposal, has anyone considered the potential for a huge backlog in this proposed comment review?

I'm guessing that if we opened up commenting to new users and dumped all of those comments into a review queue, the queue would fill up fast, really fast, faster than reviewers would likely be able to keep up with.

If the backlog grew well into the thousands, and I wouldn't be surprised if it did, it would take quite a while for a comment to reach its intended destination and with comments being transient in nature, I doubt that many of the comments would still be relevant days or weeks later.

Also, if we see the same sort of robo-review problems we're already seeing in the other queues, this queue would just make for more low hanging fruit.

Currently we have approximately 1,642,000 users with less than 50 rep. If each one of them posted one comment that went into a review queue we would have a massive problem.

Sorry, I'm with Caleb on this one, this seems like a bad idea. The signal to noise ratio would be shot.

Answer 5

I know this is an old topic, but i think it needs readdressing. I am noticing a huge number of "i cant comment so i need to answer" answers. This, to me, is unacceptable. Superfluous comments are bad enough, but with more and more new users abusing the answer system i think it warrants another look at the possibility. I came to the meta site JUST to bring this up, and i have found many questions asked about it, all leading back to this post. That is why i am here, to bring light to this subject once again.

I think allowing comments to new users will not only keep the answer space clean- as answers should be clear and concise explanation of the question, but to not immediately dishearten new users. We suggest they 'learn how to ask' 'learn how to answer' and rip them apart the first few tries. I think the best answer is allowing commenting- even if on a limited basis as others here have suggested. As a memberbase- right now we have no leg to stand on besides "you cant answer that" and often times we end up losing 1 rep each, because now we have scared off a new member, and they wont delete their answer. I really liked the possibility of having 2 comments and more if upvoted or you would have to delete them in order to gain more. (credit to Shog9)

Update As Robert Longson has asked, how do we protect against unending spam from users that would create multiple accounts to use their 2 comment limit and rinse and repeat?

My answer to this is quite simple. Inside of the user settings, create a new selection to see or ignore comments made by users with less than 50 rep. This should placate some of the users that would simply not want to see them, and can be used in an emergency situation. Also, i don't think it would be too difficult to have reviewers be able to access a "block all 50< user comments" in case of an emergency such as this.

I still think allowing comments is the right idea, not only will it give new users an outlet to learn (instead of answers) but i firmly believe the benefits outweigh the drawbacks.

Answer 6

Comment Everywhere only takes 5 good answers or 2 good, accepted answers. I started my Stack Exchange adventure at 06:44 and by the 11:27 I had no problems with commenting. So, if a real expert or someone with a grip of the topic indeed needs clarifications, he can simply ask few hours on SE later. No need to "gather XP", really, just answer few good questions and maybe remember about that one unclear tomorrow.

Adding a whole new review queue to save what should be a minor problem for people we want answers from seems not so good idea to me. Maybe we just need more friendly messages, like "why can't I comment here?" link in comment area, with message "Sorry, to prevent noise only people with some reputation can post comments. Come back to this question later. We'll be grateful to see your answers under questions that does not require clarifications!"

Of course allowing comments, or at least lowering the rep requirement, on beta sites might be a good idea. Many rules are relaxed at beta stage and this one should be among them.

Answer 7

Honestly, comments are the single most abused feature of Stack Exchange. However, they are also a very important part of stack exchange. We need to find a better way to train users in general to use comments.

What problems are there with comments right now?

1. There are many new users who ask questions, which need to be converted to a comment. They have no way to do anything better.
2. As bad comments are seen, they get flagged. The only flag queue for comments in existence is completely managed by moderators! How much of a work load is this? It's hard to say, but I can tell you that the first user I looked at, and a frequent flagger, has 25% of his flags being comments. If this same ratio holds true, then an effective flag review queue could make moderators lives much simpler.
3. Only moderators have the power to delete comments, edit them, or convert an answer to a comment.

A few things which could be incorporated to improve the comment process.

1. Give high reputation users the ability to manage comments. I'll leave it to SE to decide what reputation and what abilities, but something should be included. For the most part, these abilities should require more than one person to perform (Edit might be the exception)
2. Have a non-moderator review queue for comments.
3. Limit the number of comments a person can make per day. Maybe 1 comment per 100 reputation (Rounded up). This will ease users in to comments, making their early ones count for more worth.
4. Maybe the ability to specify a lifetime of a comment? Some details would need to be worked, but still...
5. Meta restrictions should be much lower than the main site restrictions. Comments are much easier to work with in meta.

There are also some excellent ideas in other answers to this question.

Answer 8

I know it's kind of a bump but I wanted to throw in my opinion. First of all I'll try to make it as close as I can as an answer but it's borderline between a comment and an answer.

Well I'm one of those users some of you are talking about, a user who have posted some comments as an answer, apologizing and hoping to do better. And to be honest it didn't work. It worked once, but twice my posts, wile adding to the discussion, were removed because they were comments. Last time I was granted with a "It's not because you apologize and explain that it's right to do the wrong thing". Wow, kind of harsh for a nice person who's simply trying to enhance what was done (in this case enhance the security of a OOP idiom). What I read a lot, and what seems to be the initial purpose from what I've read here, is spam control.

The issue is that posting an answer requires absolutely no rep whatsoever, sure it will be reviewed and removed if useless but only after a couple of hours usually. And keep in mind that if a guy REALLY wanted to spam, he'd be getting a whole lot more visibility by spamming the answer in my opinion, not for long but he would. The thing is, the StackExchange sites have gained so much popularity that many people know how it works, and that's why you see no answer spam.

The limitation is right, but it should be on answering not on commenting. Now how to solve the commenting issue? Well just add a "report as spam" button, and after, let's say, 10 reports or 15 or 20, that's up to debate, the comment is hidden and subject to review, or if you don't want additional review, which is quite understandable, simply removed. After too many "spam" comments, you could decide to ban or not a user based on what he has done.

Here are my 2 cents, I hope that this can be changed and that this will change because I love StackExchange but I've been discouraged by that last comment I referenced higher.

Answer 9

I would like to suggest a (possibly) simpler solution. What if the reputation needed to comment could account for reputation the user may have earned on another Stack Exchange site?

When I'm bored, I often scan the hot questions. I have enough reputation in stackoverflow to do whatever there, but if the question is on another site, I can't comment? That seems silly, especially if the site is somewhat related.

The same goes for up-voting. Why can't you up-vote a good answer just because you're new to that site? I can see why you'd want to restrict down-voting, but why up-voting?

And, yes, I have been guilty of posting an answer because I can't just add a simple comment.