Allow sites to choose whether comments should cost reputation in relation to how many visible comments by the same user on a post

Question

This is, possibly, a crazy idea, but I'm going to float it mostly just to see what happens. Please bear with me and read this through before voting.

Different sites have different community opinions regarding comments. Some are pretty easy-going, others are very strict. Some sites get lots of comments, some get very few.

However, even when the commenting culture is reasonably lax, a large number of comments can easily hide the relevant ones. Flagging and cleaning up after the fact (sometimes automatically, in response to the number and type of flags) is supposed to help with this, but it is mostly reactive.

Suppose instead that each site could choose whether comments should be free once you've reached the reputation limit (the same way they are today), or whether comments should come at a small reputation cost. I'm thinking one rep point per previous, still visible, comment by the same user on the same post.

So the first comment on any question or answer is free. If the same user wants to keep their first comment around, but post another, posting that second comment costs them 1 rep. A third comment with both of the previous ones visible would cost 2 rep, but if they delete the first one, the cost drops to 1 rep (because there's one comment by them visible on the post). The cost starts over from zero if they comment on an answer to that question on which they originally commented, or for that matter when they comment on a different answer. One might even consider upticks on the comment to refund the reputation cost, up to where the total cost for that comment becomes 0 rep, but that has the problem that people very often vote up witty comments that don't add much to the post, the posting of which is exactly what one might hope to discourage with this.

It doesn't even have to be exactly 1 rep per visible comment, but more than that would probably not be reasonable, and fractional rep points would likely complicate a lot of things plenty more than it's worth.

This would hopefully encourage commenters to clean up comments that are no longer necessary, and to restrict commenting to the temporary post-it notes comments are intended to be.

Thoughts on this? I realize it'd take some developer time to actually make this happen, and that there are some things that would need to be worked out before the idea qualifies as an actual spec (for example, what happens when comments are deleted later?), but even those things notwithstanding, is it a good or a horrible idea, and why?

Answer 1

This is, possibly, a crazy idea

Possibly!

However, even when the commenting culture is reasonably lax, a large number of comments can easily hide the relevant ones. Flagging and cleaning up after the fact (sometimes automatically, in response to the number and type of flags) is supposed to help with this, but it is mostly reactive.

True but ideally anything relevant gets rolled into a question or either acts as a nucleus for a new answer, or adds/clarifies it. There is no such thing as an eternally relevant comment, merely those we don't bother to delete or deign to leave alone.

Suppose instead that each site could choose whether comments should be free once you've reached the reputation limit (the same way they are today), or whether comments should come at a small reputation cost.

Essentially taxing the reputation poor for comments - I assume they do misuse them but we're discouraging/punishing over educating.

I'm thinking one rep point per previous, still visible, comment by the same user on the same post.

Ah ha, here we hit a fundamental issue I find with most attempts to make comments better - they're kinda complicated. Also, in some back and forth troubleshooting volleys, an inexperienced user might run out of reputation to comment...

Immediately. Maybe we can make it free for the person who posted a post? But that adds more complication. If we're putting more logic into comments (which at worst we can nuke or transfigure into chat) than normal posts... its a wee bit odd no?

So, eh, I think this complicates things much too much, for somewhat minimal benefit.

Answer 2

For starters, I'm definitely against letting comment upvotes reimburse commenters. Honestly, the comments that get the most upvotes are often not actually worth much - just jokes or witticisms made early on. And that's really the sort of thing we're trying to discourage here.

One place I could see this being useful is in comment wars, where two or more users are just intent on duking it out, often under someone else's post. They get a nudge to move things to chat, but that seems to get ignored way too often. Some people just don't like getting their stuff moved to chat; mods get pushback on that from overly sensitive users.

If we say that after a certain number of comments - say, 3 - each additional comment costs 1 rep point, we could discourage arguments like that. It's not very effective against the one-off jokers, but it's going to stop people from just commenting and commenting and commenting. If you need more than three comments to give feedback on a post, maybe you need to go to chat.

I'd also propose excluding the OP from this restriction; it's likely that they'll break the 3-comment mark on many posts.