crypto | Comment ecologies

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Comment ecologies

Imagine a world where you can get an RSS feed of all the comments that you leave, to save for reference or repost as your comment blog. A world where you can subscribe to all the comments that another person leaves across different journals. Imagine a world where you can post a video comment as easily as a text comment. A world where you can simultaneously Tweet your comments to your Twitter account. Where other readers can rate your comments, and those ratings shape your reputation as measured in points. A world where the owner of the journal where you're commenting can change how your comment is displayed, with a note that the moderator edited the comment, but the original unedited comment is retained in your commenter profile. Where comments and reactions to your journal posts in other journals and on other services -- blogs, delicious, Twitter -- are automatically aggregated and appear as links in your posts' comments. Imagine a world where readers who don't have an account with your journal service can post comments under their Facebook account.

What is this brave new world, that has such features in it? A commenter's paradise, a nightmarish dystopia, or just another alternate universe?

It's called Disqus -- a free, third-party hosted comment system that can be plugged into other platforms like WordPress and Drupal, but not journal services built on LiveJournal code (and yes, Disqus does allow for threaded comments and email notifications).

Comment cultures -- the norms, expectations, values and practices that coalesce around commenting systems -- are driven by both social and technical factors. The tensions, conflicts, and debates thus play out differently in different cultures.

Outside of LiveJournal, there was an extended blog debate last year about comments being fragmented across different places, rather than concentrated on a single post, and who owns comments. But the issues and dynamics differ from the recent discussions around the etiquette of directing all comments to Dreamwidth in crossposts to LJ, and the solution emerged through comment aggregation services that pull in comments left on other sites to the primary blog post, rather than shutting down comments in one location.

Simple tools to import and export comments -- both the comments you post, and the ones others post on your site -- are built in to the new Disqus-style comment systems without controversy, and data portability is the byword on everyone's lips. Yet the concept that the presence of your comments on a site may imply that you support the site hosting your comments is hardly unique to Dreamwidth detractors.

Dreamwidth essentially inherits the comment ecology of LJ, and the short-term costs (and relative priority) of further innovation -- both social and technical -- are prohibitive. But there's nothing inherently natural, inevitable, or even automatically optimal about this LJ/DW comment culture, no matter how familiar. The current rhetoric and beliefs around control over comments (viz. redirecting and importing) are products of that social/technical culture -- shaping even the questions and assertions posed around fannish norms or copyright -- and would play out differently (or not at all) under other comment ecologies.

Last year, I posted about my ambivalence that Dreamwidth would be built on the LJ codebase (vs., say, Drupal) and therefore effectively be locked in to some social/technical choices and locked out of others -- for instance, retaining LJ's code for managing comments rather than converting to Disqus. Now, I can readily think of several compelling reasons why Dreamwidth arguably shouldn't use Disqus (or a similar plug-in like JS-Kit), but my concern then and now was that the debate was really a moot point, since it was never really a viable option for the LJ codebase.

And you know, I can and do live with that -- but I also consider it a less than ideal tradeoff. One thing that does bother me about both LJ and DW is that certain features that would be free to me on a Disqus-type system -- specifically the ability to edit my own comments, and to get them automatically emailed to me -- are limited to paid users on LJ/DW. There are areas where a tiered array of features and options stratified by ability and willingness to pay seems reasonable and acceptable; for me, this isn't one of them. I'm also frustrated by the lack of RSS feeds for comments on LJ/DW; sure, I can get them via email if I track a post, but RSS feeds give me more options and flexibility and they've been standard features on other blog systems for quite a while now.

(For what it's worth, I did import all comments along with my LJ posts to my DW journal, but set all my imported entries to private. I couldn't get a good enough handle on the potential ethical issues of reproducing other people's comments in a different space without their [fore]knowledge or permission. I provisionally decided that I'd feel comfortable moving comments to a new site/service/host if I were losing or shutting down the old one [i.e. my LJ], but I wasn't comfortable mirroring comments so that they appeared in two different places. And I am not comfortable with some of the breezy dismissal and outright mockery that I've seen in response to people raising concerns about comment importing -- even or especially when I don't share or necessarily agree with those particular concerns, nor have any problem with anybody who's DW journal imported comments that I'd made on their LJ.)

ETA: see also the sequel to this post.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A world where you can subscribe to all the comments that another person leaves across different journals.

It sounds like a deeply stalkery world to me, but...I should probably sort out how to implement this for my WP stuff.

Though I am finding that most WP themes still don't support all the commenting options available in the code, which is...a problem.

(Although actually, thinking about it, on that project we've had to make an explicit statement that commenters retain copyright to their comments but the moderators may edit or delete anything posted to the site. But our concern is more people making off with our collective material for print projects, because that's come up as an issue.)

Edited 2009-05-08 03:20 (UTC)

I can see some scenarios where it would be cool to subscribe to someone else's comments, but most of them don't really apply to LJ/DW/media fandom -- with the exception of role playing games spread across multiple journals. I'd imagine that for most people, the value would be in subscribing to your own comments. I doubt that existing systems have any privacy controls built in to deter stalking, though.

(The whole copyright thing online feels like a crude instrument ill-designed for but increasingly pressed into use as a stopgap for collapsed or conflicting cultural and ethical norms. Sometimes I think that Creative Commons licensing might help and other times I wonder if it will just further muddies the waters.)

And, see, I don't know that I want to be blithely followed from platform to platform. I use my DW/LJ space very differently from how I use other online spaces I maintain; this is recreational, and that's professional, and I do try to keep them separate.

The project I'm working on involves people who're very concerned -- and rightfully so, for historical reasons -- about appropriation of their words and experiences.

Lacking a polite way to say, "Stop being imperialist shitbags!" we've gone with a firm assertion of copyright. *GRIN*

And, see, I don't know that I want to be blithely followed from platform to platform. I use my DW/LJ space very differently from how I use other online spaces I maintain; this is recreational, and that's professional, and I do try to keep them separate.

I'm the same way. And online, it's almost like a version of the Red Queen's dilemma -- as new tracking and discovery tools and practices emerge, I have to expend more labor in maintaining those partitions.

The project I'm working on involves people who're very concerned -- and rightfully so, for historical reasons -- about appropriation of their words and experiences.

So much of the internet has been built by people who were so convinced that information wants to be free that they never considered the needs and issues of people for whom that's always meant "you're laying claim to free access to and use/misuse/abuse of our information in ways that harm us."

*snerk* Oh, c'mon, we all know about your work with the Fund for Unwed Rabbits.

Yeah, it's interesting to try to turn some of these things around -- one person's Brand New Day is another person's inappropriate use of information. Although there are ways to build online social spaces that won't behave in a universal-access way, it's also hard to figure out that universal-access is not an ideal model until something has gone wrong.

Yeah, and I've already disclosed in an unlocked post that I'm a genetically engineered super ape, which narrows my identity down to one of -- what are we up to now, 37 total at last count (at least discounting rumors of the North Korean breeding program)? But you still don't know which one I am!

"Crypto, Ape of Mystery" really sounds like something that should be painted on the side of a caravan....

And I am not comfortable with some of the breezy dismissal and outright mockery that I've seen in response to people raising concerns about comment importing -- even or especially when I don't share or necessarily agree with those particular concerns, nor have any problem with anybody who's DW journal imported comments that I'd made on their LJ.)

I am glad you said this. I have felt uncomfortable with it too, although I personally think once something is posted on another person's journal it belongs to the journal's owner. But mocking people who don't share my beliefs, no.

I am actually very uncomfortable with the tone of much of the discussion happening about Dreamwidth, both here and and at LJ. Disqus sounds great. I agree, it bothers me that I can't edit my comments here, and if that is basic elsewhere? Interesting.

I personally think once something is posted on another person's journal it belongs to the journal's owner.

It's not a matter of your beliefs; the law is very clear. What you write, you own. Possession is not copyright. This is well settled law, from long before the internet; if you write someone a letter, they own the physical object and may sell it. They do not own the copyright to it, and cannot publish it, except to whatever extent "fair use" allows.

The only question with comments is the breadth of the license that the poster is allowing you. You do not, and never will, own their comments.

This isn't a direct analogy, but there are instances such as letters to the editor or contests where the host/recipient stipulates in advance that all submissions become their property to be published, edited, reproduced, etc. as they see fit. It's not hard to imagine a comment culture where those kinds of conditions become the expected norm and operating assumption, even in the absence of explicit legal language.

And I'm not sure that everybody in this broader conversation defers to the law as final arbiter of ethics and etiquette (rather than one among many factors and forces to consider).

But you do *not* give up your copyright to the text of your letter to the editor. Letters to the editor are considered a grant of an limited implied license, where you are allowing the newspaper to use, edit, and reproduce the letter in certain ways. It is *not* an indefinite license; if you send a poem to the paper as your comment on a story, they can print it, they can make it accessible in the electronic archive of the newspaper, all of the expected uses. They cannot claim copyright of it; they can't sell it to "Best American Poems of the Year", they cannot resubmit it to a different paper owned by a different person.

Similarly, you are granting limited implied licenses when you make comments on livejournal; to LJ itself, to the journal owner, and to other commentators. You are not giving up your copyright, nor is that license infinite. And I very much doubt any judge would rule that limited license included reprinting the comments wholesale on a different platform, owned by a different person, with, perhaps most importantly _different Terms of Service_.

That last part is probably the clincher; you on Dreamwidth have a legal relationship with the company. Anyone posting here also has a relationship, by choosing to make that post. The people you are republishing _never chose to make that post_, yet Dreamwidth will claim a license over their work.

As I said, I personally do not have a problem, as long as my comments remain in the same context. But I do not blame one bit the people who are not happy. And I suspect they have a strong legal case as well if it ever came down to that.

Okay, thanks, I see what you're saying, and it makes a lot of sense.

And in an LJ fandom context, it does seem relevant that certain internal cultural norms are actually more restrictive than copyright law -- e.g., the general expectation that you need to obtain explicit permission before remixing someone else's fan fiction story or writing a sequel set in their fan fiction universe.

"[G]eneral expectation" seems misleading or oversimplified; most fen are aware of the expectation, but far from all endorse it--see also the huge SGA discussion (about a year back?).

Sure, but like you say -- most are aware of it, whether they like it or abide by it, and it does carry a certain force.

Perhaps the phrase "belongs to the journal's owner" is the problem. I wasn't thinking about ownership of people's words in terms of publication. I was thinking more of our ability to control other people's comments by deleting them, or screening them, in our own journals. Are you saying the importing of people's journals, including the comments from Live Journal to Dream Width is a kind of publication and thereby a violation of the copyright laws? (Can you tell I'm not a lawyer?)

I'd like to think that the mocking comes from people who truly can't fathom any legitimate concern with imported comments, so they can only hear them as irrational. Yet, at least in some instances, it does seem like part of a broader growing tendency of excessive hostility to criticism of Dreamwidth, and that can't be healthy for the overall culture of the site.

I haven't looked into Disqus yet, though I heard about it a while back - perhaps from you?

I don't specifically approve of mockery of those who have a different opinion on the comments-importing than me, but I've seen so much criticism that was both uninformed and incoherently outraged - like the people making it weren't trying to find out any truth about anything, and were just really pleased to have found something to be yelling about - that some sarcasm has been hard to avoid.

Anyway - my main point personally is more pointing out that reposting someone's comments made to my journal has been an option for me for a while now - see here what

cesare linked, and there for my own previous comments on ljArchive / reposting from XML. That is was possible already doesn't negate either that people might reasonably object (can != should, etc.) nor that as you point out, it conflicts with the ecology of comments on LJ-code systems and the culture surrounding it. Still, it is worth pointing out. As another historical data point on comment 'manipulation' and syndication on the web/blogs, I wanted to point out the existence of Cocomment, a service I remember emerging as far back as 2006 (!!) *g* if not before. I doubt the service is unique, the web being what it is.

Thank you for a great post. I wish everybody would read it - and will probably pimp it accordingly! :)

I've seen so much criticism that was both uninformed and incoherently outraged - like the people making it weren't trying to find out any truth about anything, and were just really pleased to have found something to be yelling about - that some sarcasm has been hard to avoid.

Yes, this. I mean, it's just really so much idiocy, driven by a radid, irrational hate of DW and/or anything new and I just...have long since lost the little patience I had for people like that.

It doesn't help that in the comment thing they are coming from such an inexplicable place to me that even the coherent, non-knee-jerky ones might as well be speaking Martian for all the sense they make to me.

Fandom and the internet in general being what they are, there will always be people who are really pleased to have found something to be yelling at, and there will always be people who are really pleased to have found someone to mock. I have been both of those people, and will be again! And sometimes, not always but sometimes, there's a valid point that gets overlooked between all the yelling and mocking.

I do take your point about the prior art of stuff like exporting XML and the WordPress import tool and coComment. But from my corner of LJ, none of them had yet made so much of a ripple in LJ's comment culture, much less a sea change. The existence of technical possibilities doesn't immediately or automatically steer or trump the social dimensions of comment norms and practices. /bad Bruno Latour impersonation

Fascinating post! I wonder if there will be some fandom application to Disqus, it does sound nifty.

Thanks! I think that for a lot of people (bloggers and commenters), the immediate appeal of Disqus is a persistent identity for commenters across blogs (rather than different log ins for each website or blog service). Which we basically already have with LJ and DW and the like if we have an account.

But it would be cool if there was a way to automatically grab, say, delicious bookmarks/comments and insert them as comments to the post -- especially when so many people in fandom are using delicious for fic recs.

I couldn't get a good enough handle on the potential ethical issues of reproducing other people's comments in a different space without their [fore]knowledge or permission.

I don't follow. By importing comments along with your entries, you are not misrepresenting them in any way. Contrast this with, say, non-obviously editing a post that someone has already replied to -- that is recontextualization with possible negative effects.

Furthermore, I hold that any comments made in your journal are partly yours -- they are part of a conversation with you. Commenters certainly deserve the right to delete any comments they've made, but that should be opt-out, not opt-in.

I provisionally decided that I'd feel comfortable moving comments to a new site/service/host if I were losing or shutting down the old one [i.e. my LJ], but I wasn't comfortable mirroring comments so that they appeared in two different places.

Now I'm curious. My argument above was based on the assumption that what you objected to was the recontextualization, but I guess that's not it.
Could you explain what makes backing up comments different (ethically) from mirroring them?

I am not comfortable with some of the breezy dismissal and outright mockery that I've seen in response to people raising concerns

*sigh* Mockery can stop people from raising concerns, but that's never because it has actually resolved those concerns.

I still don't feel that I've really pinned down the potential ethical issues. So I came down on "move yes, mirror no" as a temporary compromise, because it does seem somewhat of a novel situation to have two identical sets of comments in different places that simultaneously exist independently of each other. Other people have given examples of blogs that change hosts or move from Blogger to Typepad to WordPress, but in my experience that's almost always a complete relocation rather than a duplication.

So maybe it's ultimately not a bad or wrong situation, but I couldn't anticipate how other people (my commenters) would feel about it.

(In reality, I've basically dodged the issue -- I did import comments along with my LJ entries but immediately reset them all to private, so they function as an online backup accessible only to me.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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