A change in our community

On comments.

Someone said to me this week: “You have the nicest commenters.”

Which is high praise! And I think right!

It’s a strange twist in my long — and fraught — relationship with people who choose to comment on my work.

It all began back at the Washington Post when I started a blog called “The Fix.” My goal was to build a community of like-minded political junkies, to give them an online home where we could have civil debate.

It started out fine. The blog had a small audience. People were nice to each other.

Then it grew. It became more and more popular. And the comments section became increasingly awful, governed by the handful of people who yelled, name-called and bullied.

We tried all sorts of way to fix — ahem — it. None worked. Eventually in 2014, I gave up in despair. I called for the elimination of the comments section entirely. Explaining myself, I wrote:

My problem with the comment section is this: I think of the Fix as a community or a small city. In any community, there are a variety of views on just about everything.  The ability to voice those differing perspectives in a (mostly) civil manner is what makes a community -- whether it's online or offline --  great.

What the current configuration of comments sections does is allow the loudest person -- whether or not they are representative of the broader community -- to appoint himself (or herself) as mayor of the city. It's like if the most obnoxious guy on your block all of a sudden asserted his right to make all decisions related to the neighborhood for you.  Not so good, right?

The problem with this model is that while self-policing -- think of it as a sort of neighborhood watch for the online community -- can work, it becomes harder and harder to do the larger the community grows. In the early days of the Fix, a group of regular commenters -- some who liked my work, some who didn't -- banded together to keep the guy typing IN ALL CAPS ABOUT SOMETHING THAT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ACTUAL POST from overrunning the site.  It worked -- for a while. But, as we added more writers and the traffic numbers grew, the ability of a small-ish number of commenters to police an increasingly large number of "loudest guys on the block" was reduced significantly. (To understand why self-policing fails: Try arguing with a five year old. You will NEVER win. Trust me. I do it all the time.)

When I went to CNN, the problem resolved itself. They didn’t allow comments on articles — which was just fine with me!

But then, well, I, er, left CNN. And started this Substack newsletter. In which comments are not just available but essential to the community-building experience.

And, as I noted above, the comments section has, to date, been terrific. People disagreeing without being disagreeable! Thoughtful opinions voiced!

But, this Substack is growing. (The last three weeks have seen the biggest traffic days in the history of “So What” and we are adding subscribers rapidly too.) Which is a good thing!

That said, I am mindful of my past experiences with the commentariat. And have noticed recently that more and more comments are being flagged by members of the community as objectionable.

So, today, I am announcing a change: Going forward ONLY paid subscribers to “So What” will be able to comment on what I write.

This move is aimed, primarily, at keeping the civil conversation going. But, it is not without a financial incentive too. I need more paid subscribers to make this newsletter a viable career path for me. I am hoping that by incentivizing paid subscribers with the sole ability to comment, it will be the final nudge you need to invest in me and what I am building here.

I am also aware that this move isn’t guaranteed to keep our comments section great. A bad actor who wants to stir things up can just plunk down $40 to do so. But, I do believe that in making the comments section for paying subscribers only, we raise the bar a bit — and maybe scare away the trolls.

I hope this all makes sense. I am trying very hard to get the community-building aspect of this newsletter right this time around. Thanks for taking this journey with me.