Comment Peer Review With OpenID?

Posted in Blog, September 25, 2007 | 19 comments

OpenID allows us to verify that the person visiting and commenting on our sites relates to, or owns, a specific URL. This is wildly useful, and I'm looking forward to seeing it more widely adopted as soon as possible (OpenID on this site is in testing still but will be up and running soon!).

I was thinking about OpenID the other day, and one other problem that we are currently experiencing. People know that commenting on other sites will increase their exposure. Lots of people know that. So popular posts on popular sites receive a huge number of comments. Partly because they are good posts, and partly because people know a comment in the right place can be a major draw for traffic.

This creates a visibility problem. It's difficult to spot the good commenters (or good comments) in among the mess at the end of most articles. It's even harder to spot comments from people that you know personally, or whose comments you enjoy reading.

A Solution?

A site uses OpenID for commenter identities.
A JavaScript loads a small frame from another site when you mouse-over the commenter's name.
This frame includes a rating for that commenter, a link to a profile for that commenter, and rating buttons.
The profile includes whatever the commenter wants to add - standard profile stuff.
People can click the rating buttons in the frame, "Positive" or "Negative", to indicate how they feel about a specific comment.
The combination of these clicks produces the overall commenter rating.
People can also leave a note with their rating ("Comment is extra-smart") which is added to the commenter profile along with, ideally, a link to the original comment.
People who leave ratings need to be validated with OpenID before they can rate another person's comments.
People can opt out of the system.

Pros

Easy to set this up so that the JavaScript call to the centralised system included a link back to the original comment, allowing OpenID users to track their previous comments and potentially quickly check for replies.
A quick call to the system could grab the commenter (or comment) rating and change the display accordingly, allowing a skim-reader to quickly pick out the best comments from a thread.
People would get feedback on their comments!
Would be possible for individuals to set preferences within the system ("Always highlight comments from this person", "Always ignore comments from this person")
People who leave worthless comments (quick one liners using keywords instead of names, just to boost their own search engine link-love) are easily spotted and ignored.
Provides a path for non-A-list bloggers to become more widely read and A-list themselves.

Cons

System is open to spamming - people can set up multiple OpenIDs to vote themselves up. Easily fixed though - IP and cookie tracking, plus a higher weighting given to commenters with certain characteristics (member more than a year, consistently highly rated comments, rate lots of other people, don't just give high ratings when they do rate, etc).
Revenge rating (where someone leaves a negative rating and the person slighted then does the same back despite actual comment quality) could be a problem.
"Cliques" could easily form.
It may dissuade genuine people from leaving negative comments on popular blogs for fear of fanboy-revenge.

Thoughts?

I'm not entirely sure how much of a difference this could make. It would require a wider adoption of OpenID (definitely a good thing), and adoption on the larger blogs and blog networks. However, were such a system to exist and be used, I think its benefits would be enormous. I'd be very interested in hearing your thoughts.

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19 comments (Add Yours)

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Thomas

Unknown #1: September 25, 2007

It has a lot of potential, a way of combining social networking and blogging. It is tough to weed through the crappy comments at times, however, with a system that can be so easily exploited, perhaps a system where the moderator or admins can designate users into "feedback" groups would be a better fit? Thus determining that people have valuable feedback one way or the other...just my two cents.

Pug Matt

United States #2: September 26, 2007

I think it's an interesting idea. I'd like to see the system fully "open" in the sense that all data is visible. In other words, i'd want to see all the "votes" on a page controlled by the person doing the voting.

So, if each comment gets a unique id, there would be a subsection of *my* openid page that shows what my ratings of other people's comments are. I'd be able to change my mind in the future if i wanted to, and my votes wouldnt be censored by a blog owner who wants to edit the records. (if a blog owner had control, if commenter C disagrees with blog owner B, and reviewer R approves of C's comment, then B could delete R's approval of C.)

It would also let multiple providers produce results.

(Technorati, Google, Yahoo, etc. could all go looking at comments, rating the commenters based on all the publicly available information)

Hmmm... If a blog validates against an openid server, that openid server could be queried for a unique ID to go along with an action on a blog. The comment could then include its comment id in ... something like a microformat ... and that makes me remember this:

http://microformats.org/wiki/vote-links

* Blog post contains comments marked with: openid identifier + unique id.
* Reviewer's OpenID page contains list of (rating, commenter's openid identifier, the comment's unique id)

There'd also need to be a way for the 3rd party services to find out about the reviewers that's not via the blog itself (blog could not point to the reviewers it doesnt like)

Shawn Gordon

United States #3: October 1, 2007

"Revenge rating (where someone leaves a negative rating and the person slighted then does the same back despite actual comment quality) could be a problem."

I don't' think this comment gives the general population enough credit. Sites like, Newsvine or Digg where comments are psuedo-moderated by the thread authors (and ultimately at the sole discretion of the site administrator) do in fact resort into negative comment revenge - however in short order other users begin to notice these behaviors and come to understand the offending users as trolls, which subsequently discredits offenders on their own merits just as easily as it credits well behaved and fruitful users. It is pro/con, but it's heavily influenced by what the total user base finds acceptable. In Newsvine a person who is often found to be inflammatory without reason or leaves stupid comments for revenge, finds themselves excommunicated from the majority of the social groups that use the site. Digg works on a similar level but actually allows people to counter vote a comment or article. This brings up popular opinion or subjectivity whereas Newsvine only allows an upward vote because a voter is to look at the content in an objective mindset.

This is to say that the OpenID system would have to be viewed as being under a sub-philosophy "is this to be used in a subjective or objective light". A subjective light will almost always attract vengeful users despite how much you retard that kind of action.

In all, I pretty much find myself on the same page with your other assertions.

HKB

Denmark #4: October 5, 2007

The thought is good but the system will be to weak and to easy to exploit... People that really want to rank good in the system would be able to if they constantley deleted cookies and changed IP (not that hard if you REALY want to)...

In my opinion the easiest way to get only good comments would be to disable the ability to post your website URL in the comments...

The only downside is that you don't know the background of the person commenting...

mlankton

United States #5: October 7, 2007

I do not see a single bourbon or sour mash related article on this site!

Here's to jumpstarting your bourbon-related content:
1 slice lime
1 slice orange
1 slice lemon
2-3 dashes bitters
macerate fruit and bitters in cocktail glass, coating glass with bitters and fruit oils, discard fruit
4 parts bourbon
1 part sweet vermouth
shake with ice until chilled, pour
add slice of orange and splash of Cointreau

asp sec guy

Unknown #6: October 14, 2007

I think it's kind of paranoia about user's webisite 'urls'
Those links will not make you poorer..
They become evil only if it's irrelevant. imho

vole

United States #7: October 15, 2007

Nothing can stop it from being abused. Pretty much everything is or will.

Leif NYC

United States #8: October 19, 2007

Wow. This site has so much useful information. On the other hand, now I know how to break a site. Your designs were cool but the final one really is the best.

Rogue Gunner

United Kingdom #9: October 24, 2007

JD has been a big part of my life, sometimes he deserted me but he always came back, I hate him but I love him like a brother.

Stephan Miller

United States #10: October 29, 2007

Sounds like a good idea. I have tried Sezwho. It uses email addresses to identify users from what I can tell. Not too many people using it yet though.

Noclegi w Polsce

Poland #11: November 2, 2007

Web is not perfect, this problem, you write about, is 1 of many to deal with. We can always try to make things better. Good luck then.

DDT-WEBKINZ

Poland #12: November 7, 2007

Im looking forwards to web2.0 - i read somewhere (ages ago) that wiki's were the original concept for websites and that the content supposed to be edited online etc?? - lets hope google and MS dont spoil it for everyone...

Emo

Philippines #13: November 18, 2007

I think its a good idea. Just one password to remember..

Robert Smith

Germany #14: November 19, 2007

this would be cool way to combining blogging and social networking but it can unfortunately be abused as well

Bull3t

United Kingdom #15: November 27, 2007

It is a good idea, but I really think that there are so many things that could happen which would ruin it, that it is almost not worth doing.

Also, not many people have OpenID accounts at the moment. I think that we need a single website that is dedicated to OpenID accounts rather than loads of sites offering them. I think that the main OpenID website (http://www.openid.net/) should be the only provider (even though they don't actually provide OpenID creation from there).

This would make life a lot easier to manage and safer in the long run.

Guess

Unknown #16: December 10, 2007

As other mentioned here, I think this is a great idea.

Emilio

Argentina #17: January 26, 2008

Well, this currently could benefit blogs, but it can be spammed easily with proxys and all this.

Emo

United Kingdom #18: March 10, 2008

The open ID idea is very good but it also means another ID to remember even if it replaces other ones.

Yair Bar-On

Unknown #19: March 11, 2008

It can be spammed with Proxies in one second.