Frank Kogan

Nate Cohn: "I feel like the total failure of comment sections foreshadowed 2016."

Don't really agree, that comment sections are through and through failures.

But it's interesting that it's Cohn who says this; he writes for the NY Times, which is still pushing its comment threads, still seems to be using them as ways to attract and engage readers. I find most comments on Times threads to be commonplace and ignorant, with some pomposity thrown in, though the threads provide an interesting window nonetheless; but I generally don't find the threads offensive or grossly dysfunctional.

In our musicwrite world, the problem seemed to be that message boards gave way to Tumblr and Twitter, and the latter are far worse than they should be (and probably far worse than what they replaced). But (1) I don't know if I'm right in that judgment, as I haven't explored even "our" end of Tumblr and Twitter all that much; and (2) I don't know how much this applies in general to Twitter and Tumblr, rather than just to "our" part of it.

To some extent Twitter and Tumblr are comment threads, so what goes for comment threads should at least somewhat go for them as well. So, does Cohn think Twitter and Tumblr are total failures as well?

Starting Nov. 9 it might be worth trying to engage Cohn and ilk in this discussion.