Looks like they want to build a open-source discussion API with identity management (so people can be anonymous) and good moderation tools. So you can spin-up a forum, a comment box or even an HN-like community with the same API (ala Discourse/Disqus).
I don't know if I would bet on their success (see Persona, another great idea that flopped) but, a least, there are trying something big.
with identity management (so people can be anonymous)
love this.
It will be amazing when faceless, nameless people are allowed to comment without vituperative editing/obfuscation on anything the NYT publishes--given NYT is a brand around telling people what to think.
They are currently the ultimate "don't talk back" old-media platform.
Well, most comments on the net are utter shite. I don't blame them. Hacker News is different, but you don't have to go further than arstechnica to see the start of rapidly declining comment quality. A mainstream publication like NYT? Hats of to them if they manage an open discussion that's not just trolling, hatred, keyboard warriors and bigotry. I'll believe it when I see it. Just read the comments to The Economist. You'd think such an archetypically highbrow publication would have highbrow comments. You'd be wrong. Only niche websites have good comments.
I guess some spamfilter-like technology could be applied to filter out bad ones, though. Wikipedia also has an engine to filter out bad edits. Should have lots in common.
I find it interesting to compare "second tier" 4chan boards like /g/ (technology) to the discussion boards of other websites (like arstechnica). Typically, a place like /g/ compares very well, if not better.
Sites like to blame things like the "Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory", but I think most of the blame lays on the site for having poor moderation.
4chan's moderation is mostly just filtering for child porn. /g/ being good is because it's a niche place. Proper moderation costs proper money, and proper moderation doesn't scale. Moderation can't be the solution.
But crowd-sourced moderation like reddit/HN scales really well: Let the users do the hard work of flagging/voting and a small community of moderators to do orientation-related work.
Outside of /b/ (and one or two 'containment' boards), they do a pretty decent job of modding out hate-speech. Throughout, even on /b/, they keep shitposting (posts intended to do nothing but lower the signal/noise ratio, pushing active discussions towards expiration) way down. I would argue down below the levels seen even on default subreddits. Reddit has a serious shitposting problem.
I'll probably read the NYT less if they start giving a platform to the kind of idiots who comment on newspaper stories. I've never seen a news site with a comment section worth reading, let alone one that is actually constructive.
Posting a comment about idiots who post comments. Of course HN is not technically a news site but still....
I would like to see more quality on news comments. For some perverted reason I enjoy reading political discussion (yes, I agree, it is a waste of time), but this is usually marred by the vast majority of comments being mindless, repetitive and full of hatred. I already know Obama is a Muslim Communist Homosexual who wasn't born in the US and is out to destroy America. And I already know the Koch brothers are out to destroy the last vestiges of women's liberty by buying up the government and polluting our environment. (please don't make me explain sarcasm) I yearn for some serious informed reader opinion and discussion on news stories. Hopefully the Mozilla effort helps with this.
I don't know if I would bet on their success (see Persona, another great idea that flopped) but, a least, there are trying something big.