Shitty comments are your fault

If your site is full of assholes, it’s your fault

As it turns out, we have a way to prevent gangs of humans from acting like savage packs of animals. In fact, we’ve developed entire disciplines based around this goal over thousands of years. We just ignore most of the lessons that have been learned when we create our communities online. But, by simply learning from disciplines like urban planning, zoning regulations, crowd control, effective and humane policing, and the simple practices it takes to stage an effective public event, we can come up with a set of principles to prevent the overwhelming majority of the worst behaviors on the Internet.

Written four years ago, but as true as it was then. Comments are a solved problem, but too many journalism businesses ignore the substantial body of experience on the topic.