This comes after Reuters turned off comments , and many other sites have dialled back on allowing comments β Popular Science, the Chicago Sun-Times, and so on.
The US used to mint silver to make its nickels and dimes. But the rising price of silver made this expensive β so expensive that the silver in a nickel or dime would be worth more than 5c or 10c.
This preserves their usefulness as currency. But some of the silver-bearing coins remained in circulation. Of course not. They can get better elsewhere. So now we come to comments on newspaper sites. They just want to dominate. For an example, look at the comments below this article by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes. For people who might have useful experiences, or insight, to bring, the sight of comments and threads like those are a natural STOP sign.
Why would you invest your time, knowledge and special insight adding a comment to a thread when you have idiots like that already busy and commenting repeatedly, and repetitively? Why would you want to be the rd commenter on a story, if you have an insight that you consider has a separate and unique value? In the manner of someone choosing not to spend their silver-bearing coin, the smart people will tend to stay away from places like that.
If someone talks nonsense , you can rebut them with facts. Then what happens? The person who talked nonsense is free to keep on talking nonsense. By the way, that exchange is a rare case of someone whose views have high externally perceived worth taking the time to rebut twaddle. For the knowledgeable person, this is negative reward β swapping silver coins for dud metal.
