July 14, 2010
My first reaction to this decision by the Sun Chronicle to charge readers to comment on articles was negative. In fact, I think my exact words where, “that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
However, after reading the full article (and Marco’s comments), I have to admit it seems like a great idea. I wonder if they’d get better results if they reversed the scheme, and paid readers for worth-while comments. ✓
I think paying users for comments would yield results very similar to those design-by-contest sites. People are just flooding entries in hopes that they’ll get the pay-out. The overall result is low quality design. Aside from that, someone would be required to monitor/read/curate the resulting comments for such an offer.
Chuck
July 14, 2010