The Secrets of Commenters & Comment Readers on WOLF STREET (and the Entire Financial Media)

Jon Blogosphere, Economy, Education, Market Commentary

The surprising numbers!
The other day, I posted an article encouraging our readers to check out our amazing comment section. It received over 100 comments that included a discussion of an issue I’d triggered, and that we could not resolve. Now I found the answer.
I claimed – based on my vague memory of a Guardian report I’d read a couple of years ago but could no longer find – that only about 10% of the readers actually dared to go south and venture into the unknown territory of comments, where all kinds of surprises and mayhem might lurk.
This triggered a number of responses and sent some helpful commenters and me into a renewed search for this Guardian report – which remained elusive.
But I ran into a related paper from academia, authored by Natalie (Talia) Jomini Stroud, an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies, Assistant Director of Research at the Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Life, and Director of the Engaging News Project at the University of Texas at Austin – which also happens to be where, back in the day, I got my MBA.

This post was published at Wolf Street by Wolf Richter ‘ September 24, 2016.