A common problem that bothers me with my own comment section is comments that are… okay… but I don’t think they’re worth the attention of most readers. Deleting them (with or without hiding them) feels meaner than the comment deserves. Moving them to an offtopic section feels at least a little mean, but more reasonable.
Maybe you could invert punishments to rewards, and create an “author highlights” section instead of an “off topic” section?
If you’re running a blog and want to apply this approach to comment deletion, then instead of framing it as a “reign of terror” where you mass-delete comments from your blog, you would have an “email the author” field below each of your blog posts and a “featured responses” section highlighting the best emails you’ve gotten on this topic. ‘Being accepted to this scientific journal feels like an honor’ is connected to ‘being rejected from this journal doesn’t feel like an attack or affront.’
Maybe you could invert punishments to rewards, and create an “author highlights” section instead of an “off topic” section?
If you’re running a blog and want to apply this approach to comment deletion, then instead of framing it as a “reign of terror” where you mass-delete comments from your blog, you would have an “email the author” field below each of your blog posts and a “featured responses” section highlighting the best emails you’ve gotten on this topic. ‘Being accepted to this scientific journal feels like an honor’ is connected to ‘being rejected from this journal doesn’t feel like an attack or affront.’