Warning that Comments Will be Reviewed by Peers Before Publication

Goal: Reduce toxicity of comments Evidence rating (PDN): Emergent Civic signal: Understand — Promote thoughtful conversation When to use: Proactive

What it is

This is a prompt that any given comment will be reviewed by three peers for civility before anyone will see their comment. This should be shown before a comment can be submitted, so that the user will have the opportunity to revise the comment.

While the prompt itself is the tested part of the intervention, it should be paired with an actual peer review process (for example, prompting users to review other comments for civility before theirs can be submitted).

If no actual peer review process exists, the prompt becomes a scarecrow that can be ignored and it loses effectiveness.

Intended impact

The peer-review process functions as prompt for users to reflect and self-moderate content before sharing.

This prompt, surprisingly, was the most effective step in a peer-review system of comments. Upon seeing it, many people posting either revised their comment or abandoned it.

Evidence that it works

• Civil Co., a social media company, had implemented this peer-review prompt and process in their wider peer-review system to moderate comments (Bodganoff, 2017)

• Bodganoff spoke of the outstanding success this intervention had at prompting self-moderation

It must be noted that this was not part of a formal study that was publicly available, it was published by a company claiming the effectiveness of their own product.

However the claim was on a post announcing the shutdown of the company and discontinuation of service, so there is presumably no underlying conflicting profit motive to their claim. To our knowledge, the founders have not gone on to start another business with a similar product.

Why it matters

Special Considerations

Citations

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From the Prosocial Design Network's Digital Intervention Library (https://www.prosocialdesign.org/library/peer-review-of-comments), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Reformatted for the RT Commons; text otherwise as published. Library citation: Prosocial Design Network (2024), Digital Intervention Library, https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/Q4RMB. Anything built from this pattern should credit the Prosocial Design Network and the researchers cited above.

Details

• goal: Reduce toxicity of comments
• citations: [object Object]
• image alt: A mockup of a prompt telling users that their posts will be subject to peer review. The user is invited to either edit their post or proceed to posting it.
• image url: https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/647f696dc653a97c26f42a0b/647f696dc653a97c26f42b76_peer-review.png
• pdn rating: Emergent
• when to use: Proactive
• civic signal: Understand
• pdn library doi: 10.17605/OSF.IO/Q4RMB
• civic signal goal: Promote thoughtful conversation