Mail Online the first national to allow you to rate the comments on their news articles?
Excuse the pun, but I haven't seem much comment around the net on the Daily Mail's latest addition to their comment functionality. This thread on This Is London is all I've seen about it
I first noticed it over the weekend, but now users have the ability to rate comments with a vote up and vote down mechanism.
At the moment, it doesn't seem as if the voting re-orders the comments or changes which three are displayed in the default view of a story, but the green and red arrows clearly indicate the sway of public opinion for or against the views expressed. Users don't have to be registered or logged in to rate a comment.
Guardian readers are able to 'Recommend' a comment on their system, but I think the Daily Mail are alone now in allowing users to positively or negatively rate the opinions of their peers on news articles.
I've had my disagreements in the past with the Mail's commenting policy, but this seems like a slick move from their web team.
It's astonishing to see just how much traction the Mail gets on Digg and Reddit. In part obviously due to the stories it covers and the writing style but you do wonder whether being a leader in the UK online press (in terms of features and maybe engagement) instills some sort of fondness or feeling of being at home for those who frequent the social content sites?