Untested
Emergent
Evoke User's Visibility
Reduces toxicity of comments
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.
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.
Text comment sections on sites with sufficient traffic for it to be believable that multiple people might review their comment.
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.
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.
A grade of Emergent is often given to interventions for whom the majority of research is qualitative.
Alternatively, if research exists, but the methodology is not publicly available, the Prosocial Design Network will also assign it an Emergent grade.
This grade denotes that the idea could have merit, but no quantitative research exists to explain why or how.
Do you think this intervention could have more benefits, unacknowledged drawbacks, or other inaccuracies that we've neglected to mention here?
We always welcome more evidence and rigorous research to back up, debunk, or augment what we know.
If you want to be a part of that effort, we'd love to have your help!
Email us