Read/WriteWeb has installed a new comment rating service called SezWho.
The gist of the service is that the reading community can rate the comments of other readers and that these ratings are portable and help to build the reputation of the commenter. (See SezWho FAQ).
The tool basically asks if the comment was helpful to you and allows readers to sort comments by their usefulness, good comments (3+) and great comments (4+). You can see it in action on this post about Facebook at Read/WriteWeb.
I am not sure I like this new “Cool Tool.” It is hard enough to get people to leave comments without also leaving them open to judgement from others about their viewpoints.
Then again, for those people that take the time to comment (believe me I welcome all comments here), it is a nice way to build an online profile and credibility. Your score, or Starpower as SezWho calls it, follows the commenter from site to site.
This could create an incentive for non-bloggers to leave more comments, because let's face it, one of the biggest incentives for commenting is reserved for bloggers who leave their URL with every comment. For instance, if you like the comments of someone at this blog, you can easily click the link embedded in the signature of their comment and visit their blog to read more — which is quite an incentive for a blogger.
I am interested to hear what you think. Are you more or less likely to leave a comment at a blog that will rate your response? I am also interested to know if people who leave comments are automatically entered into the SezWho social network, or if they can opt out.
tags: SezWho, Comments, Commenting, Social+Network, Social+Media, Prevent+Trolls, CoolTools
