history of online comments

Hi,

I'm a journalist with a magazine assignment to write about online 
comments and commenting environments, and Ian Jacobs at W3 recommended 
that I write to this list. I'm looking for definitive answers to these 
questions:

1. What was the first website to offer the ability for readers/users to 
leave comments? (A Wikipedia entry on "blogs" says that Bruce Ableson at 
OpenDiary.com was the first but I've been unable to confirm this as yet.)

2. What was the first newspaper or online publication to offer the 
ability for readers/users to leave comments?

3. At the advent of the web, what was the prevailing notion of how 
users/readers would interact with web sites and pages? I've seen how 
Mosaic/Netscape were originally designed with annotation functions but 
which were subsequently left off. In the absence of annotations, where 
did comments come from?

I'm trying to tell the story of how we got the online comments that we 
have now. Often, the back alley flavor of comments is taken to be a 
manifestation of culture, but I am also interested in seeing the role 
that technology might have played, for instance in reinforcing a 
distinction between commenters and content creators/authors, or in 
overwhelming moderation systems.

Please contact me privately if you have any thoughts or information.

I'd also love to hear from anyone who could serve as an expert for 
general factchecking: timelines, etc.

Thank you in advance.

Sincerely,
Michael Erard

Received on Wednesday, 14 August 2013 19:12:33 UTC