There are two separate issues.

1. Ignorant people who just spew bullshit without thinking which leads to degradation of the comment section as a whole.

2. Trolls who spew ignorant or hateful commentary to purposefully incite degradation of the community.

Popular Science is citing the second as the reason behind shutting down the comments section but I'm sure that the first reason is also a huge issue. The question is: how does one fix it?

Is shutting down the comments and then reopening them in the far future going to change it? Perhaps. Perhaps the trolls won't stick around and they will be eliminated from the mix and allow good commentary to thrive.

The thing that we often forget is trolls aren't a person. The troll is a troll for the moment that they post that comment and they can go off and be a perfectly fine human being in real life, on other sites or even on the same site. I've been guilty of trolling a time or two or three. I stay away from the personal witchhunts or targeted attacks but throwing up some general commentary on God or humanity on a board full of people praising God for all the great shit he's done can be good fun.

If we look at trolling for what it is (a person acting spitefully for a moment because they have no ties to the community) shutting down and reopening won't fix it. Even if the existing trolls leave, they will be replaced by current readers of Popular Science.

We need to look at the larger issue. How can you make people want to talk, discuss and engage with other users in a civil and thoughtful way? How can you keep people from having the desire to troll?

Some boards have stars and upvotes and followers so that you want to say good things so that your username has a star and a big number next to it. That helps people want to take part, but doesn't make people not want to troll with throwaway accounts. It also makes new users feel pretty worthless and doesn't make new users want to stick around in the established community. (sidenote: I think one reason Hubski semi-bypasses this is thenewgreen's "welcoming party" approach. I think every new user to hubski is immediately greeted by him. I know I was. I'm trying to do the same now, but I'm not nearly as good as he is.)

Some boards approve every comment. This is incredibly time consuming for moderators and the lack of transparency easily turns a the specific site into an echo chamber. Moderation power trips, conspiracy theories, all that jazz.

HuffPo has taken it one step further by forcing users to verify their identity. I just went through the process and it was a shitstorm. Here's what I had to do: Log in with Google (fake). Log in with Facebook (fake). Then VERIFY MY FACEBOOK ACCOUNT. Verifying your Facebook has to be done with a mobile number. So I had to verify it with my real mobile number, then create the HuffPo account and then relink my real number with my real facebook.

However, I now have a HuffPo login and guess what...I'm still not part of the community. I still don't give a fuck what they say. I had a good conversation with someone on one thread and I probably won't comment again for a long time. But I'm not going to troll, get that account banned and then have to do the same damn process all over again. The account will just sit until I need it again.

So HuffPos way is a good way of eliminating the trolls however it literally took me 30 minutes to sign up, so it's not going to invite new users to sign up. And I am opposed to the general principle of it. Fuck them. If it weren't for a completely random thread that I was really curious about and a slow day at work, I would never have signed up.

I may be biased but I think Hubski has a good way of handling the situation. We have the community and reasons that make people want to be a part of it. We have a great userbase of people who already set a high bar for the type and quality of comments and that encourages new users to do the same. And, while anyone can easily create a new account and troll, individuals are able to ignore and mute said trolls. So while this doesn't really discourage someone from being a one-off troll it takes away a lot of the trolls power by taking away the attention.

If you've noticed there is spam and there is trolling on Hubski occasionally. But no one reacts or engages and that makes it essentially invisible. That is where the power lies and I think it's a fairly unique and simple solution. Moderation fails. Verified accounts fail. Pretty stars and high numbers fail.

So, to answer your question, no. I think the issue with Popular Science is a reflection of the broken online commenting system. Stopping and starting up may help for a day, a week, a month. But trolls will always be around and ignorance will always find a way to penetrate through the intelligent discourse. All you can hope for is a strong base of intelligent people who want to stand above the fray and ignore those users who choose to act that way.