I think “a reasonable number of active Forum participants individually” is doing some real work here—“everyone I have ever been friendly with” would not count. I think there is usually value in having people who know the subject well participating in the comments, and by your math there is a good chance that zero or one of the ten people best positioned to provide a sympathetic perspective would even see the post organically. A reasonable number would depend on the circumstances, but I was thinking more ~3 acceptances?
One could argue that these individuals should disclose their status as solicited commenters. But people comment on the Forum for any number of reasons, obvious and inscrutable, so I can’t find a sufficient rationale for singling out a few solicited commenters. There’s no norm, for instance, for friends of a post’s author to self-identify themselves as such.
I am relatively less worried about a few commenters skewing the course of discussion (as opposed to strongvoters) for two reasons. The first is that comments have substance that can be evaluated as convincing or non-convincing. The popularity of that substance can be evaluated via up/down and agree/disagree voting, which provides some check on unrepresentative comments appearing to be consensus. Second, at least regulars have a decent sense of who is who; if someone who is an infrequent commenter starts on a commenting spree defending person X, we have a pretty good idea that they are motivated by some sort of external reason and can adjust accordingly.
I think “a reasonable number of active Forum participants individually” is doing some real work here—“everyone I have ever been friendly with” would not count. I think there is usually value in having people who know the subject well participating in the comments, and by your math there is a good chance that zero or one of the ten people best positioned to provide a sympathetic perspective would even see the post organically. A reasonable number would depend on the circumstances, but I was thinking more ~3 acceptances?
One could argue that these individuals should disclose their status as solicited commenters. But people comment on the Forum for any number of reasons, obvious and inscrutable, so I can’t find a sufficient rationale for singling out a few solicited commenters. There’s no norm, for instance, for friends of a post’s author to self-identify themselves as such.
I am relatively less worried about a few commenters skewing the course of discussion (as opposed to strongvoters) for two reasons. The first is that comments have substance that can be evaluated as convincing or non-convincing. The popularity of that substance can be evaluated via up/down and agree/disagree voting, which provides some check on unrepresentative comments appearing to be consensus. Second, at least regulars have a decent sense of who is who; if someone who is an infrequent commenter starts on a commenting spree defending person X, we have a pretty good idea that they are motivated by some sort of external reason and can adjust accordingly.