Years ago, I helped build a storytelling platform called Hi (a simplification of its original name: Hitotoki, now shuttered and archived) and one of the things I’m most proud of our team having concocted is the commenting system. We had tens of thousands of users and almost no issues with harassment. You could comment on anyone’s story and your having commented would be public — a little avatar at the bottom of the page — but the comment itself would be private. This allowed folks to reap the public validation of engagement (“Whoa! So many comments!”) while simultaneously removing any grandstanding or attacks. It wasn’t quite messaging. It wasn’t quite commenting. It felt very much like a contemporary, lighter take on email, and in being so was a joy to use. Here’s what the bottom of an entry looks like: "Commenting" on Hitotoki