Blogs, Media, Social Networks, Technology, Tools, Web 2.0

Nov 13, 2007

Last week the New York Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt announced that the Times had begun allowing user comments on select editorials and news stories appearing on the website (via CyberJournalist). The Times has long allowed commenting on its blogs, but this marks the first time it will allow visitors to comment on stories that actually make it into the print version of the newspaper. All comments will be moderated by Times’ staffers. Hoyt writes about that decision: “The paper is creating a comment desk, starting with the hiring of four part-time staffers, to screen all reader submissions before posting them, an investment unheard of in today’s depressed newspaper business environment.” You can view an example of how comments on the Times site will work here.

In reading Hoyt, it is clear that this is a decision the Times came to very reluctantly. On the one hand, the Times acknowledges the contribution that commenters can make to a site:

“We have two great assets,” said Jonathan Landman, the deputy managing editor who is in charge of the newsroom’s online efforts. “One is the quality of the material we produce; the other is the quality of our readers, some of the most curious, intelligent and sophisticated people on earth.” Putting the knowledge of readers together with the journalism of The Times, he said, could result in “news and information of greater power, reach and quality than even a great newsroom can produce on its own.”

On the other hand, Hoyt provides multiple examples of commenters on the Times’ website run amok and closes with this:

Many major newspapers, like The Washington Post and USA Today, do not have an editor screen comments before posting them. Those two papers allow other readers to object to a comment as abusive, and then an editor will check it.

But Landman said The Times never considered unmoderated comments.

Martin Nisenholtz, senior vice president for digital operations of The New York Times Company, said: “A pure free-for-all doesn’t, in my opinion, equal good. It can equal bad.”

I believe that’s especially true if you’re The New York Times and you are trying to maintain a rare tradition of civility. A site with many Rays in Mexican Colony of LA might carry the name of The New York Times, but it would no longer be The New York Times.

I think the solution of allowing comments on select articles is a good one. I also think the decision to allow only pre-screened isn’t going to work for the 99% of newspapers that simply don’t have the resources to devote four full time people to screening comments, as the Times does. The solution simply isn’t scaleable.

If I were running a newspaper website, I would not pre-screen comments. But I would take the following steps to help ensure the conversation maintains a minimum level of quality:

Only allow users who have registered with a site to post comments.
Screen the first comment a user makes. If the first comment is acceptable then let the user post without screening. If it is objectionable or off topic, then don’t allow the user to comment. This will help prevent the trolls seeking to sidetrack conversations from getting through.
Automatically delete all comments that contain profanity.
Create a mechanism that allows users to report comments that are objectionable. If a comment is flagged by enough users, it would then be sent into a moderation queue for review by an editor.
Give users the ability to hide the comments of users they find objectionable.
Provide active oversight of the community. Have editors leave comments themselves. Ban users who are out of line. Delete objectionable comments. You’ll find communities tend to be more civil when administrators maintain an active presence on their site instead of being distant figures.

What do you think is the best way for high volume sites to handle comments?

Update: Thought of one more: (7) Close comments on articles after one week of discussion. This will free you from having to manage comments on old stories and focus on the new stuff.

http://www.andydickinson.net/2007/11/13/links-for-2007-11-13/ links for 2007-11-13 by andydickinson.net

[...] The New York Times and the Ideal Way to Handle Comment Moderation » The Bivings Report “The paper is creating a comment desk, starting with the hiring of four part-time staffers, to screen all reader submissions before posting them, an investment unheard of in today’s depressed newspaper business environment.” (tags: newspapers community moderation) [...]
http://www.our-hometown.com Stephen Larson

10/24/2005 News websites and blogs often invite readers to submit online comments about articles but ways to add a higher level of accountability to the process are needed. Some websites only grant permission if the contributor provides a working email address but with free email accounts readily available, remaining anonymous is way too easy.

Our-Hometown’s novel “comments option” allows article-specific comments by paid subscribers only. If any of the posters get out of hand, the newspaper can trace everything back to the subscriber’s account that can only be opened with a valid credit card and disable future comments.

This story first appeared in Newspaper Association of America New Media Federation’s 9/30/2005 Online Publishing Update.
———————————-
You should know that our Online Subscription Model generates revenue while simultaneously protecting circulation for the newspaper’s print edition. The system limits access to the “fresh news” to paid subscribers while leaving the archives open to the public. The ability to comment on stories is just another feature of being an online paid subscriber.

For almost 2 years now we’ve had this in operations at the weekly publication The Wave of Long Island (Far Rockaway, Queens, NY) without having to remove any comments. Many other of our 110+ weekly newspaper customer use our online paid model.

I would think that this may be of some interest to you in this way: perhaps people would PAY for the right to comment.
http://www.collegemediainnovation.org/blog Bryan Murley

“The paper is creating a comment desk, starting with the hiring of four part-time staffers, to screen all reader submissions before posting them, an investment unheard of in today’s depressed newspaper business environment.”

Actually, I believe there are newspapers in Canada who have full-time moderators, also the Guardian’s Comment is Free employs full-time moderators.

However, both those companies operate in countries with no first amendment (and thus tighter defamation laws) and no CDA section 230 (which allows greater protection to those who don’t moderate comments).

The Times has obviously considered their options carefully, but they are also opening themselves up to potentially greater liability for those comments. I hope those part-timers have some good legal advice.
http://david-black.org/2007/11/15/links-for-2007-11-15/ links for 2007-11-15 « David Black

[...] The New York Times and the Ideal Way to Handle Comment Moderation – The Bivings Report “If I were running a newspaper website, I would not pre-screen comments. But I would take the following steps to help ensure the conversation maintains a minimum level of quality.” (tags: internet newspapers newspapersites ugc comments moderation nyt) [...]
http://www.abcdigitalfutures.net/?p=1245 ABC Digital Futures » Blog Archive » Moderating the load of user comments

[...] Tod Zeigler at the Bivings Report suggests that while the NYT can afford to invest in new editorial positions to handle high-volume user participation, most newspapers probably can not. He proposes his own model for running comments on a news website, without pre-moderation. [...]
http://winp.wordpress.com/2007/11/16/i-commenti-moderati-del-new-york-times/ I commenti “moderati” del New York Times « work in progress

[...] persone (part-time però) che filtrano ogni commento prima di mandarlo online. The BivingsReport dice di avere le idee chiare su come un giornale dovrebbe comportarsi nella gestione dei commenti agli articoli e ci propone [...]
http://www.cybersoc.com Robin Hamman

I’ve often found that the number of posts/comments that has to be removed by moderators operates inversely to how well the discussion is hosted. That is, effort put into hosting a discussion helps prevent the sort of behaviours that require moderators to clean up.

Hosting is also a positive presence unlike moderators who, if you notice them at all, only turn up when there’s been trouble. I wrote a post about this over two years ago but the ideas remain the same:

http://cybersoc.blogs.com/cybe....._comp.html
http://abcnews.go.com Scott

ABC News launched commenting on story pages several months ago. The comments are post-moderated. Users must register or sign in before their comment posts to the site. The community can self police by marking a comment as a violation. This alerts the team of ABC moderators to screen the post for inappropriate or off topic content. Moderators also actively review comments and message board discussions on the site, 24/7. This formula has worked very well. The idea of post-moderated comments is to allow the community at large to determine the direction of the dialog. If comments are pre-screened there is a good chance that the flow of the discussion will be editorialized. I would guess that NYT will move away from pre-moderated comments soon. I do like some of the suggestions above for dealing with comments on a large scale, namely – the idea of closing comments after some time, and having editors contribute to the discussion to help guide the direction. To see what happens when you don’t pre-moderate, and don’t close comments after a week, check out http://abcnews.go.com/Nightlin.....id=3148940
Zach

“A site with many Rays in Mexican Colony of LA might carry the name of The New York Times, but it would no longer be The New York Times.”

Does anyone understand the first clause of this sentence?
http://atrium.wordpress.com/2007/11/21/moderar-comentarios/ Moderar comentários « Atrium – Media e Cidadania

[...] foram especialmente contratadas para lidar com o assunto. A propósito deste assunto, Tod Zeigler escreveu no Bivings Report um texto onde deixa a sugestão de que as empresas permitam os comentários, [...]

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