The Great Commenting Debate

[Stephanie Romanski]

To allow commenting on a newspaper website or not. I hate that I can see all sides of this issue. As a longtime internet user, I love the ability to comment right away on a news story I read. I know my 2 cents don't add up to much, but I feel better if I can voice my reactions to something. News sites that don't allow commenting are one sure way to prevent me from coming back.

On the flip side, it only takes one or two trolls hiding behind anonymity to ruin it for everyone else. And when those trolls make it unpleasant to the point of a newspaper actually losing the ability to talk to sources, then a line has been crossed. It puts the newspaper between a rock and a hard place. On one side, you are desperately trying to involve and retain readership by stimulating "community conversation" any way you can by having forums, blogs, and commenting. On the other hand, you open yourself and local public figures up to ridicule and nastiness from a vocal few users who are either trolling, bitter, or just plain mean.

So you do your best to moderate although your moderation system for commenting is clunky and relies heavily on the users policing themselves by giving them a 'Report Abuse' button but what if your opinion of an OK comment strikes someone else as breaking the rules? For example, in a story about a baseball team winning a state championship, User A leaves a comment expressing his somewhat negative opinion of the coach. The comment is not derogatory, does not call the coach names, but obviously User A does not like the coach. Is that objectionable enough to remove? Is it off-topic?

Moderating comments is full of moments like that. What guidelines do you use? Sure we have the 'Pool Rules' but they don't seem to be specific enough to eliminate the subjectiveness of deciding which comment breaks the rules and which doesn't.

I think I'm starting to ramble now, but the Commenting Debate is hot in my newsroom right now. Opinions are strong on both sides of the issue and having only implemented commenting within the past month, we may have to turn them off to appease some folks in the newsroom as well as a small portion of the community who have been subjected to the anonymous commenters' trolling statements.

So do you require real names and registration? Does that hinder real discussion if people do not feel comfortable voicing their opinions if they have to state who they are? Do you give up and shut off commenting?

Does anyone have a solution?

[Paul Balcerak]

I like the idea of people registering their real names for commentary, but I also feel like it's one of those that really only looks good on paper. Personally, I completely lose interest in commenting on a story as soon as a site wants my e-mail address, username, password, etc. (For the record, though, when I do register or post a comment, I use my real name.)

As a compromise, I like the idea of non-registration commentary with a self-policing "three strikes and you're out" policy for inappropriate/whatever content.

Another quick tangent: I get more turned off by the sheer volume of comments more than anything. I feel like unless I get up at 6 a.m. to start posting with the mostly anonymous general public, I'm completely lost in a sea of comments that have been made, repeated, criticized and repeated again. Add in my frustration over bad grammar, sentence structure and spelling and it's a wonder I bother to read comments at all.

I don't have any thoughts on how to fix that. Maybe block people who aren't able to post comments that make sense? Am I all alone out here?

[Stephanie Romanski]

Good points, all of it. I think when people comment - and by people I mean people who are reacting to a story, not trolls or 'regulars' - they want to post their thoughts and see if anyone responds or feels the same way about a topic. It's more reactionary, and usually those are the good comments that we want.

I think a newspaper should have a presence in the comments. I think if users see that the paper's employees are reading and commenting themselves it serves to generate more discussion (how often does an average reader get a chance to interact directly with a reporter?) and it shows that comments are being watched and users should be careful about breaking the rules.

My problem comes with the moderating. How do I maintain an unbiased viewpoint? In my experience moderating our forums, I get a lot of 'You always let so and so get away with murder. You are biased.' and usually I don't know who on earth they are talking about. I can see that being ten times worse in the comments.

Do I allow racist comments? Do I allow a user's racist comments to stand because they don't target an individual? (ie. "mexicans needs to go back to Mexico.") How can I follow a three strikes and you're out method if my system doesn't allow me to ban people, just delete comments? What's to stop them from commenting with another name? (Can you tell I'm limited by my software?)

I wish there was an easy solution to this, but so far I'm not finding it.