The OC Register (Orange County) is running this note from the editor at the end of its on-line stories:
“From the editor: Many of you have expressed concerns about some of the harsh anonymous comments from readers. To remedy that, we are introducing new features. You can create your own blog, publish your news and share your photos with the community. Once you fill out a simple form and leave a verifiable e-mail address, you can set up your profile page. It will display all of your contributions and allow you to track issues and easily connect with others.
We want our site to be a place where people discuss and debate ideas that foster stronger communities. We built this for you. Please take care of it. Tolerate broad thinking, but take action against obscene or hateful material. Make it a credible and safe place worth preserving and sharing.”
After seeing some of the anonymous comments left on the Asheville Citizen-Times and Mountain Xpress websites, I’m liking this direction.
As one blogger panelist at NC Writers’ Network con said: “You have to moderate comments. Otherwise, you’re opening your site up to spam and haters.”
I’ve often had people say things to me on-line that I doubt they’d say to me in person. I have more respect for those whom, even when they’re being nasty, give me their name in the process.
There’s been lots of discussion in the blogosphere and, even, in the Asheville blogger community about anonymity versus non-anonymity. There are some cases where, I think, bloggers have good reason to remain under the radar. As perhaps, some commenters do as well. But not if they are using the medium to spread hate in any form or vent on others.
What do y’all think?
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I think that big draws like the AC-T and MtnX really bring out some crazies. However, the AC-T comment threads really take the cake for raw awfulness.
At ScruHoo we moderate only those commenters who have demonstrated the potential to spew the hate. I can’t think of any comments we’ve ever had to delete though.
On smaller blogs the community can build the bloggy culture. When people don’t like it, they don’t come back. It’s inherently meritorious.
If you are going to be critical, give us your name. Not necessary if you are just goofing around. People who don’t use their names often talk as though they know about things they don’t know.
If you are just being chatty and friendly - who cares?
Tom Graser is Catnap
Anonymous comments should be tossed into the trash. If people want to disagree, that’s great - but it should be done with respect (and that includes standing by one’s statements with their own identity).
Someone please forward this post to the Powers That Be at the Citizen-Times. The USA Today website has a registration system much like the OC Register, and it works pretty well at keeping the vitriol to a minimum, something citizen-times.com desperately needs.
I heard yesterday that the NYT has (finally) opened up their on-line newspaper to comments, and they’ve hired people whose entire job is to moderate comments.
Yes, the AC-T threads often are particularly vitriolic, and, I think, could use some moderation. Interesting that USA Today, which is Gannett’s flagship newspaper, does moderate.
there’s a difference between moderating comments and a web site registration stie.
USA Today asks you to fill out a basic form to create a username and password. then they ask you for your age and zip and that’s it. so you can still lie. you can still be anonymous. this registration system is similar to what the C-T has in place. this process is automated.
moderating comments means reading the comments and then posting them. by this process, you edit, you delete. some people might call it censorship. this process requires manpower and time.
the issue as far as big corporate owners of media outlets is that if an outlet starts moderating comments, editing comments, then it’s taking responsibility for that content. that means the corporate entity can be held liable for that content.
by taking a hands-off approach - by not moderating comments - corporations believe they are not legally liable for that content. the hope is that the commenters sort of self-regulate.
I understand the potential liability issues, but the truth is, that there isn’t self-regulation. I would think that, like the OC Register is doing, asking people to fill out a longer form, so they are trackable, and asking them not to be anonymous, might help with the nastiness. Anyone else?
I don’t know much, or really care about the liability issue, but i prefer Gordon’s approach which sounds like somewhere between Website Registration and Online Moderation.
Have people register to a site and then keep a soft eye on the threads. If someone seems to be a consistent abuser, then ban him/her which forces them to have to start their spew-character all over again.
It’s unfortunate that perfectly logical and well-intentioned people get sucked into close-minded troll rants by believing they’re communicating with someone reasonable. Not much different from trying to convert Christian street preachers to Islam.
So, i think identity, even if it really means consistency in presentation rather than actually ‘knowing’ someone is an important aspect of our vitual communication, whether it be Second Life or AC-T comments.
Most folks have things to say, but culturally we do not offer many places to rehearse public speech and the decorum and responsibilities that go along with that speech.
So our initial forays into public spaces like blog comments (today) and listservs (yesterday) and bulletin boards (a million years ago) tend to get heated and rude while we blow off our accumulated steam and slowly learn how to behave.
Demanding that commenters attach their identities to their comments and be responsible for them is one step in Responsible Speech Training 101, but it can’t end there.
Online speech is as much masked ball as prose symposium. The virtual remove offered by something like Second Life can be quite a generative stage to strut.
Sometimes you want a fluid or mysterious identity.
That said, every blog is someone’s house and House Rules need apply.
Reasonable people can reasonably disagree in public, but just you would not allow fists to be thrown at your own dinner party, you also generally would not want them flying in your blog space, regardless of identity or lack thereof.
I tend to think that the best discussion spaces do not rely on a moderator so much as they do on a strictly enforced set of community standards. The House Rules. Call this Moderation by Peer Pressure, if you will.
Requires repeated restatement of said rules, of course, just as with children:
“Wash your hands”
“take off your muddy shoes”
“don’t fart in church”
“no screaming flame-outs in my commments or EdgyMama pulls the plug on you.”
DailyKos is one of the best I have seen at this. Not a moderated site, its community rating system lets you say what you want and lets the community decide what is out of bounds. If you come storming in with blathering angry obscenity, they’re going to troll rate you out of the house. Or, if your behaviors are egregious enough, Kos himself will shut you down.
This is pretty rare. He has better things to do with his time.
Effective balance between full-time moderation and wide open firehoses, neither of which tend to work well or scale up well.
I just hope that “short answers only” never become part of the House Rules.
-JA
JA,
One of your house rules is “don’t fart in church”? Love it.
Short answers only is not an EM house rule, so keep the erudite analysis coming!
I disagree with moderating comments - free speech, anybody? But ’spam’ is a real problem. From people copying and pasting crap into their ‘comments’ to just fly-by-night comments that don’t address the subject at all and say something like ‘like your blog, check mine out.’
Having non-anonymous comments helps control that.
Besides, what’s an opinion unless you’re brave enough to express it out loud and proud?