Good riddance to NPR’s comment section, which is shutting down Tuesday after eight years. There has to be a better way for news organizations to engage with the public.TYWKIWDBI will continue to allow comments. The need to delete spam every morning is a nuisance, but the readership here is reasonably sane and immensely well-informed on a huge range of topics, and I have had readers tell me that they routinely read most of the comments on the posts. I will continue to "curate" comments, however, by weeding out the egregiously offensive ones.
NPR is joining a growing list of media organizations that have said “finito” to comments including, ‘This American Life,’ Reuters, Recode, Mic, The Chicago Sun-Times, Popular Science, CNN, The Toronto Star and The Week...
The trolls who rule the comment seas may actually have won because they often scare away people with their vicious attacks. An infinitesimal number of NPR’s 25 to 35 million unique monthly users bothered to join story-page conversations...
There are some sites that handle comments well, noted Alex Howard, a senior analyst at the Sunlight Foundation. “Building a healthy online community is hard, but outlets like TechDirt and forums like MetaFilter show that it’s not only possible but sustainable,” said Howard. “At their best, good comments are improvements upon the journalism they’re focused upon, but they require convening a community and investing in editorial moderation and tools.”
More details at Moyers&Co (and 300+ comments).
Stan, thanks for taking the time to monitor the comments and keep this part of your site available. There are very few sites anymore that don't attract and display the nastiness of the lowest level of comments. I really enjoy the wide range of topics you gather together and the level of civil discourse displayed by the commenters here.
ReplyDeleteDitto. I could not have said it better.
ReplyDeleteThank you for considering us sane. I will pass that on to family and friends.
ReplyDelete"Reasonably sane..."
Delete""" reasonably sane """ that made me spit out my coffee!! Thanks for hitting us with that broad brush!
ReplyDeleteFor those who may be interested there is an Extension available for Safari on the Mac called Shut Up that blocks comments section of webpages from being displayed. If you do for some reason want to ready the comments you simply click the Shut Up button in the toolbar and the page re-loadeds with the comments visible. With Shut Up it's as if Internet Trolls never existed.
ReplyDeleteI would read the comments more if you could enable the comments to pop up in another window. Most blogs on blogger seem to have this option.
ReplyDeleteTom, can't you just right-click "Open link in new window" (or new tab) instead of left-clicking?
DeleteAlso clicking on a link with the mouse's scroll wheel opens it in a new tab (if you have that kind of mouse).
DeleteClick here if you like boobies!
ReplyDelete(Sorry ;)
I prefer being able to scroll down to read comments instead of moving to another tab or window. I for one, appreciate comments sections and usually browse them if not read them and/or respond. It is a pleasure to participate in civil "conversation".
ReplyDeleteFrankly I don't see the need for an app to "block" comment sections. Just don't read them!
As someone who is planning their own blog and website, I'm always interested in reading how this is handled on other sites. I truly am disappointed that the trolls are "winning" and spoiling the free online interaction of others. I believe there are site add ons designed to help weed out or at least reduce spam in comments sections, though I imagine which one would depend on your host or site software. Do you use anything like that? Have you tried any of them? What were your experiences? Or has it been unnecessary? Thanks in advance for any feedback.
ladybug, stay tuned. I'm assembling material for a major post about comments and trolls sometime in the spring of this year.
Delete