VenturaCountyStar.com disables comments on stories
Four months after adding comments to all stories on its Web site, The Ventura County Star has removed and disabled them because abusive comments became so prevelant that it was impossible to monitor and remove all of them. This is a good example of the challenges publications face in adding increased interactivity and feedback on news sites.
In a note on the site, the publication says, "Since the Comments section was started in January, we have seen wonderful discussions by our readers on issues and stories about our community. We thank all of you who were willing to take the time to join this conversation.
"However, since the beginning, there have also been those who abused the system. Their comments were full of profanity. They personally attacked individuals, both persons related to news stories and others who were commenting on the website. They posted pornographic comments. They turned the comments into a personal chat room.
"We have been able through monitoring to control most of those abuses. However, the abuses have grown in the past few weeks to the point that we feel we must shut down the system.
"We are currently examining options and hope to reinstate comments if we can find a reasonable way to encourage civil discourse."
May 22, 2005 | E-MAIL | SAVE | PRINT | PERMALINK | DISCUSS(1)
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1 comments about 'VenturaCountyStar.com disables comments on stories'Hmm. Public comments simply don't scale. This point I raised at the new Harvard news/politics/blogging conferences I went to in December/January. Privately, some people were interested, but this wasn't discussed. It still needs to be.
Public discussion boards need people to accept the value of public shame to succeed. Was the Star asking people to use their real names? Do they use a peer-rating system which would ensure that good posters are recognized? Was this the result of a few bad apples? Or did ordinarily nice people turn mean on the boards? Many deep questions need to be asked, if these systems are asked to be used on more news/community sites.
Posted by Jon Garfunkel at May 22, 2005 9:26 AM
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1 Weblogs reference 'VenturaCountyStar.com disables comments on stories' Freedom of speech - not lost yet.Trackback excerpt: Halley Suitt is worried (here and here) that bloggers may be losing their freedom of speech as they attempt to satisfy others. Nobody - bloggers included - can "lose" their freedom of speech. The can either surrender it or have... [Read More]
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