Signal-to-noise ratio in article comments

OK, time to try doing what I said I’d do here – expound at length on something of interest (to me, anyway), then boil it down for the on-air version.

We’ve had more than 4,000 article comments since we began the first version in early February – about 1,000 a month – postable comments, that is. Another, oh, 1,000 or so un-postable – some that make me nervous to think I might live near or interact with these folks;-)

So that’s sort of a 3-to-1 signal to noise ratio, in terms of wheat to problematic chaff – except for the fact I probably don’t hold to as firm a line as I should.

NOBODY reads Terms of Service – who has time, interest? – but they are there – and for our Website, they ban : “Posting or transmitting any unlawful, fraudulent, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene or otherwise objectionable or harmful information of any kind.”

Man, I could probably eliminate 95 percent of the posts, if I defined those labels rigorously. But it’d sure be a boring discussion – except of course that I’d be spending too much of my time explaining why this or that comment got deleted.

Our posts are anonymous – though folks can give their real names if they want, and some do. On the other hand, The Bulletin recently started having article comments – but only by paid subscribers – and the most they’ve had on any one story is… three. I do understand the tradeoffs involved.

But in talking to my big brother David today, it reminded me of the whole pluses-minuses thing to forums – for him, it’s viiting stocks/finance ones, for my boss at the station, it’s cars. Somewhere there’s folks already arguing about/discussing/offering advice on whatever subject you’re interested in.

And if the moderator doesn’t allow flamewars to burn out or hijack a previously interesting, thoughtful discussion, great – but I’m sure they get grief from the few screeching “censorship” or “freedom of the press.” Which is silly, because on the Internet, there’s always a place you can talk/argue about whatever it is you want to say. Whether anyone will be listening is another matter entirely.

So if the interesting or at least neutral posts outweigh the “you idiot!” etc. distractions, the signal-to-noise ratio is acceptable. And I’ve found just enough supportive, enlightening or at least not scarily negative posts to keep the thing going. Corporations are just not used to providing platforms for people to dump on them – fairly or unfairly. But my argument is, better in your forum then in a place you can’t monitor or weigh in on. And as I’ve said, folks come to our defense quite often without us lifting a finger.

So the typical routine on the more negative comment threads – and I can almost predict which stories they come about on – is the following sequence: Attack. Defend. Attack the Defenders. Defend the Attackers. Someone pleads “can’t we get along?” And eventually the argument loses steam and folks move on, except for an occasional add-on by someone late to the gathering.

I’ve been slammed for “deleting comments I don’t agree with,” when all that happened was a new version of a story came along and the old one is moved out (but linked to). I’d rather keep updating the same story, to keep the comment threads intact, BUT search engines like Google News don’t re-index existing story URLs, so that’s a point in favor of new stories, rather than updated ones.

Life’s full of tradeoffs. Fortunately, our current comment system from JS-Kit does provide for my favorite kind of community regulation – self-regulation. It allows folks to vote on whether they like a post or not (believe they slide up or down as a result), or mark posts as offensive (if, under the default settings, five folks make such a marking, a post VANISHES).

I know far bigger media outlets than ours have often abandoned comment systems for how they are abused. But USA Today is hanging tough, and several others as well. It just seems worth it, to me.

Author: Barney Lerten

A newsman/news 'junkie' since a young boy - in Bend, Oregon since 1991, with a wonderful wife, Debbie, and two crazy kitty-cats! View all posts by Barney Lerten