Story comments: Love them or hate them? Please let us know.
Editors this morning shut down readers’ ability to comment on the story “Drugs played no role in Coleman slayings.” Before the shutdown, the story drew 1,189 comments. Many of them were inappropriate, some vulgar.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch and STLtoday.com staffers try to police story comments. For the most part, though, we rely on readers to flag inappropriate comments by clicking the Report Abuse icon.
Last night, one reader sent this email in response to a comment on the “Coleman slayings” story:
moderator, this post is WAY out of line…. I had logged on and was going to bed and am glad I took one last look I will be contacting the Post during business hours about this… will you inform them as well… no poster deserves this posted about them.
Unfortunately, the reader’s bedtime abuse report wasn’t acted on until late this morning. So the objectionable comment — which was vulgar and profane — remained on the site far too long.
Kurt Greenbaum, our director of social media, has written several blog entries explaining our policy on story comments and our reasons for allowing them. (”Why some of our stories do NOT have story comments” “On the subject of reader comments that are hard to read” “A recap of our process for dealing with comments on stories“)
But there are good reasons to rethink story comments. The Boston Globe carried such a commentary — “Got a comment? Keep it to yourself” –this week by media consultant Douglas Bailey, president of DBMediaStrategies Inc. Identifying himself as a technology and information junkie, Bailey writes:
But as satiated as I am with the enormous and varied flow of available information, I’ve concluded there’s one outlet that should be abandoned: those comment forums at the end of articles on newspaper websites.
I realize these forums have their advocates. Publishers apparently believe forums help drive people to their website and provide opportunity for interactive exchanges of ideas, comments, corrections, and expansion of debate and topics.
Instead, these forums are insidiously contributing to the devaluation of journalism, blurring the truth, confusing the issues, and diminishing serious discourse beyond even talk radio’s worst examples.
My problems with these forums can be boiled down to three peeves: The level of commentary demeans and devalues the very product newspapers should be promoting; sniping, misinformation, and insensitivity that would not be tolerated in the newspaper that hosts the forums are regularly posted, seemingly encouraged, and even granted an aura of legitimacy from the association with the host’s brand; they create a self-perpetuating cycle in which anonymous, unverified information creeps into legitimate news coverage in ways that haven’t been fully vetted.
I feel sorry for today’s reporters and columnists, who work hard gathering information dutifully trying to raise the debate on issues or inform the public on a burning topic only to have some agenda-driven bonehead who doesn’t have the courage - or need - to identify himself or herself and isn’t bound by the same ethics or policies tear down the work product the moment it appears.
Have newspaper publishers and editors really thought through all the repercussions? Is it just a numbers game; that is, do they think the volume of comments equals support for good journalism?
There’s the story of the reporter upset with his superiors for trimming several paragraphs from his article because of inadequate attribution, sourcing, or potential libel who simply logged on to his paper’s website under an assumed name and posted a rewritten version of the deleted material at the end of his own story, in the comments field. Apocryphal? Maybe. But how do we know it’s not happening all the time? If this reporter’s own editor deems the material problematic, why then give anyone free license to attach it to the story?
We’d appreciate your thoughts on story comments? Is our current system working?
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Steve Parker is the deputy managing editor for news, and oversees the Post-Dispatch's front page. STLtoday's online news editors are on his newsroom team. Parker has been at the paper since September 1980. 
Blog commenting is one thing. Afterall, that’s what blogs are for. But if this paper is any example, comment features for everyday stories only serve to provide a forum for creeps, racists, and jackasses. I’ll never look at them again after seeing all the vile, pig-ignorant insults people wrote after a recent story about the accidental death of a friend’s mother.
Unless you can devote the resources to police them closely, I say drop em.
Obviously not all comments are going to be constructive or helpful. I think the comments are important, but do need to be moderated. I think it’s apparent which articles will draw the most attention, and resources should be allocated to these topics/articles to stay on top of the vulgarities. Vulgarities should be moderated, not strong opinions. There is often a fine line and sometimes only a level headed person with a fine toothed comb can find them - and that is who should be moderating these comments.
I personally visit very few sites where comments aren’t allowed - though I rarely post. I like seeing the comments of others, viewing others perspectives, to see if my own could use some enlightenment.
Please do not remove the comments from articles. We can “read” anywhere.
If you want to drop the comments section fine, but change your reporting and editorialing to something more middle of the road rather than slanted left.
Oh, and I apologize if donkey euphemisms are a no-no.
The comments have ruined your site. The knee-jerk nastiness is so intense that I don’t even want to go here anymore for local news. I am glad to see that you’re at least thinking about this. It’s terribly unprofessional and skewers the stories.
The blogs at the end of the stories on the Stltoday.com site have become a pain. Its as though a small number of racist, uninformed bigots have taken it upon themselves to provide 80% of the comments in every story. Those bloggers that do have an interesting, productive comment are getting slammed. I say drop the blog section. If I want to talk about an article, I do it in person. I don’t even comments on this site, as I know there’s no way to participate in a worthwhile discussion.
I could not agree with Douglas Bailey any more.
People can discuss whatever they want on the forums and the blogs. That’s what they’re there for.
Having comments on the articles themselves reduces the news to a gossip column, and offers absolutely no constructive discussion on the subject. And there’s no way to police them adequately.
Drop ‘em. They strip the Post Dispatch of any shred of dignity it’s trying to hold on to.
Gresham’s Law (bad currency drives good currency out of circulation) applies to the marketplace of ideas, too. These comment sections are a vivid example.
Once a forum is overrun by thugs and trolls (dealers in “bad” currency), the people who actually have something worthwhile to say (”good” currency) are driven to the sidelines.
Drop them all.
I think the comments serve a purpose, but often they are monopolized by the vocal minority - those with one thing to say and all the time in the world to say it as loud and long as they can.
A feature that works well in other sites (see Slashdot, for instance) is community moderation. If you give people a way to rate posts thumbs up or thumbs down, display only those posts with ratings above a certain level (or better, let people choose what rating they’re willing to tolerate), and find a way to prevent people stuffing the ballot box (by tracking IP’s for example), I think the system could be pretty successful at moderating itself.
If you have to keep them, make them be approved by a moderator before they are posted!
I like the ones calling out the reporter for mistakes or laziness in reporting, but 99% of the posts are useless drivel that add nothing.