- Jan 14, 2013
- 21,288
- 19,776
- 136
because trolls
http://www.salon.com/2016/08/24/fin...the-loudest-drunk-in-nprs-online-bar_partner/
"
Good riddance to NPR’s comment section, which shut down Tuesday after eight years. There has to be a better way for news organizations to engage with the public.
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.
When comments sections were initiated on news sites, they were hailed as a means to democratize the media, allowing a two-way conversation between readers and the journalists who serve them.
But readers are often talking to each other because most journalists don’t engage. And there’s a reason. The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza enthusiastically embracedhis audience when he started his political blog, the Fix, in 2006.
I know firsthand how futile and frustrating comments sections are.
“I would regularly go into the comments to interact (or try to interact) with readers. I incentivized and deputized regular commenters to keep order,” he wrote in a column that extolled NPR’s decision. “Then I gave up. Because none of the tactics or strategies we tried ever had any real impact on the quality of the dialogue happening on The Fix. No matter what the original post was about, a handful of the loudest — or most committed — voices in the room hijacked the comments thread to push their own agendas.”
As NPR’s ombudsman from 2007 to 2011, I know firsthand how futile and frustrating comments sections are. Even though NPR had a sign-up system, and hired an outside moderator to check comments before posting, a listener could still create an alias and write whatever he (and it was usually men) liked. The comments were often mean-spirited and did little to foster civil conversation.
‘The goal is dialogue,” I wrote in a 2011 essay on comment sections for the Nieman Reports, “but it’s pretty clear that the debate between dialogue and diatribe is still being waged. From the view I’ve had for the last three years as NPR’s ombudsman I’d say diatribe is winning—hands down.” It’s still true today.
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."
http://www.salon.com/2016/08/24/fin...the-loudest-drunk-in-nprs-online-bar_partner/
"
Good riddance to NPR’s comment section, which shut down Tuesday after eight years. There has to be a better way for news organizations to engage with the public.
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.
When comments sections were initiated on news sites, they were hailed as a means to democratize the media, allowing a two-way conversation between readers and the journalists who serve them.
But readers are often talking to each other because most journalists don’t engage. And there’s a reason. The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza enthusiastically embracedhis audience when he started his political blog, the Fix, in 2006.
I know firsthand how futile and frustrating comments sections are.
“I would regularly go into the comments to interact (or try to interact) with readers. I incentivized and deputized regular commenters to keep order,” he wrote in a column that extolled NPR’s decision. “Then I gave up. Because none of the tactics or strategies we tried ever had any real impact on the quality of the dialogue happening on The Fix. No matter what the original post was about, a handful of the loudest — or most committed — voices in the room hijacked the comments thread to push their own agendas.”
As NPR’s ombudsman from 2007 to 2011, I know firsthand how futile and frustrating comments sections are. Even though NPR had a sign-up system, and hired an outside moderator to check comments before posting, a listener could still create an alias and write whatever he (and it was usually men) liked. The comments were often mean-spirited and did little to foster civil conversation.
‘The goal is dialogue,” I wrote in a 2011 essay on comment sections for the Nieman Reports, “but it’s pretty clear that the debate between dialogue and diatribe is still being waged. From the view I’ve had for the last three years as NPR’s ombudsman I’d say diatribe is winning—hands down.” It’s still true today.
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."
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