Are you engaging, intelligent, humorous, fair-minded and thoughtful?
You could be a top-tier commenter on Gawker.
The gossip-oriented Gawker is one of the country's most successful online media companies. Last week, it announced a new policy that divides people who comment into two tiers. The Tier 1 commenters will be chosen by Gawker, and their comments will appear directly under a blog post. Other comments will be relegated to a second tier that is only seen if you click on "Show all comments.''
The editor of the Gawker site Jezebel explained to users that the number of comments posted on the site has exploded, but the quality of comments has suffered.
In order to gain some more control of the comments, and to present the best (funniest, thoughtful, intelligent, well-argued) to readers who have neither the time nor energy to wade through the more mediocre contributions, the comment threads will be broken up into two sections, or "tiers.''
The Tier 1 commenters also have more power to moderate conversation. For instance, if they see a comment they like in the second tier, they can promote it to the first tier.
Not surprisingly, the demotion of many commenters to a second-class realm reserved for the mean-spirited and banal got a strong push-back on the site. But in a discussion board at PoynterOnline, it's been well-received.
Steve Outing, a media critic, said there's no censorship here because Gawker is still publishing all comments, it's just putting the best ones out front.
Overall, I like Gawker's approach. I wish my local newspaper would implement something like this; its comment threads are mostly bad jokes and vitriol by the active few. A way to filter out the bozos and just see the intelligent comments would be a blessing; and if I want to be "entertained," then I can turn on the view of all the stuff. I like the viewers' choice aspect.
Some commenters have observed that it's not very Web 2.0 for Gawker editors to hand-pick who gets Tier 1 status, rather than letting users choose the best contributors. And the new approach does work against someone who posts infrequently, but has something thoughtful to say when he or she weighs in.
But it's an interesting experiment, and other media companies that are struggling to find the right approach to moderation will be watching.
At AnnArbor.com, we posted our moderation guidelines last week, in preparation for going live on Friday. We don't have any immediate plans for a policy like Gawker's, although we've said we will moderate conversation actively and consistently. Down the road, we're open to the idea of elevating the best comments, as chosen by users, but that's for future consideration.
Hand-picking an elite sounds fine for Gawker but odd for our newspaper.
I am, however, in favor of some sort of tiered system where some comments are hidden by default. This technique is really useful only on highly commented articles. It keeps the discussions sane, while still giving all viewers to see every comment, if they wish.
Some sites, such as Slashdot and Stack Overflow use a simple algorithm to keep track of privileges. Successfully publishing a number of comments -- say, five -- gives you access to more actions, like voting on other users' comments or some visible reputation boost. These might be as simple as a little colored dot next to your name that indicates how interesting your contributions have been.
Wow, talk about getting ahead of yourselves! I would suggest you actually get the site up and working before you worry about the comments. Like, AA.com doesn't even HAVE any comments yet.
Something to consider: Debbie Galant, founder of Baristanet now one of the most successful local news sites in the nation, did not worry about monitoring comments, or Steve Outing's thoughts, or what Gawker did. She just did the actual work of getting her site to be viewed, and thought about problems as they arose.
Tony, you just announced the site launch would miss the deadline. Why are you spending even one minute fussing about the suggestions of gurus and pundits about comments? At this rate, there won't be any comments to worry.
Forget Huffington, Jarvis, and all of them. Roll up your sleeves and get the site out there. If it's successful then you'll be invited to all those cool internet powwows too.
Interesting by whose standards?
Kind of smacks of a caste system .
Homeowner, we're working pretty hard to get launched. I put up the Gawker post because I thought it might draw additional comments about our proposed commenting guidelines. Although we haven't launched yet, we've had more than 600 comments posted on this site, so we feel there's likely to be conversation here after we go live. As I talk to people in the community, they seem as interested and concerned about how we'll handle comments as about anything else. But yes, I agree that what matters is getting the site launched and covering the community. Can't argue with that.
Baristanet is very different from the AnnArbor.com.
Some notes from an unreleased report from last year and a 2008 interview on Media Giraffe: "The editors say that objectivity is not something they are looking for in their posts" and "They try to post five stories a day, every day of the week." I'm assuming AnnArbor.com will be a large, more traditional operation.
Baristanet originally had open comments, but like nearly ever other open community system, that was changed "to block spammers and control malicious content ... Readers must be registered and logged in to post comments and the administrator can block abusive users"
Dealing with problems as they come is generally a good idea -- except in the case of poisonous comments, where a bad atmosphere can set the tone of the site for a long time.
This comment was sent to me by e-mail from Steve Skripnik. With his permission, I am posting it here.
I've written before to comment on website comment systems, but I wanted to emphasize a good newspaper comment system I encounter daily.
Sfgate.com, my former hometown newspaper site, has a great three-tiered comment system that allows people to comment freely, yet only reveals "constructive" comments based on voting.
What I would call "first-tier comments" are posted on the front page of SFGate.com with links to the articles they refer to. These comments are "rewarded" for being constructive by being promoted to the front page by SFGate. They rotate several times per day.
The top 3 recommended comments by other users (second-tier comments) are shown at the bottom of the respective article. Other users have found these comments to be interesting enough to warrant clicking a "thumbs-up" under the comment.
The other comments require an extra click to view, keeping the unproductive comments out of view unless the reader really wants to (and is prepared) to view them.
SFGate.com is one of the only newspaper websites that I can even stand to comment on, knowing that my constructive comments will at least be met with more constructive comments instead of racism and hate language.
Good luck rolling out the website this week!