CURATING THE SOCIAL SPACE: COMMENTS

YOUR PROBLEM

“In the past, we allowed comments on everything, but we had a few instances where

the comments became vicious. Commenters began attacking each other instead of

maintaining any sort of healthy debate, and in the case of a sexual assault story, they began bad mouthing the teenage girls that were the victims. Now we no longer allow anonymous comments, and there are some stories that

are not open to comments at all.”

COMMENTS > FORUMS

In forums, users set the topic You may have to censor entire subjects

With comments, you focus it Lets you delete off-topic posts

IMPLEMENTATIONS

Using your CMS

With an outside system Disqus

disqus.com IntenseDebat

eintensedebate.com

USING AN OUTSIDE SYSTEM

Integration with other social networks Avoid anonymous commenters without

requiring registration Tie trolls directly to their public online personas Easily ban repeat offenders Feed integration

E-mail notifications (not available with many self-run systems)

Block specific terms Reduce spam

MORE THOUGHTS

They don’t have to be available on every story An e-mail us link can substitute for some

uses Commenters don’t always have something

to add. Respond to users. Let them know

you’re listening. Don’t talk down to people. Develop a written policy and enforce it.

Encourage users to as well.

COMMENTING POLICY: STATESMAN.COM

COMMENTING POLICY: STATESMAN.COM