Ventura County Star: Comments Sections Restored

The Ventura County Star discontinued interactive comments last week after being bombarded by vicious online postings concerning race and immigration. Read the story in the Los Angeles Times (free registration required) here:

Thousands of Ventura County Star readers have posted messages since January, when the newspaper launched the feature as a way to connect with the community and let residents have a say, said John Moore, assistant managing editor for new media and technology.

Comments were posted live and largely un-moderated. But too often, Moore said, topic threads spun out of control, with readers peppering posts with profanity and engaging in personal attacks. Even the most routine story would degenerate into a string of invectives, often centering on ethnicity and immigration status.

The newspaper disabled the online comments section Wednesday, but Moore said he hoped to resurrect the feature, with tighter controls, perhaps as early as next week.

“All of us were sad we had to shut it down at all,” said Moore, noting an escalation in the online nastiness in recent weeks. “We didn’t have the staff to spend 24 hours a day watching this.

Now, the Star has restored the comments section albeit in a more moderated form. Read about this here:

Comments have been restored to the Ventura County Star website. But this time they’re coming with some stronger rules and guards to stem the tide of abuse that brought down the Comments last week.
And they’re coming with the hope that users will continue to step up and strike down the trolls and other offenders.

Here’s what we did:

All comments are routed through our online registration system. A script attaches the registered name to the comment. It also allows us to identify the email address that was used in registration. (And thanks to our friends at our sister newspaper Naples Daily News for doing this for us.)

That allows us to contact via email anyone who files objectionable comments. If they persist, we can block their registration in addition to blocking their IP address.

If we send them a warning and find their email is phony, then we ban them for violating the Terms of Service.

It also creates a self-regulating factor for many of us. By forcing people to use registered names (which should be their real names), we invoke the “Mama’s listening” rule: Don’t say anything you wouldn’t want your mother to hear.

We’ve also attached a basic profanity filter which will allow comments to be posted, but replaces the growing list of profanity with asterisks.

And we are encouraging, imploring and, yes, empowering readers to police themselves. We’re asking them to contact us immediately if they find objectionable posts. And we are still investigating the model of volunteer moderators (maybe not as extensive as Slashdot).

We recognize that the persistent ones can find a way around the wall. At least now they’ll have to work at it a little harder. We’ve committed to devoting some initial staff time in the coming weeks to monitor the comments. We’ll work hard at keeping them away. Our hope is that we’ll spend less time doing that and more time working to grow and enhance the site.

The goal remains the same: Create a home for civil discourse stemming from today’s news. We don’t want to control the discussion; we want to make it open and free flowing and comfortable for everyone to participate.

Will this work? We don’t know. But it’s worth us trying.

We do know that today one of the early returnees wrote:
“I am so pleased that the editors of the STAR have finally cracked down on the use of this web site for productive comments. …
Hallelujah! ”

That was followed a short while later by this response from a different poster:
“Your comment had nothing to do with the article. If you are happy with the new format then you should send an email direct to the Star. In doing so, you’ll avoid stirring up the pot, which it would seem was the intention of your post.”

Go forth and comment.

I am glad the comments section is back up although Flap has had some trouble today with the trackback section of some stories.

This is worthwhile endeavor even if some readers insist on being rude.