SacBee Changing Comment Format
Yet another newspaper seems to have had enough of nasty anonymous comments to their stories. The Sacramento Bee announced it will temporarily stop allowing comments while they decide how they're going to change the format. Apparently they don't know exactly how they're going to do it but will require some sort of login via social networks such as Facebook or Twitter.
Funny thing is, I read and participate in comments to the Bee regularly and haven't seen all that many outlandish comments. Then again, they say they delete hundreds of them a day (sounds like a full time job) so maybe I missed them. I also usually stop reading comments if there are more than 30 or so.
The comment I left his morning was that I don't mind logging in via Facebook. I just hope they don't switch to anything like the Facebook format for comments as so many papers have done. Facebook comments suck. Disqus comments work fine for me.
posted by Fred Mangels @ 7:51 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
we dont get to censor their news why should they delete out some comments? look what it did to the herald, ran it right into the ground, hope they realize its the readers who support the newspaper not the other way around, Good day Fred. puff n tuff
That seems to be an aspect that most businesses don't get anymore take banks for instance just 30 years ago my grandma was able to live off the interest from having her money in savings accounts at local banks now with all the hidden fees and bad interest rate it cost you money to keep your money in banks yet people still go out of their way to use banks.
THC
we dont get to censor their news why should they delete out some comments?
Because some of the comments are essentially trash with no redeeming value and don't contribute anything to a discussion. I don't have a problem with that.
At least they're not doing it because they don't like people disagreeing with the content of their stories or commentaries, as opposed to Popular Science magazine that seemed to discontinue comments because they didn't like comments questioning what they felt was solid science.
I do the same thing here in regards comments. I don't accept gratuitous insults or comments made just to annoy people and don't apply to the topic at hand. For example:
You're full of shit, Fred.
Gratuitous insult contributing nothing to the subject at hand. Deleted.
You're full of shit, Fred. Studies show....blah, blah, blah.
At least he dealt with the topic at hand so insult might well be accepted.
I might add that, while we don't know exactly how the Bee will handle comments or what format they'll use, it does sound as though they will discontinue anonymous contents. People will have to log in via Facebook, or some such.
While that doesn't ensure positive identification, it does seem to cut down on trolls that post just to piss people off.
The problem with logging in being that it often greatly reduces the number of comments. Times- Standard used to use Topix comments, which I liked, although there were a lot of crap comments. They switched to Facebook which I hate.
The switch to Facebook comments not only reduced troll activity, but almost shut down their comments. I suppose it could be switching to a paywall in addition to their latest "upgrade", as well, but comments are rare to the Times- Standard site now.
Good reporting fred. I agree with you on this. Not sure why I dislike Facebook, but I do too. I used to think disqus was the answer, but it takes forever to load. Comment section is a moving target but I think the NCj and TS are losing readers by not coddling them like loco does.
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