The Ventura County Star, which has been making strong strides toward interactivity, has disabled reader comments on articles.
According to an article on the site, the comments function was turned on in January and was largely successful at engaging readers. However, "there have also been those who abused the
system. Their comments were full of profanity. They personally attacked
individuals, both persons related to news stories and others who were
commenting on the website."
Fortunately, the editors recognize the value of direct reader input on articles and they're looking for ways to bring it back. They want a system with "controls that our readers need and don't require us to hire a fulltime babysitter to monitor the comments," according to a blog post by John Moore, AME for new media and technology.
It's not clear to me what level of moderation existed before, such as whether readers had to register before posting. As Leonard Witt suggests at the Public Journalism Network, using some form of citizen moderators may be at least part of the solution.
Meanwhile, the site still is running its forums for reader discussion that are independent from articles.
Hey, Tom: I started an email list for people running/interested in local news weblogs. Come on in, the water's fine: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/localnewsapalooza/
Posted by: Lisa Williams | Friday, May 27, 2005 at 07:10 PM