Outsource the commentary to other markets (read: news aggregators), insource the results onto the page. Everyone else takes care of the bullshit of moderation in their own communities, you get the benefit of readers seeing comments and becoming a part of the discussion on whatever platform they please.
NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments
31–40 of 463 posts
Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments
#32Their argument is bogus. It's either cost or a laziness in moderation. The ability to discuss specific articles and topics regarding specific source material is valuable. Having to search for the hashtag or article link on reddit or twitter to try to debate a topic is much, much less engaging, and is much more separated from the NPR writers and ombudsmen.
> Having to search for the hashtag or article link on reddit or twitter...
Isn't this laziness on your end then? Also, as mentioned in the article, NPR's obligation is "to provide information," not to "create and maintain a public square," Montgomery said.
Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments
#33I see comment moderation as one of the 'unsolved problems' left in this generation of the web. When I worked at Foreign Policy we worked hard to integrate new commenting tools and encourage power users, but we were just buried by the threats, spam, and low-value noise. Web technology scales, journalism scales (poorly, but a relatively small publication can pull big traffic), but right now there's just no substitute f…
I know someone running a company that aims to solve exactly this problem, and they were attempting to sell to NPR, too. Last I talked to them about it, they said NPR seemed interested but has the typical years-long enterprise buying cycle. So, this news is really too bad.
Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments
#34Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments
#35>There was the brimming idealism when in 2008 NPR announced it was moving from discussion boards to individual story commenting
Never visited the discussion boards on NPR. But it seems like a far better solution than "infinite comments" or the fragmented social media discussion.
Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments
#36Rude reader comments can warp people's perception of what was being reported.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/opinion/sunday/this-story-...
Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments
#37With all the sites getting rid of comments. I wonder if a market is opening for something like hackernews in other niches ?
> I wonder if a market is opening for something like hackernews in other niches ? ... or perhaps for a browser plugin that allows comments on any web page.
I've been meaning to write a "Dark Souls"-style comment/annotation system for the web, via browser extensions, for some time now. What better use of the web is there than annotating a site like "goatse.cx" with the message "Be wary of but hole"?
Genius is almost there now, but last I checked you had to open a new page (on genius.com) to annotate the page you're on, which ruins the immersion. And you can write freeform, which spoils the fun :-)
Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments
#38Cons: Requiring comments via Facebook means loss of anonymity.
Pros: Requiring comments via Facebook means loss of anonymity.
I suppose it depends on what your priorities are. If you'd like the insightful input of someone who might be close to the source of the topic at hand, but maintains anonymity for safety or fear of repercussion, then the requirement to use Facebook could be quite damaging.
On the other hand, if your primary concern is the nameless faces spewing hateful, racist, or otherwise inflammatory garbage on your comments section, the Facebook requirement with its real-name policy could go some ways to curtailing that kind of dialogue.
I imagine your average article discussion consists of 5% of the former and 95% of the latter, and so I can understand why they might choose to go this way, even if I am disappointed by it.
Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments
#39I see comment moderation as one of the 'unsolved problems' left in this generation of the web. When I worked at Foreign Policy we worked hard to integrate new commenting tools and encourage power users, but we were just buried by the threats, spam, and low-value noise. Web technology scales, journalism scales (poorly, but a relatively small publication can pull big traffic), but right now there's just no substitute f…
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Re: NPR Website to Get Rid of Comments
#40Their left leaning narrative can't take facts at this point. The sheer amount of lean really comes out of their choice of what to cover. They know it's easy to just offload comments onto another service. Any news source w/o comments is basically propaganda at this point.
I would accuse you of trolling, but I suspect you're actually serious. I find that immensely entertaining.
You ARE aware that discussion of an article can happen on a different forum, right? Like, say, Hacker News.
But then, I work at a news source, so what do I know.