Commenting on our stories
News and notes about Philly.com
Commenting on our stories
Yesterday, when the Inquirer broke the story that four people accused retired Daily News sports columnist Bill Conlin of abusing them as children, Philly.com took what has become, for us, a routine step for a story of this nature:
We turned off readers’ ability to comment on those articles.
By default, commenting is allowed on staff-written stories and columns, but there are some types of content where we do not allow commenting, including obituaries (where readers often have the option of signing a moderated online guestbook) and wire stories. But we often – not always, but often – turn off commenting on stories involving crimes, especially molestation or sex crimes.
Why do we do this? Part of the reason is that these stories are particularly sensitive. Comments can impact serious legal proceedings for the victims and the defendants. The other part of the reason is painful: the comments on those stories can be particularly nasty, blaming the victim or reverting to racist or sexist stereotypes. They don’t add to the conversation and they hurt the victims.
So, in those cases, we turn commenting off. We did this on the first Jerry Sandusky stories; we did this on Kensington Strangler stories; we do this on far less attention-grabbing stories. Not always, but often.
I should add: Personally, I am in favor of commenting on news stories online. For a long time, the news conversation was one-sided, and the best readers who wanted to respond to a story could hope for is to perhaps get one letter to the editor published from the many received. We published a lot, and readers published almost nothing.
In a lot of cases, those comments have been positive additions to our coverage. I will never forget when our commenters revealed that a local school board was posting edited video transcripts of its school board meetings. The comments led to coverage, and the school board quickly reversed its position and posted the full video.
However, I am heartbroken by how some have chosen to use this platform. So, for now, when we have to, we use the crude tool of turning comments off.
But this story is also unusual because it involves a former employee. Readers have said that they want to be able to talk about it, and we want to ensure we are as transparent as possible regarding this story.
We have heard our readers, and we have added commenting to the stories (join in here).
This commenting is highly moderated. We’re devoting special staffing to it, and we’ll keep it up as this story plays out.
And in the long term, we are devoted to finding a better solution to commenting. Right now, we are testing a new way to comment requiring Facebook logins (you can see a test of that on staff-produced articles in our Entertainment section now; here’s an example.)
We’re hoping that requiring the use of real names will encourage better commenting behavior and improve the tone of our comments; assuming this test is successful – and so far, it’s encouraging – we will roll this out to other sections of our site.
In the meantime, thank you for reading. Feel free to leave us a comment below on these changes, or email me directly here.
Wendy Warren
Editor
Philly.com
Let's review some reasons for philly.com's adding an additional filtration system to its existing software. 1. After years of allowing most articles and columns active comments sections, it decides that it's time to permanently change the format because the entire method of how the reading public responds needs to be revised. 2. Current policy of not providing a comments section or closing them gives the appearance of subjectivity or censorship. 3. People and/ or groups/ organizations pressure the editors. 4. The reporting agency fears legal suits. 5. The reporting agency owns the bully pulpit and believes it can do as it sees fit without explanation.— lefty- Oh, one last comment Wendy: philly.com's decision to censor came the minute the Conlin accusations hit the news. Soft selling the reasons is pretentious, transparent and hypocritical. Give us a break! You already know who we are. After push turns to shove, the only format that will succeed is the original format. So forget posting veiled threats of turning to "Facebook" logins and requiring actual names. You and your editors know what draws the most readers.— lefty
I find it very disappointing that the Inquirer has chosen to employ "face book" for commenting on posted articles.
Myself, and many others, have no desire to provide information that could lead to some 'nut case' showing up at our doorstep for commenting on something that they may have perceived as offensive.
Count me as a former contributor.— Phiggles- Having to sign in with a source that makes clear your real name is a tonic for the racist insane commebnts that pollute the message boards on the DN. It works. Go to the comments section of news organizations that require a Facebook or other social media sign in and it is incredible how 180 degrees different the tenor of the commenting is. Only cowards require anonymity. I do not claim that I have never posted anything on this site that is in bad taste but I also say the same things right to peole s faces in public so in no way do I all of a sudden become an attack dog because I have anonymity but I do believe that over half of the regular posters on this site would be gone if they had to see the light of day.— UncleStosh
- Welcome Uncle Stosh. Isn't this a board name? Don't recall seeing your nom de plume on previous boards. I did read your ad hominem attack on my thread on Smerconish's board and responded to your contentions. And Stosh, try taking a breath, and putting a sentence or two together with care.— lefty
- No, my name is Stanley and all of my friends call me Stosh or Uncle Stosh(long boring story). I am willing to sign in with all of my information if it was required. The truth is that the DN boards are filled with some scary people whose opinions alone mark them out as dangerous. I will keep it simple. You have posted about 80 comments without moderation or censorship so what is your beef? I know in detail how you feel on this subject so why do you feel your voice is being cheated? I admit to being a little loose with spelling and grammar on this site but mostly because I have no respect for these boards and see them as useless entertainment not a place for serious intellectual discourse-for that I apologize to you since you obviously bring your best stuff here. I am sure you fashion yourself quite the intellectual but I haven't seen anything from you that would make me want to engage you in a longer discussion as your material has no nuance and doesn't rise to the level of thoughtfullness that I would require before taking you serious. Again, for this I apologize, if for only opening myself up to that cheap and easy shot based on mispellings or grammar. In the future, for you, I will only post remarks that rise above the typical 6th grade level of your own posts and we'll see if you can keep up. I just ask that you give me a break every once in awhile when I miss editing mistakes because I am on the cusp of being legally blind and it makes editing very difficult for me on this board. — UncleStosh
- While Facebook is not foolproof, it does cut it dopwn by about 90%. as i state in the previous post, you can go to sites that use this method and it clearly cleans up most of the racist and hateful speech. For the few who do slip through with contiued anonymity, it makes it a lot easier to get rid of those comments. Right now, half of the comments would need to be dumped because of racist content. YI like that you name "fake" names of serial racists on this site Buzz-Kill, so I'd like to add justacarpenter because at times I swear he works directly for the KKK. It would an improvement of the user experience if the DN could clean all of this up.— UncleStosh
- Uncle Stan, You keep referencing "race" in defending Ms.Warren's Facebook sign in plan. My comments rail against PMNI's misguided strategy to find reason to limit and/ or tailor dicussion surrounding the Conlin affair. Is that so hard to grasp? If you find the boards so distasteful, join a book club. The gatherings are more collegiate.— lefty
- I have spent the last hour reading the comments of the last few days. Here's what I think.....1). Let readers report abuse. 2) do not editorialize. Just give us the facts when it comes to Conlin. 3). Don't kill him in the "court of public opinion and. 4) Let the Civil Court do it's job. The truth will come out. Let's not rush to defame him before he has his day in court.— LRP/HHI
Comment removed.- Interesting how most other commentaries are sent to the "Collections" graveyard the day after the column appears, but Ms. Warren's hangs around for window dressing!— lefty
- Wendy,
It is very diffulcult to understand your logic here. Why did you allow comments to be flung at Sandusky and Paterno ? Conlin is one of your own and you choose to censor comments. How is this not a double standard ?— jgard0401 - Clearly, the Daily News should have ceased publication on the day Conlin retired. Hofmann and every other DN sportswriter should resign, give up writing and wear hair shirts for life. Because, just like Penn State coaches, faculty, players and students, they HAD TO KNOW about these crimes, right? Let's punish everybody who has ever touched a Daily News just like the Daily News sportswriters want to punish everybody who has ever seen a Penn State football game. Because a lynch mob is the only correct response to crimes of this magnitude.— tomB
- I've read the recent comments with interest; thanks for all of them. A couple asked for a response, so here goes.
To those who asked about how we handled the Sandusky stories, the fact is that we turned off commenting completely on all the initial stories, as we often do with stories regarding allegations of sexual assault. (I vividly remember that weekend; I made the decision to turn off commenting myself.) Eventually we did allow commenting, though we tried to watch that extremely closely and frequently turned it off on sensitive stories.
As to the person who asked about the "collections," which eliminate the comment thread - that's a really good question. This is a blog post, so it does not go into that format. Many of our articles do, one day after publication.
Thanks for the feedback on Facebook commenting. We're still testing this, and thinking about ways to address some of the concerns you raised (including privacy). We are very open to suggestions during this test; please comment here or email me at wwarren@philly.com if you have any.
Finally, to lefty: You asked if I drew the short straw. Nope, but I did do my turns watching the comment thread. I've done it before and I am sure I will continue to do it. It's a good way to engage with our readers, and I actually enjoy it.— Wendy Warren - I'm not sure which is funnier - philly.com's policy and subsequent altruistic defense of said policy or people who are upset at offensive (racist or otherwise) comments on these boards. Grow up for goodness sake. There are racists out there in our midst. Wendy, get your best team of reporters on that story, stat. I mean, WGAS. And above and beyond that, most people post comments to further the discussion. Or provoke others. Or be funny. Or because they're bored in their humdrum jobs. Or whatever. It doesn't matter why. The idea that comments on "sensitive" stories mean anything to anyone other than the poster is laughable. Let's get over ourselves. Oh and one final thing - BabaBooey to y'all.— figgypop
