For the Record
Dean Wright on Ethics, Innovation and Values
Toward a more thoughtful conversation on stories
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Visitors to this space may recall that I wrote this summer about the issues Reuters and other news organizations face in dealing with reader comments on stories.
I’ve become increasingly concerned about the quality of discourse in comments on news stories on Reuters.com and on other major news sites. On some stories, the “conversation” has been little more than partisans slinging invective at each other under the cloak of anonymity.
I believe our time-challenged, professional readers want to see a more rewarding conversation—and my colleagues who lead Reuters.com are introducing a new process for comments that I believe will help bring that about.
The new process, which gives special status to readers whose comments have passed muster in the past, won’t address the anonymity issue, but I do think it is an important step toward a more civil and thoughtful conversation.
Let me introduce Richard Baum, Reuters Global Editor for Consumer Media, to tell you about the new process:
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Like many major news publishers, we’ve agonized over how to balance our enthusiasm for reader comments on stories with our belief that few people would benefit from a free-for-all. Most of our readers respect our request for comments that “advance the story,” by submitting relevant anecdotes, links and data or by challenging our reporting when they think we’ve fallen short of our editorial standards. It’s rewarding, sometimes even exhilarating, to see the way our audience builds on our coverage.
Where we struggle is with comments that we believe contribute nothing useful to the conversation. I’m not talking about obscenities and spam — we have software that aims to block the publication of those — but something more subjective. Most of our readers are business professionals who value their time highly. We believe they want comments that are as rewarding to read as they are to write. The challenge is how we deliver that experience in a way that doesn’t delay the publication of good comments nor use up resources that might be better deployed on other parts of the site.
I’ll explain how we’re tackling that shortly. But first, here are some examples of the type of comments that fall foul of our moderators:
– racism and other hate language that isn’t caught by our software filters
– obscene words with letters substituted to get around the software filters
– semi-literate spelling; we’re not looking for perfection, but people shouldn’t have to struggle to determine the meaning
– uncivil behavior towards other commentators; debate is welcome, schoolyard taunts are not
– incitement to violence
– comments that have nothing to do with the story
– comments that have been pasted across multiple stories
– comments that are unusually long, unless they’re very well written
– excessive use of capital letters
Some of the guidelines for our moderators are hard to define precisely. Mocking of public people can be fair sport, for example, but a moderator that has just approved 30 comments calling someone an idiot can rightly decide that there’s little incremental value in publishing the 31st. When we block comments of this nature, it’s because of issues of repetition, taste or legal risk, not political bias.
Until recently, our moderation process involved editors going through a basket of all incoming comments, publishing the ones that met our standards and blocking the others. (It’s a binary decision: we don’t have the resources to edit comments.)
This was unsatisfactory because it delayed the publication of good comments, especially overnight and at weekends when our staffing is lighter.
Our new process grants a kind of VIP status on people who have had comments approved previously. When you register to comment on Reuters.com, our moderation software tags you as a new user. Your comments go through the same moderation process as before, but every time we approve a comment, you score a point.
Once you’ve reached a certain number of points, you become a recognized user. Congratulations: your comments will be published instantly from now on. Our editors will still review your comments after they’ve been published and will remove them if they don’t meet our standards. When that happens, you’ll lose points. Lose enough points and you’ll revert to new user status.
The highest scoring commentators will be classified as expert users, earning additional privileges that we’ll implement in future. You can see approval statistics for each reader on public profile pages like this, accessed by clicking on the name next to a comment.
It’s not a perfect system, but we believe it’s a foundation for facilitating a civil and rewarding discussion that’s open to the widest range of people. Let me know what you think.
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Everyone’s opinion is valid and it should be treated as such.
Nice and simple.
Are you going to moderate my comments if I tell you this is censorship, and a terrible idea?
Filter process? I don’t agree. There’s no freedom of speech!
I’m not sure if your software is working or not. My contributions are new to Reuters and the software indicates almost all of my comments have been removed, when they haven’t.
Also, I have a lot of “reported” and if what I am posting is viewed as abuse, I’d have to just paste poems about fluffy sheep!
i dont like this…you are picking and choosing who gets to say what. Unfortunately i dont see a way around the spammers and people who are not interested in meaningful debate. I will let you know if i do.
And again we have even Reuters that is having problems with posts. I would ask Richard Baum to read some of our countries newspapers that were in print during our countries founding. If you look closely it was full of comments. An example would be perhaps of Benjamin Franklin, (who by the way did me a favor by inventing bi-focals.)
Franklin was a Loyalist. He did not wish to see the United States at war with mother England.
Benjamin Franklin had been chosen by the Pennsylvania colonial legislature to represent the colonies before the crown. If the colonies were pissed, or sick of paying unfair taxes (or as was more often the case, not paying them), it was Franklin’s job to let the crown know.
Unfortunately, Ben really loved the crown. Right before the revolution, he had been trying, unsuccessfully, to convince the king to take back Pennsylvania from the Penn family, and put it under royal control.
So if you ‘censor’, and this is what you are doing, you do a great disservice to what is great.
It will come I feat to what Disqus is doing as well. It is too easy to moderate and not allow free discourse, even it the discourse is wrong.
Leave the comments alone. Do not moderate them. For in the comments those who understand what is happening will control the theme and take that person to task. I have see this happen several times on posts that are not moderated.
If you need to close the comment section after a fixed number of days or a number of posts.
Let the people post what they want. Elect as a bona fide news organization, to take it to another level.
Example: A lot of people angry over Congress’ inability and some inflmatory comments have been posted. Create a new comment section on: How did the constructive criticism help you understand today’s Congress?
Of course some will argue the point: What constructive criticism. Which is exactly what a news organization should do. Create an outlet for everyone no matter how angry or upset.
Reuters has been a very reliable authoritative news organization. Do not throw that away in moderating comments.
Reuters is not independent, unbiased nor is it disinterested as it should be. It is a mega corporation with economic interests tied to its news reporting. It is news reporting has to be seriously discounted.
Bravo, Reuters! I left social networking sites for the very same reasons you put parameters on the content of comments. I don’t like to read hundreds of inane and poorly constructed thoughts by people that are just venting their frustrations. I will certainly remain a loyal reader knowing that only credible, considerate and well thought out comments will appear on your site.
Other then vulgarity or the inciting of violence, let the comments fly. We can skip reading the garbage.
Everyone should have a chance to have their voice heard though.
Why does your censorship take sooooo sloooooooooowwww???
I have posted comments that take several hours at best to show. This only inhibits the dialog among readers/posters. At this time, your censorship method deserves an F+.
I just made a very intelectural post with NO vulgar words and nothing but respect and it needs “approval?” I will never read this web source again; nor post here again. I prefer to go to sites that have open dialogue. How sad…
Censorship is a very bad idea.
I agree in principle, provided that what is being censored (yes, of course it is censorship) is form and not content. We all have the choice to go post somewhere else, where foul language and personal insult takes the place of articulate argument. Also, let’s not forget, that freedom of speech is not an absolute right and it applies only to restrictions imposed by state’s authority. In any case, to paraphrase a fundamental Supreme Court opinion: freedom of speech does not give anyone the right to shout “Fire!” in a crowded theater.
i’m trying to comment on an article (http://www.reuters.com/article/comments /idUSTRE80J25K20120121). I don’t think my comment is offensive, i’m just disagreeing with article’s premise. And I don’t even oppose the view, i just don’t agree with the reasoning given. There is no rude language.
I hope my comment is not being suppressed because I disagree. Freedom of speech is not only a journalist’s prerogative, we deserve the same.
GARBAGE – censorship. Can’t stand the heat close it down
This is your website and I have no objections to your
rules as long as they are not biased.
As others, have posted a thoughtful yet critical post that took time, energy, and grit out of my day to do so. Not posting it removes me as a candidate for considering further ‘stories’ on the Reuters site. Censoring opposing opinion, which is obviously what this policy gives license to do without anyone but the poster knowing it happened, is problematic for an international news agency that wishes to remain a major player in the industry, whether others are doing it or not, which is one reason The Guardian and Huffington Post are blazing ahead of the pack. Looking forward….
Well, I must say that I have come to believe that the First Amendment is probably the single most important piece of our democracy. Your blatant attempt to filter and control commentary on news issues is a clear and reprehensible violation of the First Amendment. You should be embarrassed to call yourself a member of the free press.
I have just posted a comment with an article why I think the author is wrong. I have taken care to make my points clear, and I was in no way abusive towards him. Will Reuter’s censor it? At least it will still be on my Facebook page.
Seems to be a reasonable approach and if it stops abuse and unfair comment or innacurate comment then I am in favour.
I hope that linkage with comment on other articles is permitted as this sometimes gives credence to an argument or exposes contradictory statements to an argument.
I also note that being in the UK now seems to be a bar on commentary on Reuters US??? Also, some of your article ‘closing for comment’ times are quite arbitrary and with very short time scales. typically the Airbus 380 article on cracks in the wing structure (just one an example) which closed for comment as I was about to make one!
I totally agree with the concern for the tragic descent of public dialog these days and especially on these comment sections; but if you choose and pick only what suits your fancy; it’s isn’t a valued discourse even though you may have some of the riff raff. Poor concept. I will find little use in reading you comments section if they are filtered through your paradigm. For you to subjectively determine what is appropriate or not is no longer an accurate picture of the spectrum of comment. Many of your readers a mature to handle it. Thanks, daddy, for messing up a formally good news outlet.
I am really losing my respect for “REUTERS” as one of the few more unbiased internet publications.
I have posted relevant comments and according to your new policy on comments, pass the requirements that comments represent your desire to control what readers should be able to decide for themselves whether or not they want to read. You still haven’t included my comments.
This type of censorship is really unnecessary. I suppose the US congress doesn’t need to pass the bills they were trying to pass.. You will take care of it for them..
Please delete my account. I’m not interested in contributing to your distorted view of what your “professional” readers should be subject to. What kind of idiots do you really believe your readers are? “We believe they want comments that are as rewarding to read as they are to write.” what a bunch of hogwash.
Let the reader choose whether or not to read and respond to comments they don’t particularly agree with, in their own way, with their own words and ideas. NOT YOURS!!
Delete my account.
I’ve noticed that in the last two articles I commented on — both dealing with the free market approach to healthcare, and written by CEOs in the healthcare industry — my comments were never posted.
Considering the nature of the subject, the fact they seemed to receive no comments at all was a bit odd.
Both my comments were critical of a marketing approach to healthcare, which I believe is the wrong approach, but the healthcare industry in this country has a strong backing and would not have like what I said.
I do not consider this to be a coincidence.
While you seem to have “loosened up” somewhat in terms of your heavy censorship, on some other articles you clearly have a long way to go to achieve what I consider a reasonably balanced viewpoint.
For example, I consider Bloomberg to have a reasonably balanced policy on comments. They review before posting, but there is a very high likelihood of critical comments being posted.
Perhaps you could use a similar model.
Being able to see and read what others think about a particular subject is an important reason for having a news website, and censorship defeats this purpose, as well as destroying your credibility as a news source.
Your guidelines stated above appear to be reasonable, but clearly you are not implementing them as advertised.
PseudoTurtle
CPA/MBA
A better system would be to allow readers to rate the comments of others. Publish everything, but the garbage would be moved to the bottom of the list. Good comments would float to the top.
But I do not believe you will do this. You really want to censor comments, don’t you?
Typical of liberal biased news organizations “.Lets see if we like what they say .”
Is there a way we can see why a comment is abusive? so that we can then write what “reuters” wants us to, the next time around or at least try. Wrote 2 and 2 got tossed out, wonder why?