I’m thinking that my comments about the comments on the Dayton Daily News lame comment moderation system is making a hypocrite out of me. I moderate to the best of my abilities and try to keep it civil- yet allow all viewpoints on this site.
Yet- while I advocate for comment moderation tools- I don’t use them. Intense Debate is another production of Automattic- the people who develop WordPress. You create a central profile and it’s used across all kinds of sites. Sort of like Disqus [1] only different.
Commenter Profiles
Commenter profiles let you and your readers learn more about each other. Watch the conversation go to new levels once you and your readers are able to get to know each other. Don’t forget, their universal profiles can be used on any site with IntenseDebate!Reputation Points & Comment Voting
Your readers will start to build their commenter reputations when they create an IntenseDebate account. Their reputation score is based on the quantity, and more importantly the quality, of the comments they've made across all sites with IntenseDebate. Bring the quality comments to the forefront.
via IntenseDebate – Features [2].
Both IntenseDebate and Disqus have their pros and cons as does the default WP system that I’m using now.
How many of you have accounts with either? Disqus is used by the Dayton Business Journal for example.
Would having a profile scare some of you away?
Does the ability to rate comments and having comment threading improve the experience here?
I’m asking for your opinions- since there are more comments on this site than I’ve got posts- it really belongs to you.
what are some of the pros and cons of intensedebate? it has me intrigued.
@Andy- both can slow load times. IntenseDebate may or may not allow me to do my “gentle” interventions on comments- to clean up messes. It would be thumbs up/thumbs down or delete.
It’s also dependent on other servers- meaning more to go wrong.
I think it might have been you who pointed out the DBJ site gets little to no comments to its stories. Since I “self moderate,” being extra cautious with what I say in a public forum, it’s no big deal to have a more formal moderation system in place. I can see where it might annoy some people, or leave out your faithful troll following (which has been pretty silent on here lately). Ultimately, I guess you have to weigh what’s going to keep the discourse moving in a spirited, productive manner against keeping people accountable for their words. Or you could just say it’s your sandbox, and you have the right to decide how we all play in it.
This comment has been removed by the moderator.
I like the idea of registered users being allowed to vote thumbs up/thumbs down on others’ comments. It’d be useful to be able to have comments with a certain number of thumbs down votes hidden, with the option to click to see them.
I wouldn’t worry so much, David E, about being thought a hypocrite for not doing on esrati.com what you advocate be done on daytondailynews.com. Esrati.com is your personal web site, although by allowing comments, you have made it to somewhat of a community resource. Daytondailynews.com is a different beast. And as Melissa says, esrati.com is your sandbox, so you can decide what the frak (this time I chose this expletive, instead of having the sandbox owner edit my comment afterwards to substitute it for another) to do with it.
Well, David, I have no qualms with any of the systems. However, any of them are easy to beat so in the end people who want to abide by the system will and those who don’t will use fake name generators, fake email servers like mailinator and others. So to me it doesn’t matter either way.
I’d say it comes down to your workload. Is your workload as moderator too high? Then install one of those things (but new tools bring new work and a learning curve too). If the moderation burden is bearable then stick with what you’ve got, seems like your spam filter works pretty well ; )
Why don’t we give Goldman Sachs a 250k ED/GE Grant to build at Austin Pike? Let’s do it! zzz
SEC Charges Goldman Sachs with Fraud
“Goldman wrongly permitted a client that was betting against the mortgage market to heavily influence which mortgage securities to include in an investment portfolio, while telling other investors that the securities were selected by an independent, objective third party”
Institute automoderation at the risk of becoming another nicey-cutesie vacum chamber a la DaytonMostMediocre.commedy. So succumb to mob rule, then the Metroids will like you; you too can be one of them.
@Donald- you are part of the reason I’m looking into this-
but- the idea of letting people voice their concerns and hide the crap isn’t solely the design of DMM- it’s pretty common all over. I’m thinking I’m going to put this in first (thanks to the suggestion by Bill Pote)
Show me what you censor, and I’ll show you what you fear.
So let’s see: institute a system where self-selected raters get to decide if a post impresses them or not.
Hey! That was the last City Commission election, wasn’t it Esrati?
I’ll figure out for myself if someone is a genius or clueless; fading their comments to gray due to others’ opinions only squelches comments from minority viewpoints (which, let’s face it, often turn out to be smarter than the common wisdom).
I still say that all should be required to identify themselves–as most respondents to this thread have done voluntarily.
@truddick- I’m in the if you are going to say it- sign your name crowd. I’m just trying to demonstrate a way to moderate – without going too heavy handed. I prefer a log in system- but it does slow things down a bit for first timers.
And- I could have it say anything I want- like/dislike, genius/clueless- I’m taking recommendations.
I like it. It gives a way for the lurkers to participate; people are more likely to vote than post a comment. We still can see the offending comment if we want, and we get more information about what readers think. More info, no cost = win.
Well- so far- so good. It’s an addition without forcing participation.
It allows a little community control- next is to try to figure out how to share the most liked posts.
Here is an article from the NYT on moderation: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/technology/12comments.html?hpw
Interesting bit about the Cleveland Plain Dealer lawsuit.
Thanks everyone for helping with this painlessly.
I think it’s a good idea and it looks like it works. Having low rated comments hidden is an effective and transparent way to moderate rather than deleting comments. It puts the control in the hands of the community of users rather than exclusively in the hands of the moderator. If people are interested in reading it, they have the option. It’s easy for visitors to forget that just because someone offers the opportunity to post your thoughts on their site, it’s not an entitlement to say or do anything you want. If you want to be able to post anything you want without limitation, then start your own blog on your own dime (as David has done.)
There needs to be more options than just genius or clueless. Often posts contains both.
Just proscribe me from the ‘social register’ and you can dispense with all of this. Or put it ‘to the people’. I’m sure to garner a majority of “clueless” votes. Then, you tribune ‘of the people’ you, you will simply be carrying out the mandate of the polity,comparable to Robspierre during the Thermidore.
Did you ease up on the spam filter? At least Mr Sale gives us an interesting example of Bayesian poisoning:
And the failed link in the comment seems to point to more of the same word salad. Silly spammers…
@jstults- every once in a while a spammer cracks the code-
sorry about the two spams. They won’t be back.