Comments on: News site battles racist comments

By: Guruchel

Guruchel — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 19:25:03 +0000

som

By: Bob

Bob — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 16:25:22 +0000

cualis

By: Ron

Ron — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 20:11:47 +0000

rtramadol

By: John

John — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 19:13:48 +0000

myfreepaysite password

By: Maxx

Maxx — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 02:19:31 +0000

By: thedetroitchannel

thedetroitchannel — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 13:59:36 +0000

all in less than 12 hours too.

By: thedetroitchannel

thedetroitchannel — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 13:58:12 +0000

craigslist update:

after calls thru the night (i ain’t kidding there were calls at 4:30 this morning) and a guy under the van this morning at 5:30 with a flashlight) the minivan sold at the asking price with 2 people nearly fighting each other over it.

i had to look around and see if i was on candid camera!

un-f’in-believable.

car: gone.
cash: to wife

thanks again, craig!!!

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 05:26:01 +0000

Why not create a “HIGH, MEDIUM, LOW LANGUAGE FILTER” option? You know, like Google Images (to ignore the porn).

- Low is essentially off and you can see everything.
- Medium puts “****” in place of f bombs, racial, or other offensive words.
- High doesn’t display any post that has “offensive speech” in it.

By: thegrossepointechannel

thegrossepointechannel — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 04:13:37 +0000

make that 8 calls.

and i forgot to mention that a few of the folks who called really wanted to come out in the dark to see the car.

om!

By: thegrossepointechannel

thegrossepointechannel — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 04:05:35 +0000

ok, this is WAY off topic, but…

i’m impressed with CRAIGSLIST!

i posted an ad for my 1998 plymouth minivan at 9:30 this evening. it’s now 11pm and i have had 7 calls on it!

no wonder papers are done.

my first experience with craigslist and i am stoked.

thanks, craig!

By: Elllington

Elllington — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 01:43:12 +0000

You incorrectly characterize this as an isolated case of racist comments on one story. As Bob Norman pointed out, comments on stories throughout the site were laced with racism. The site’s GM made no real efforts itself to moderate comments, instead saying that it was the concern of Topix.net. Scores of other sites provide this feature but with the approaches mentioned above, they effectively weed hate out of community discourse. Sun-Sentinel.com neglected to do any of that.

By: Safran

Safran — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 01:06:43 +0000

Yelvington: Expand upon “registration and reputation management tools” a bit if you would be so kind. Jarvis argues against registration, saying it has the opposite effect of its intention. What do reputation management tools offer? What has your experience with them been?

You can always put the link in the field for your URL instead of in the Comment body - like I’m doing now to link to Lost Remote.

By: Steve Yelvington

Steve Yelvington — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 23:53:11 +0000

You don’t need prescreening or moderation to have decent conversations (as generally is the case here). You do need clear ground rules, leadership, presence and controls (such as registration and reputation management tools) that are appropriate to the situation. Topix is allowing people to post without registering. On a high-volume news site that’s not a smart move.

I continue to be distressed by the number of news organizations that outsource or just abandon their discussion spaces. I blogged about that a few days ago; I’d link to it but your spam filter woud bite me.

By: Safran

Safran — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 22:31:35 +0000

And here is where Cory and I part ways. I think that, once your audience has shown they abuse the service, that your only choice is to have moderated comments.

I see no harm in moderated comments. As long as you are filtering for language and not content, you are still doing a tremendous service.

A couple of days ago, I posted on a BBC Radio forum. Someone screened it, and then put it up. There are hundreds of comments in that forum. They are excellent. So what, really, is the harm?

We tend to get pretty idealistic around here. But pragmatism has to jump in at some point. By acting as a moderator, news organizations can help with the conversation of news while preventing it from becoming another Usenet disaster. In fact, I dare say that without moderated comment, all forums will follow Godwin\’s Law and decay.