Would you care to comment?
Over the last few weeks the NCPR three-person digital team has been doing a lot of head scratching and a certain amount of soul searching. We have the feeling that we are spending a lot of time on tasks that don’t serve the audience well, aren’t spending enough time on some tasks that could make our work a lot better, and don’t have enough brain bandwidth left over to be creating the awesome and the new, which we feel should be “task one.”
The usual way of looking at a situation like this is to do a cost/benefit analysis and to prioritize tasks accordingly, or to look for efficiencies that can improve the outcome.
Photo: Scott Ableman, Creative Commons, some rights reserved
Which brings me to NCPR’s longstanding policy of inviting listener comment on all the stories we produce or bring into our website from other sources. The cost side is easy for us to see. Looking just at the stories now on our front page from the last couple days there are about 250 listener comments. These comments total over 25,000 words in length, about half the length of the average novel, and much longer than the combined verbiage of all the stories concerned.
Each comment has to be read and reviewed by someone on the digital team for purposes of moderation and for information. And this tally doesn’t count the comments that are made 24/7 on the many stories not on the home page at the moment, and also doesn’t count the comments that appear on the social media posts that share all these stories. And it doesn’t count the daily kilo of commercial or pernicious spam.
Eight more comments have come into my inbox while I have been writing this post. The task as it is being done now is, in a word, unsupportable by our small staff. Leaving aside the costs of managing frequent incivility, semi-private “flame wars,” irrelevancies, and data of dubious provenance, just the task of consuming the content of comments occupies more labor than it returns in value to our organization. A similar analysis has led an increasing number of news organizations to shut down this channel of audience interaction entirely.
However, as a public media organization, value to NCPR is only part of the proposition. So I invite you to tell us (in a comment below, appropriately enough) what the value is to you in having listener comments available on all the stories and blog posts within the NCPR site.
We don’t think it is appropriate for NCPR to cut off this interaction entirely, as some of our peers have done, but we do need to manage it differently. So these three things inform our proposed change in comment policy: 1) the majority of stories we publish get zero comment; 2) our current comment policy evolved before the rise of social media as a more powerful tool to support this kind of engagement; and 3) each story attracting comments has an author, who should be empowered to engage with the audience around her work, or not.
So we propose to change the default setting permitting comments on a story or post to “off” and to let individual authors hold the key to engagement with their work. Almost all stories that people do want to comment about also appear in our Facebook feed, and we encourage people to engage there, if they can’t comment on the story within the website. Facebook engagement is, as a rule, much more civil because people have to use their own names there and this has a moderating effect on their behavior. And we propose to direct comment traffic for stories we carry from other outlets such as NPR and other public media back to the version of the story at those sources, which have their own moderation policies and staff.
We aim to retain the value of conversation around the news and features of the day, but we also aim to not be so busy reading that we have no time to reply or to do our work or to eat and sleep. How does that sound to you? Let us know.
Tags: listeningpost
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Could you just require people to use their real names. I do.
Agree that you should keep it simple and minimize comments. There are many ways to interact and Ncpr should not have to bear the burden. I would add that the site in general does not have to summarize the world headlines. I go to the site for the north country news…
Thanks!
Very sound plan. Move it to Facebook or redirect to off-site comments page. The time you spend now on reviewing in-site comments could be better used to update a tumblr or instagram feed or whatever people are using most now. As long as the authors still engage with commenters on fb, you’ll still be getting conversation–and without so many weird comments/ mic-drops from the same 10 usernames over and over
Limit comment length.
“No Comment” is fine with me. I never read them anyway. Dale, I always read your editorial, admiring both content and style. Thanks for your thoughtful weekly contribution.
The only website that I regularly visit and to which I regularly both read and respond to comments, Talking Points Memo, uses a couple of trusted frequent commenters to assist in the moderation process, which, judging by the amount of time I spend on the site must be a prodigious task, so I can appreciate your dilemma.
They appear to be doing a pretty good job, because I find the tone of conversation, with a few marginal exceptions to be pretty well on topic, mostly free of trolling and vituperation, and has resulted in a community of frequent commenters who now find the interchange of comments to be the most valuable feature of the site, with the articles themselves only the hook upon which the comments hang.
At present, they block the commenting feature from the Editorial portion of the site, but I recently initiated a discussion about opening that up, and I understand it is being considered. I find that the authors of articles rarely contribute to the discussions, which disappoints me, but that may be because the articles are so often primarily the product of external sources rather than in-house authorship.
In any case, putting the process in the hands of volunteers would, it seems to me, be fully in the spirit of NCPR’s mission, and relieve the staff of a considerable burden.
Your proposal seem best way of handling the situation. I’d rather time spent on creating stories than reading comments about them. If something really bothers audience to the point of making a significant comment, undoubtedly a way to let that be known will be found. Keep up the good work!
Hi Mitchell–
It’s a good suggestion and might improve civility, or it might just cause people to use less obvious pseudonyms, but it won’t address the real problem, which is volume of material and its 24/7 nature for a small team that works weekday hours. Comments con’t be left unattended over the weekend, or through the evening on a hot topic. And we can’t spare the resources for an outside service that is staffed round the clock.
Dale Hobson, NCPR
Richard suggest limiting comment length, which would be very useful, but that is not an option provided by the third-party comment services we use, Disqus for news and feature stories, the native WordPress tool for blog posts, or any social media platforms such as Facebook.
Dale Hobson, NCPR
First of all, I understand the demands that monitoring comments must place on your staff. I’ve really enjoyed and learned a lot from being part of some of the conversations that interest me on your site.
My reservation, in reading this proposal, if I understand it correctly, is that an author may stifle the voice of dissent. Especially when one of the key players in issues around the Adirondack Park is one of your biggest contributors. People trust Public Radio to stand above bias in reporting the news.
I agree with your analysis of the commenting problem. Often not thoughtful and often mean.
Just appoint outside volunteer moderators. Then you can release the 3 to other tasks and still keep the comments section. Seems a simple and easily implemented option to me.
Your suggestion is an appropriate approach. Quit monitoring squabbles and get on to “creating the awesome and new”.
You’re a radio station, period.
Put Nothing on your website that is not playable. No more text only stories.
All stories on the home page have a play button.
For feedback, “Join us Facebook”
If an author wants feedback put his email under the story like many newspaper writers do.
All you can do is all you can do, and all you can do is enough!
If you want feedback do it like this, don’t run a chat room.
Keep up the great job.
Dale, I agree with all three of the proposals you make in your penultimate paragraph. They all appear appropriate given your analysis, which I think is valid.
1) cut all comments off. It’s a way to get a feel of what interests people in the area… but maybe you know that already. I see the Funiciello stories have garner the most, and the some have been critical of ncpr coverage. There is no other place to just post a comment about how ncpr is doing its job. Cut off comments would be a good way to cut out commentary and thoughts related to what the community is thinking.
1b) Why did you have comments in the first place?
2) It might seem hard to start a facebook account without a real name. But not as much as you would think. Pirate Edward Low, probably not. Eddie Lowe.. Ted Low…. Edward Loh all could could probably have an account. I might actually go set one up to see. I know PirateEdwardLow has a twitter account and a Disqus account.
2b) Good place to look at how popular (or engaing) facebook comments are look at Beat Authority it has 1,102 likes and a share of comments, the main facebook page has 8,771… a lot, but not a very big percentage of the listening area. but both sites are able to garner a feed, which is much more one-direction (ncpr to the people who ‘like’), so it isn’t so much a conversation, but kind of a monologue to certain people.
3) Commenting on some stories and not on others would be kind of frustrating. Already, comment sections are closed down when (it appears) things gets kind of radical, and of course that means it leaves some the inability to respond to a point.
4) Again cut out all comments. I don’t know how popular it is, but it seems all your call in shows do very well, and there is a chance people aren’t using their real names there… Does it serve anyone to know what people are reading (or at least recommending) in the north country? I would bet if you did a call in show on either the railroad or area politics, you would have a few people .. I don’t know… calling in angry?
5) Back to the politics… one politician who uses his real name and other politicians have posted on various stories, actually having a conversation with their constituents. But do we know that is his real name. It probably isn’t that important to have people who want to better NY21 or any district, wanting to discuss politics.
6) Who wants active. The fact that you (and others at the station) have to moderate a conversation on stories, shows there should be no comments. That has to be not just time consuming, but frustrating… not just when people are critical of the station or reporting, but of each other. Also, people begin to go to your stories because there are comments and are interested (maybe more about the comments than the stories) about what others think about the stories. Often these comments have put national stories into a local (loco?) perspective. While this might lead people to learn what people are thinking in the ncpr listening area, or what they want to know more of, but I don’t know if that is the right way to go about reporting news.
6b) sometimes there is more content added by posters, that is, links to other stories that flesh out the story… but maybe not flesh in a good way.
6c) these comments people make, probably should not be posted openly on a story… though they might be intended to make you think about how your coverage is viewed and interpreted, people should wait until FCC license renewal to voice complaints then.
—
While I think you should cut all comments off (if only because of that jerk PirateEdwardLow), I appreciated there has been a place to voice thoughts in the Adirondacks (until now). Not everyone might believe this, but i would guess ncpr is the #1 news source in the Adirondacks and parts of Canada. The fact that you have a grassroots funding source that helps you meet your goal year after year… all from small voices that listen to your big presentation (with the occasional comment), shows the importance. I believe you hit your goal early this year, with many donating so no bit of your big presentation is lost to pandering for money.
And clearly, if there is any humor in the comment section, it is missed.
Sounds like a great idea!
I rarely look at comments and wound not miss them at all.
I like the comment section and read them most of the time to get different opinions on the different topics , Find most of the regular commenters to be well informed and a lot of times helps to understand the story , Along with the difference of opinion and most of the NCPR audience is fairly civil towards each other , I say Keep them .
I went to see Pete Seeger somewhere about 40 years ago, and he had a couple of pertinent things to say: “You young people moving out to the country need to remember to voice your opinions. Wherever people get together and pass the time, whether it’s the hardware store, the bank, or the corner gas station, you have to tell them what you think, because it’s just human nature for people to assume that you agree with them. When you express yourself, you change minds, and that’s what we’ve got to do.”
Pete also said, “There are enough of you people (hippies) to elect anyone you want…but you don’t vote.”
I seldom believe anything as it’s presented, right out of the box. I came of age during the Vietnam war, and learned that our very own government could be wrong…usually WAS wrong, and would lie and lie and lie about it. As I became an adult, I was repeatedly shocked to discover that the stories taught to all American school children were either lies, or heavily redacted, half truths, and that some of the worst incidents in American history were simply non-existent…not in the book…not in any book.
So I enjoy the comment section. It helps me read between the lines. It demonstrates to me how different people and beliefs can be.
If I am struck by a story, I will email the reporter. I can predict which stories will have a lot of comments. The topics and the comments are a well-worn track, maybe a rut, of predictable positions and names. I’ve never seen anyone convinced by someone else’s arguing. Listening is a skill that allows us to made informed decisions, bolster our own opinions, or question them. Listening goes much deeper than speaking. By all means listen; think, and let things cogitate. I don’t bother with more than a few of the comments, as the thread is familiar and predictable.
The problem seems to be that you have created what I believe to be the best website and forum for discussion in northern NY, maybe all of NY, maybe all of the US. To me this is the town hall meeting for all of the North Country. Success! A happy problem.
your suggestion of driving eyeballs for national NPR stories to your Facebook page seems reasonable, and allowing reports to opt out on comments for their own stories might help a little, but (correct me if I am wrong) the majority of comments pertain to political stories or stories on hot button local issues. That seems to be part of the core mission, or should be, of NCPR. Judging from the “like” and “dislike” numbers on some comments there are a significant number of people reading comments, and the comments seem to be coming from people with a wide range of experience and far flung geographically.
Maybe this is a growing pain. Maybe as a community we are asking NCPR to grow…just a little bit. My guess is the problem is sporadic, mostly in presidential and congressional election years.
Have you considered putting on a part time staff person? Sure, it is a cost but maybe it is a cost supporters are willing to bear. people need jobs up here.
When you’ve built a better mousetrap don’t shoo the mice away!
I fully endorse the idea of requiring people to post with their real names.
I would also be in favor of limiting comments to 150 words.
Not in favor of Social Media because I seldom look at my own pages on Facebook and Twitter.
Let me be blunt about Social Media. If you don’t follow me, I won’t follow you, meaning I’ll never look at anything you post.
Since this site isn’t set up to edit, I’ll add a thought as a question.
Why do you waste time moderating?
I’m sure you have a problem with some words while I don’t. Sticks and stones, you know.
The reason why many stories are never commented upon is because so many news items fall into the I don’t care column.
Not your fault, just one of the realities of NEWS.
The site does need to be “moderated” if you are going to have comments – especially on the opinion-type stories (e.g. politics) . If there is no good 24/7 way to do that than you dont have much choice. How about limiting comments to subscribers who use their names?
Maybe if the station trusts the listeners to support the station in the “silent fundraiser” mode, the station could trust the posters to behave as adult and let you all do adult radio station tasks.
Commenting may be an assumed “right” for those that contribute to the station, as well as by the lurkers and trollers looking to provoke. If the preponderance of comments are uncivil, pull the plug. No recess. We will all be the lesser for it, or maybe surprise our collective selves and behave as we ourselves would like to be treated. If the current situation for the station is untenable now, what’s to lose? You hold the switch. You have a firehose worth of comments coming from a dedicated audience. Speaking for myself, I expect no answer from the station. Comments to my point of view from other listeners is indicative to me of my being on or off base.
D
I am in total agreement with Pete Klein as to a rational approach to commenting on the NCPR site. As knuckleheadedliberal pointed out, how better to attempt to convey alternative points of view, especially in an age when many folks actively shun any discussion about any subject with which they disagree with the proponents of. I turned off my television about 12 years ago and my radio about 5 years ago and have shunned the social media sites completely.
I am puzzled by the folks commenting to this inquiry by Dale, in that a number express the views that they never read the comments; however, would prefer that they be eliminated. Others express abhorrence at the tone or intent of the commenters and also would prefer that the comments be removed from the NCPR site. It would appear to me that those who, as they claim, don’t agree with the tone and/or don’t wish to read the comments are perfectly free to not read them. On the other hand it appears logical/likely to me that the actual problem, which the anti-comments readers find with the comments, is that opinions expressed in the comments are at odds with their views, concepts, and beliefs about life.
Ken – the problem is that if the site isnt moderated, the comments fill up with offensive posts and flame wars. Then there is no longer a reason to have it.
Dale, I do sympathize with your plight. Your unique writing style must not get stifled by you having to read so much, especially when much of it is junk. FB is not the solution, however; so much of what’s there is a total waste of time that I for one now spend almost no time there. The idea of having the author of a piece moderate the feedback is an excellent idea, if they are free not to post the crap!
I look at comments to see what others think. Sometimes I am first in line. If I comment is is to inject some thought or maybe opinion, particularly if I think the bandwagon is leaning too far to one side. The opportunity has often given me a chance to challenge my own thinking and I mull what others have written. Yea, I can be long winded but try to craft a reasonable relevant thought. I don’t do social media. Rarely see TV. Radio is ususually on in the vehicle nless I can get audiobooks. If it is gone, it is gone.
Peter, I had to look up “flame wars”, not because I had never heard the term, but because I was unsure that I had witnessed such on NCPRs’ blog. Having had numerous encounters with folks such as “Rancid” I would not consider my responses to be flaming and if they were intending to be flaming towards me it passed so far above my head that I noticed not. As Pete stated ” Sticks and stones”, words are easily ignored if one is of a mind to; unfortunately, many are not of such a mind.
I really disapprove of this proposed policy. I listen to NCPR everyday and visit the website for regional news and I really think the comment section allows public input. I do not have Facebook or other social media and do not believe that should be your solution to having too many comments. I donate at every fundraiser that NCPR holds, even though I was a college student with limited income and am currently graduate student. Although I know my donations are not large monetarily, but I will not continue to donate if you make this change. This change will severely reduce the amount of public input and honestly when reading some of the posts made by NCPR staff in response to certain comments/commentors on the on-fire threads, it seems there is a personal motivation to this policy as well as the logistical problems associated with too many comments.
I truly believe people should be very concerned if this is the direction NCPR wants to take towards reporting.
For those who think we could go without a moderator, I suggest you take a look at a site called “Topix North Country Now”, and find your way to the “Comments” section. Posters there are allowed to use assumed names and fictitious locations, and thereby feel free to let fly with the lowest forms of communication. It’s pure bathroom graffiti, punctuated by jealous wives, over protective moms, and race bashers.
NCPR has a more refined core group that listen, read, and sometimes comment, but I have a notion that Dale and Company have been shielding us from some of that low-brow stuff.
Dale, What is the real impact? How many different people do you have posting comments? I find it very interesting and am obviously engaged in it myself. But it looks like it is mostly the same short list involved (me included). I would miss it but I would still keep listening and reading. Requiring folks to use their names will not make any difference. It is all incognito online even if you use a name that is yours or looks like one that could be yours. It is not like you are going to start checking birth certificates at the bathroom door!
There is community radio and there is public radio. NCPR has maintained a terrific blend of both. As a member of the NCPR (and larger) community, I fully understand that not every music show is to my taste; not every story sparks my interest; not every comment reflects my views. But the mix is valued. I comment only occasionally but appreciate reading the dialogue and I can’t imagine NCPR limiting the many and varied voices of the community.
My suggestion: leave the comment sections alone and turn your attention to making the site load properly. (Agh. So tiresome watching that little circle spin and spin….)
Comments are important when NCPR misses something big and obvious. For example when a professor at SUNY Potsdam got his third death threat the suspect who was linked to the first two was not in custody. While you obviously couldn’t say he did it, you could very well have mentioned that he was free at the time. That was not mentioned in your story in any way, and is important because people were very scared. One of the big differences between NPR and right wing media is you don’t use fear as a tool.
This wasn’t like there were burglaries and some random person who had previously been accused of burglary was loose at the time.
I have always thought that you should screen local people who have knowledge on certain topics to comment on stories. We tend to get the same people who write something pointless on every single story. There are lots of educated people in our region. Find a way to get them to chime in. I would also screen more heavily. The standard shouldn’t be based on the comment not being offensive, the standard should be on if it actually contributes to the story. This would be a great job for an budding journalist working as an intern, or talk to a professor and ask them to have their students moderate the comments for a class project.
I support the proposed changes. I use NCPR as a radio station first and the website to follow up on interesting stories. I don’t go to website to read the rants of the few and certainly don’t support my gift dollars being spent to police them.
Turn the comments off –
BTW – it is a great site amidst the universe of trash out there. Keep up the good work!
BTW this sign in the picture is hilarious. I love it!
Limiting the length is an easy place to start. Almost nobody probably reads these diatribes that people post and you shouldn’t have to check it. Also, don’t allow folks to post political ads and other stuff. List it in the rules and if they break it a few times give them the boot. That probably might have gotten me out of your hair! But if it is a rule I would follow it.
Dale, I feel a bit guilty about commenting here today but one more. Why not just have comments for the NCPR generated content. There is a link to the story for the NPR ones let folks go there and comment for those. Would that be any more manageable? It seems like this season if there is a story about Trump or Hillary or Bernie or whatever from NPR you get stuck moderating comments that the NPR moderator should have to deal with.
Limit the # of characters. (as in this comment )
The last thing I would say here is if this issue at all effects what you report or how it is reported just get rid of the comments. Things like that make me worried about the whole thing. People can always write a letter to the editor!
Your proposed change(s) of operating re comments seems reasonable, rationale and necessary.
I visit few blogs, but have noticed that there is a method to control ‘civility’ by directing ALL
comments to a ‘screening’ by directing them to an INBOX? ; a ‘hold’ in force before actual posting.
Maybe ncpr could use that device, dividing the task, so that each author would work on his/her incoming
and decide to post or simply acknowledege or delete ‘sine commentare’ …
You think YOU got problems?
Howzbout good ol’CharterCommunications, whose email service still manages to go thru hiccups
where a few of your emailings of posts drop into my inbox AFTER the latest one,
but still are interpolated into my log in the correct order, based on your ‘sent’ date-stamp.
Sorta like the dog sitting on the broken china cup???
Waiting for Godot,
His incisive commentary,
Wait! Don’t pull the plug.
I think your decision to have comments directed to the author of the new piece is fine.
Dale, I’m glad NCPR isn’t closing the door on comments altogether. I think your proposal is good–some quotidian shuteye and the occasional bite to eat aren’t too much to ask for.