7 news story comment guidelines worth looking at
Eric Zorn
I came across a tweet by Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn in which he mentioned revising the commenting guidelines for his blog. So I wanted to find how what he changed, how, and why.
Back in October, I quit comments altogether (the guidelines were short: “Comments are not posted immediately. We review them first in an effort to remove foul language, commercial messages, irrelevancies and unfair attacks. Thank you for your patience.” (That is) still found on many other Trib Blogs).
I reinstated with the New Year an open comments policy, no pre-review, but here are my rules.
I think it’s in-part a software problem. If I were to be designing a comment area, it would have a somewhat elaborate registration/verification/authentication policy that would create a community of established commenters. I’m not all that interested in the drive-by anonymous pot-shooters and snark-masters. But I am quite interested in what a fair number of our smart, thoughful readers have to say.
His guidelines are conversational, yet frank. They’re specific, but leave room for interpretation — because there are always gray areas. There’s a link below to his revised guidelines.
The exchange got me hunting about for other examples of good guidelines. I’ve linked to a few that I’ve referred to in my own research. You might also look at the guidelines on the New York Daily News site (which come up in a letterbox link with all the story pages). I find their guidelines to be straightforward and useful, as well as conversational.
And the DallasNews.com site doesn’t seem to have comprehensive guidelines at all. They simply say, with their comments, “We welcome your thoughts and information related to this article. When leaving comments please stay on topic and be respectful of others.” If there are more comprehensive ones, I’ve missed them. Seems like they should be easy to find from a story comment page.
Eric Zorn commenting guidelines
I love: If you don’t like the topic, go away. And “comment control on a blog is not ‘censorship.’”
azstarnet.com, story page with guidelines
Each story page has the guidelines outlined right there, rather than linking to a guidelines page. As of now, they also include a call-out box that begins, “Hello, this is Debbie Kornmiller, the Star’s reader advocate. As part of my job I moderate readers’ online comments. What I saw last year was that at times civility and common sense were lost in these threads.” She goes on to reiterate their expectations of readers.
LJWorld.com commenting guidelines
Very conversation and comprehensive. Easy to read. I also love this: “It is important to know that we DO NOT review every contribution made on this Web site. More than likely, you will see user contributions before anyone on staff here does.”
Privacy Policy | MiamiHerald.com
Not very user-friendly, aside from the paragraph that precedes the comments on the story pages. This page is the legalese in the TOS. If there’s another page for commenting guidelines, I couldn’t find it.
User Discussion and Submission Guidelines – (washingtonpost.com)
Sounds like a lawyer wrote these. Tries to be comprehensive, plus catch-all: “we may remove content that we deem inappropriate for any reason whatsoever without consent.”
USATODAY.com commenting guidelines
I like that they’re short, but cover the waterfront. The good, the bad. “What you contribute matters, how you contribute matters, who contributes matters.”
STLtoday – Rules of the Road
These are roughly the guidelines developed by our corporate parent, and modified with stuff we saw from other sites (including some of those mentioned here).
I’m really interested in finding other good examples, if you know of any.
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View Comments on 7 news story comment guidelines worth looking at
Kurt, thanks for posting this. I’ve bookmarked for weekend reading.
I’m always interested in civil, thoughtful discussion. Couldn’t care less about drive-by snark. If you don’t like the article, move on to the next one, just like you would change the channel on the TV if you didn’t care for the show.
If you don’t like the topic, go away. And “comment control on a blog is not ‘censorship.’” is brilliant.
I’ve also seen flame wars erupt on forums when comments are removed. That’s when you use your trusty banstick on the trolls.
Hey, Kurt – you might want to read those at NPR.
I know they put a lot of effort into finding the same middle ground you’re seeking.
Jay, first, great to hear from you. Wow. It’s been awhile. Second, thanks for this link. Indeed, those are really good. I like the explicit explanation about not feeding the trolls and why — and what a troll is. I also like the warning against using the comments for individual communication.
Thanks for the great addition.
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