STL Social Media Guy

A Friday funny: I ran across a guy registered as “Hugh Jass” on one of the stories on STLtoday.com this morning. His comment was perfectly cogent, interesting and added to the discussion on the story.

I saw another one later — also reasonable and polite. There was just that name. Hugh Jass. He took the time to register on my site, confirm his e-mail address — and used that as his username. Some people, eh?

I took an informal poll around the newsroom. Everyone got a good laugh about it. Leave it, they said. No big deal. Don’t ban the guy. I also Twittered about it, asking followers what they would do. Of the 14 people who replied, three were ambivalent, four would have kept him and seven would have banned him.

Several recommended I just reach out and e-mail the guy, telling him that I loved the name, but would appreciate it if he’d use another one. That’s what I did.

Here’s his reply:

Just for you buddy, I’ll change my name to something more appropriate.  How about Hugh G. Rection or Hugh Jorgan?  Those names more accurately describe my anatomy than Hugh Jass anyway.

Just kidding.  I’ll use a more unassuming screen name.  But seriously, are you going to deny a woman named Sharon Peters or Sharon Cox from using her real name?

Add this to the list of things I never thought I’d be doing back in journalism school. And thanks to my Twitter buddies. You can recreate the discussion (and follow-up) from here.

Here’s a fascinating look at the many places conversation can happen in the social web. It’s a representation written from the perspective of public relations professionals, but that doesn’t make it any less interesting or useful for journalists. Because, obviously, they’re having conversations about us and the work we do as well.

And, they’re talking about the stories that we want to cover.

This chart was developed by Brian Solis, principal of FutureWorks, an award-winning PR and New Media agency in Silicon Valley, and Jesse Thomas of JESS3. They call it the “conversation prism.” (Click for a larger version on Flickr.) Among his points on his blog, PR 2.0: Read the rest of this entry »

So, I go away for 12 days and a huge debate breaks out in the blogosphere about story comments, sparked by a curmudgeonly post on Gawker.com and Bob Garfield’s “On the Media” discussion.

It has been fascinating reading — particularly because we are literally days away from (finally) launching story comments on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s web site, STLtoday.com.

I am drafting guidelines for the people who will help us moderate story comments — which includes some of the newsroom aides. I would value any insights about them. See below for more.

This week has been a series of brown-bag conversations with reporters, editors, designers, photographs and newsroom aides to explain what we’re doing and why. It’s been refreshing to know that at least a few of the people who have been to these sessions have also followed some of the discussion in the blogs. Read the rest of this entry »

People, get it through your heads: Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act gives online publishers lots of protection from liability involving reader comments and other user-generated content.

So I really love this item on the Citizen Media Law Project site. It tells the story of a woman who was threatened with a lawsuit because of readers’ comments that were critical of Mynutritionstore.com. Read the rest of this entry »

Great post here from St. Louis blogger Reem Abeidoh that has sparked a terrific online discussion about a reader’s restaurant review and a pretty angry restaurateur. The blog item basically says that the restaurant owner threatened the author of the review on Yelp until it was removed.

I suppose that’s another strategy. Rather than go after the owner of the web site (in this case, Yelp, which I’ve blogged about before), the angry guy tracked down the review author. Read the rest of this entry »

More commentary on one of my favorite topics: The need, ability and strategies for taking readers comments on your web site. Both were forwarded my way by colleagues at The Mother Ship.

Item one, a column by Cincinnati Enquirer editorial page editor David Wells. He discussed at length the process the newsroom used to foster and moderate conversation around the Cecelia Slaby case. She’s the 2-year-old girl who died in a hot car after being left there by her mother. The mother later was not charged in the case.

Item two is from The Day in New London, Conn. It was coverage of a media forum surrounding the issue of reader comments. The story ran last week. Read the rest of this entry »

After my last post referencing Yelp and its reader-comment policies, I got an e-mail from Yelp’s director of communications, Stephanie Ichinose (eetch-EE-no-say). We had a great conversation about what it takes to manage user comments — and deal with retailers/business owners who may be upset with what readers post about them.

Yelp, which launched in 2005, is a reader-generated social networking site inviting reader reviews of businesses in a bunch of cities around the country. They have a St. Louis site, but it’s not actively moderated right now. Here’s a few of the highlights of the conversation: Read the rest of this entry »

The short answer to that question is yes.

I’ve been on the prowl for examples since I started working on my own church’s new web site (still not officially live), which will be powered by WordPress. The first pass at the site includes the default reader comments option on the posts, which alarmed some at our church. When I had a chance to present reasons for allowing comments, they were acknowledged as good points. So the idea isn’t dead. Read the rest of this entry »