No more reader comments

Force readers to pay a $5/month for the ability to comment.

 

Outing alert: Sporting_guista is dickfitzwell/ihatedemocrats/republicanssuck69/fuckcommiereporters/anonymous/startribunehaterguy/ladyinred/Mark/anonymous/gohomeimmigrants/theydeservedit/lakersaretrash/obamasmuslim/mauer4ever/gargoyle666.

 

Fuck you

 

No wonder so many have complained about this place as no longer being a free flow of ideas and discussion journalism

 

Right, like I said above, force them to register and moderate comments.
And yes, it has everything to do with the times. I'm not even going to descend into the cesspool of dung that this the conversation of newspapers going out of business, blah blah blah.

 

Jesus, buddy, it was a joke. I wasn't inhibiting your free flow of ideas and I'm not sure what the answer is for online comments and some days I completely agree with your perspective.

But your first comment does, at least, fit in with the theme of newspaper comments.

 

Problem is, once you start moderating, you make yourself responsible for anything that gets posted.

If you don't moderate at all, you can at least claim that, hey, we didn't libel you because we don't moderate comments. Someone else libeled you. (I don't think that claim would hold up, but that's not the point.)

Once you start moderating, you become the arbiter of what is and isn't libelous. If you let something through, it's on you, not the commenter.

 

I think your logic is flawed. Stories are edited so there's nothing libelous that slips through. You are responsible for ALL content, comments included. The ability to comment isn't a God-given right; it's your space, you manage it.

 

You are now asking newspapers to commit an awful lot of time for virtually no gain.

 

Seems to me you're over-thinking this. I mean, how many comments are you going to actually have to put out to an internal vote for a thumbs up, thumbs down? Again, ignore/downplay the Web at your own peril. Let the flames begin.

 

No. 1, you still have to read them all.

No. 2, have you actually worked at a paper and read some of the shit that comes through? It's a playground for the flagrantly racist and the willfully ignorant.

 

Your first post in this thread accused us all of being "thick-headed." That might have something to do with the tone of the reaction you get.