Plain Dealer editor acknowledges vitriolic reader comments, throws up her hands

At least she acknowledges the problem. Her solution is rather laughable -- ask people to be nice.

http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/05/anonymity_of_the_internet_attr.html

 

So she's been to our politics board, then...

 

Translation: We'd rather "interact" with our readers than act responsibly by setting up a more rigorous registration requirement and/or subjecting comments to an approval process before they get posted.

It would be a good start to prohibit posts from highly disposable free e-mail accounts such as Yahoo and Hotmail. Yes, your comment traffic would decrease by 75 percent, but you would also rid yourself of perhaps 95 percent of dumber-than-your-mother's-tulip-plants fodder.

Quality, not quantity.

 

Oh, the pits and pratfalls of having a "conversation" with your reader-viewer-consumer.

 

But ... but ... it's free content!

 

Except, when it comes to the Internet, it's quantity that pays the bills (er, at least in theory).

So this will not happen.

 

Reader comment threads should die, horribly, now.

 

because we don't like them or because readers don't like them?

 

Because all too often they add nothing of substance to the debate. Better off without them.

 

but by whose judgement are they adding nothing? i hate them as much as anyone but then i see stories that draw hundreds of responses so someone, somewhere likes them.

 

Re: Plain Dealer editor acknowledges vitriolic reader comments, throws up her ha

Newspaper reader comments are used by people who are piggybacking on your brand name and hiding behind anonymity to make comments that couldn't be published IN A STORY!!! in reasonable newspaper usage. They HURT the newspaper as a business enterprise by damaging its brand. I mean, if an advertiser, and I read most comment postings, I want nothing to do with your Internet readers. They're either nuts, scum, or both.

 

And at my paper, the yahoos who "comment" begin, within three posts, to reduce the "conversation" to a pissing match which has nothing to do with the original anything. Exactly what benefit is that to anyone?

One time, one of our "commenters" began with him calling me an idiot, saying we didn't cover College A. I replied, under my own name, rebutted his argument, and called him the idiot, citing the evidence. I got called into an office and told I couldn't call people idiots, with or without evidence. So you can say what you want, however you want, and there is nothing you can or the paper is willing to do about it. Lovely.

The guy was an idiot, though.