Reader comments on the website

Flash, with all due respect have you read comments on a consistent basis?
To the vast majority people who have commented on my stories I say ... FUCK YOU!
Embrace them? Embrace morons who are racist? Who criticize the newspaper I work for?
There is no "beauty about comments" I've read. Participation?
Again ... do you read the fucking comments?? They are meant to inflame and incite. Again, they are racist.
Now if the person would sign his/her name and we have a reasonable discussion? That's a different story. Anybody who suggests we take comments seriously from people who get to use their little cute nicknames like BigManBobby; JoeJackoff, etc., is an idiot IMO.
These are unsigned comments. My god. There is NO REASON to embrace people who are not forced to sign their name as on the editorial page!!!!
You give me your name? We'll talk.
You sign with some cute nickname and flame? To those "readers" I say again,
"FUCK YOU!"

Flash I ask you these questions. Please answer:
-- Why would I take seriously a comment from a person who doesn't have to put his real name when my real name is on my story. Especially when said person's comment is rude/mean spirited?
-- What is the value of allowing readers to post anonymously?
-- Why do newspapers allow rude comments from anonymous people on their Websites and make people sign their real name to letters to the editor?

 

Oh, I know. I was quite drunk when I posted that, meant for blue font by the way. I'm a big fan of the idea of making someone put his/her real name on a comment. Should cut down on the bullshit bigtime.

 

Absolutely ... I belong to a couple of news sites where registration is required and the moderation is done quite well. I see no reason why a newspaper couldn't do the same thing.

Oh wait, yes, I do. The paper would have to hire someone just to moderate.

 

What I don't get is why newspapers think this is a good idea. Has allowing anonymous comments on news stories translated into any revenue ever? Has it boosted subscriptions? I've seen no evidence that it benefits the newspaper in any way, and I can't imagine that a lot of readers who may be looking at online newspaper content aren't turned off by these comments and question the credibility and decency of the news organization. It's particularly confusing when I hear that we need to make ourselves more relatable and interesting to a wide group of people regardless of race and gender and then allow every racist and sexist in town an open forum on our Web sites.

 

Our chain seems to be obsessed with the number of "clicks" it can generate, but I don't think they know what those clicks mean or how to use them. And they mistakenly think that comments equal more clicks because people will come back to the article and see if their comments are generating replies. I think most people who comment on stories "hit and run" — they just want to gripe and then they don't care after that.

"Clicks" would be great if our papers were actually doing a good job of selling advertising for the web site. But they aren't. When those people "click," they're much more likely to see a house ad than one for anything they might use.

Reader comments don't do a newspaper a bit of good. Ours is even so naive as to allow people to send comments directly to the managing editor anonymously — and you don't even have to register to do that. The sad thing is, we could reply to these comments with answers we think they would find satisfactory but we can't because we don't know who sent them.

 

The last 3 posts on here are great! I agree with all. So logical.

 

That's why the number of clicks really don't matter, it's quality clicks! If you collect info on your readership, carve up that info and sell those names and contact info to retailers who know--through that list--that they'll hit their target audience, you can make a relative fortune! Those lists are GOLD. Clicks are not.

 

What happens to the price of your gold when your readers angrily let you know they don't appreciate you selling their contact info to merchants, especially those whose legitimacy you are unable to verify, and your customers are suddenly flooded with spam thanks to you because the lists of names and contact info keeps getting passed around?

Or did I miss the blue font?

 

Yeah, I don't see how selling personal information could possibly be a good idea here. That'll just piss people off.

 

Fredrick, you have some nuggets in some of your posts, but some of the rest and the delivery just basically leave me speechless, and that's where I'll leave it after saying, for the last time: The Internet isn't going away. Reader interactivity isn't going away. That's it. Period. End of story. So to continue on about this is just a lot of noise.

 

Yes. And as far as 'click' go, there's ROI simply in the number. It's proof people are reading the stories online, which could -- by a smart salesperson -- be turned into a reason for a company to advertise on your site.

CBC.ca does a great job of this and gets the advertising revenue (not withstanding, the CBC is also a federally funded media organization and blah blah blah, but still).

 

I understand this was said regarding the topic. But I love the irony. An anonymous poster says he doesn't like anonymous comments.