Sun-Times Web editor writing in vain

The interactive nature of the Net is such that the comments horse is long out of the barn. But you can set it up so comments are decided on (in or out) by a moderator, so the crap doesn't get posted.

 

Or Dooley, newspapers could admit they made a mistake and kill the comments completely. Just because the horse is out of the barn doesn't mean the horse can't be put back in when the blizzard hits.

 

You can put the toothpaste back into the barn, too, though you rarely can coax that damn horse back into the tube.

 

The many misogynistic text and photo postings on SportsJournalists.com, virtually all of them anonymous, are no different from the racist rantings that readers make on newspaper sites.

 

I would think newspaper sites and message boards occupy different solar systems, however, and thus are not an apt comparison.

 

One simple word differentiates the two: context.

 

You'd be surprised. You have a blog on XX team and you are likely to draw the same people who post to some message board out there on a non-paper site.

 

The context would still be different.

 

And yet Webby's not betting his future on selling advertising around the posts here, is he?

If we think that advertisers are going to come flocking to newspapers because comments increase the number of clicks, and that they're going to ignore the racist, mindless bullshit, then we clearly think our advertisers are even dumber than our publishers.

 

Like it or not, this site isn't much different. You've got anonymous people name-calling and saying smack that they would never tell someone to their face.

 

Actually, that would be the WORST option, because that sets the paper up for so many problems. Either block them, or allow them all. You can't have a hand in deciding whose comment is not too racist, or it becomes the fault of the newspaper.

 

Isn't that what an opinion page editor does with letters to the editor? I don't see how it would be different.