The Washington Post, New York Times and several other papers are rethinking policies that allow online commenters to remain anonymous, according to a report in the New York Times.
The Washington Post, for example, is considering giving greater weight to comments that are signed. The Huffington Post is another example; that site is expected to announce changes that rank commenters based on how well other readers know and trust their writing.
Privacy Suit
Perhaps the most aggressive change comes from The Plain Dealer of Cleveland, which recently reported that several anonymous comments on its site that disparaged a local lawyer were made from the e-mail address of a judge presiding over the cases. The judge, Shirley Strickland Saffold, sued the Plain Dealer for violation of privacy. She denied sending the message and her daughter took responsibility for some of them, according to the Times.
A similar conversation has been brewing among corporate sites that host user-generated contentHere too, trolls and spammers and just generally mean-spirited posters turn a friendly experience into an experience plagued by hate and vitriol, eConsultancy writes in a blog post.
The take-away, it concludes is that developing a sensible comments policy - whether it is banning anonymous comments or merely setting some ground rules for civility - is a must for publishers who permit users to interact around their content.
To craft such a policy, eConsultancy suggests:
- Know who your users are - and remember that different kinds of content bring out different kinds of commenters.
- Check your content. High-quality content is far more likely to produce high-quality comments. "If you're worried about the type of comments you're receiving, you might want to evaluate the possibility that your content is part of the problem. Needless to say, publishers should not be surprised that sensationalist headlines and linkbait is a motivator for less-than-quality commenting," it says.
- Let the community filter. This can be anything from the promotion and demotion of comments via voting system to a simple spam reporting mechanism.
- Incentivize reputation-building. Instead of insisting users to provide a first and last name, look at ways to reward commenters who add value. Points, rankings, special profile features and the promotion of superb comments are a few suggestions.
- Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Nobody likes bad apples, but a few of them never hurt anybody. "Trolls, spammers and troublemakers can never be completely defeated, but if they're not ruining the experience for everyone else, consider whether or not draconian measures are really warranted," the post concludes.
