Presentation by the Engaging News Project MANAGING COMMENT SECTIONS
ENGAGING NEWS PROJECT
To provide research-based techniques for engaging online
audiences in commercially viable and democratically beneficial ways.
COMMENT SECTIONS: WHY YOU SHOULD CARE
1. Comments can affect what people think about your journalism
2. Incivility in the comments can affect what people take away from your journalism
3. Comments can build community
4. Comment sections can be a source of revenue
COMMENT SECTIONS:STATE OF THE SPACE
Closed Comment Sections
Expanded Comment Sections
Closed, then Re-Opened Comment Sections
32% of Internet users reported that they had posted a comment on an online news site. (Pew Research, 2010)
MODERATION
Why moderate?1. Demonstrates to commenters that
someone is monitoring the space2. Creates a better online community
Why not moderate? 3. Time4. Difficult to balance free speech and
building a strong community5. Lack of clarity on what action to take
WHAT COMMENTS TO TARGET WHEN MODERATING?
Important to have an internal conversation and guidelines. To get you started …
From NPR’s Code Switch (excerpt)
1) "Why Are You/We Talking About This?!?!“
2) "Group X Is Objectively Terrible, And I Have Proof" (or "It's Not Racist, It's Just The Truth")
3) "It's Censorship!" (Or "Your Removal Of My Comment Is Evidence Of Your Conservative/Liberal Agenda!")
From Huffington Post 1. Abusive, off-topic, use excessive foul language2. Ad hominem attacks including comments that celebrate
the death or illness of any person, public figure or otherwise
3. Racist, sexist, homophobic and other slurs4. Solicitations and/or advertising for personal blogs and
websites5. Thread spamming (you've posted this same comment
elsewhere on the site)6. Posted with the explicit intention of provoking other
commenters or the staff at Huffington Post7. Content that may infringe the copyright or intellectual
property rights of others or other applicable laws or regulations
WHAT TO DO WITH PROBLEMATIC CONTENT?
Delete the CommentDelete the Entire Comment SectionRemove the User
Best Practices from GateHouse Newsroom Handbook
Example:Selectively Turn on Comments
GETTING INVOLVED IN COMMENT SECTIONS
Journalistic Involvement: Two Views
Comments are the purview of
the site users and newsroom staff
should not respond …
Diakopoulos & Naaman, 2011, Towards quality discourse in online
news comments.
The tone changes simply because the user realizes
someone … is listening
Jon DeNunzio, Washington Post
REPORTER INVOLVEMENT IN COMMENTS
DesignPartner with local news station
Across 70 different political posts, we randomized whether:1)Reporter engaged 2)Station engaged3)No engagement
Engagement was respectful, highlighting strong comments
ResultsReporter engagement …• Reduced
incivility• Increased
provision of evidence
REPORTER INVOLVEMENT IN COMMENTS
Techniques to spark conversation and highlight productive comments: 1. Answer legitimate questions (e.g. “Good question Mandy…”)
2. Ask questions (e.g. “What are your thoughts on that?”)
3. Provide additional information (e.g. “Here’s a link to the bill text.”)
4. Encourage and highlight good discussion (e.g. “Tom, you bring up something interesting”)
TESTIMONIALS
“I’ve had a really positive experience getting involved in the comments. It encourages me to look at the comments section more. The readers respond well when I go in and comment. They generally will thank me for my response.”
-Jessica Parks, county reporter
The Philadelphia Inquirer“(Engaging News Project) put out a study that showed that having writers moderate and comment on their own stories improved the tenor of comments overall. A handful of reporters for the Inquirer and Daily News have started to do this and anecdotally, we feel it’s been pretty successful.”
-Erica Palan, audience engagement manager
#1: HIGHLIGHTING COMMENTS
Highlighting strong comments Example: Financial Times
Our homepage has a box featuring “best comments” from our readers. We invite our journalists to make suggestions for the homepage box. If a comment posted on their story appears in the box, their article usually has a surge in traffic.
-- Sarah Laitner, Financial Times Communities Editor
#2: SEEDING THE COMMENTS
Research found:
With 4 thoughtful comments and 1 unthoughtful comment, people left MORE thoughtful comments.
With 1 thoughtful and 4 unthoughtful comments, people left LESS thoughtful comments.
Sukumaran, A., Vezich, S., McHugh, M., & Nass, C. (2011). Normative influences on thoughtful online participation. In Proceedings of the 2011 Annual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI ’11 (pp. 3401–3410). New York, New York, USA: ACM Press. doi:10.1145/1978942.1979450
Could we use this insight to think about how to get comment sections off on the right foot?
#3: DESIGNING THE SPACE
Sukumaran, A., Vezich, S., McHugh, M., & Nass, C. (2011). Normative influences on thoughtful online participation. In Proceedings of the 2011 Annual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI ’11 (pp. 3401–3410). New York, New York, USA: ACM Press. doi:10.1145/1978942.1979450
Unthoughtful Design Thoughtful Design
(a) Visually casual and informal(b) captcha with 1 neutral word (e.g. magenta, curtain) and 3 low thoughtful words (e.g. sloppy)(c) Comment box label = Got something to say??(d) Comment box default text = Have your say here!
(a) Formal and serious appearance(b) Captcha with 1 neutral word and 3 thoughtful words (e.g. understanding)(c) Comment box label = "Please enrich the discussion by adding your comments"(d) Comment box default text = "Please try to make your contributions as constructive as possible"
Research found:
Thoughtful Design = More Thoughtful Comments
EXAMPLES OF OTHER COMMENT SECTION RESEARCH
Comment Structure
“Respect” buttonComment
Moderation
Civic Discourse