Managing Comment Sections

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: THE GOOD

Examples culled from GateHouse Media organizations

COMMENT SECTIONS: THE BAD

COMMENT SECTIONS: THE UGLY

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

TODAY’S TALK

1. State of the media on comment sections

2. Best practices

3. New ideas

COMMENT SECTIONS:STATE OF THE SPACE

Closed Comment Sections

Expanded Comment Sections

Closed, then Re-Opened Comment Sections

COMMENT SECTIONS:STATE OF THE SPACE

32% of Internet users reported that they had posted a comment on an online news site. (Pew Research, 2010)

TODAY’S TALK

1. State of the media on comment sections

2. Best practices

3. New ideas

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

COMMENT SECTIONS: EXAMPLES FOR CONSIDERATION

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

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

TODAY’S TALK

1. State of the media on comment sections

2. Best practices

3. New ideas

#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

EXAMPLE OF OTHER RESEARCH

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