"Probably one of the 'Bad Boy Bengals' shot him. Black people and guns go together like bee's on honey."
Hello? Hello? Any editors there? Please explain how unmoderated comments like this contribute to a better Information Center. (And, no, I don't buy your disclaimer: "The interactive nature of the Internet makes it impracticable for our staff to monitor each and every posting." Costly, perhaps. But impracticable? Nope! You've just got to decide you don't want readers scrawling graffiti across your site!)Update at 11:01 p.m.: Looks like the comment's now been edited to take out the racist language. Excellent!
Got a profane, racist or other crazy comment that made it past your Gannett site's filters? I'm collecting examples for my new Commentz Korner feature in hopes of shaming editors into action. Send-links to Gannett Blog -- or leave a note in the comments section, below. (But be forewarned: I personally read and approve all comments on this blog before they get published!)
Examples? Oh, boy, I'll have to dig some up for you from our site. I used to moderate StoryChat before it was moved to another person (part of the "restructuring" for LIC). The new moderator had no experience and already had a full-time job before this was dumped on her. She's ready to tear out her hair over it all and I know she's looking for another job (go ahead and add her to the many who have left since Gannett came to town). I'm convinced that the "interactive nature ..." statement is only there as Gannett's CYA. Management (at least at my paper) doesn't seem to care as long as the Web hits keep coming.
ReplyDeleteGee, do I sound bitter?
Good stuff! Tell us more about how you "moderated" story chat at your paper. What percentage of the comments were you able to check before or after publication?
ReplyDeleteStoryChat is a godawful mess. When we launched it, we had a few of our IT guys who had message board moderation experience manage it. They did a great job and really made sure the conversations didn't go off topic. All you really have to do is hop into threads when they go out of control, and steer it back on topic. When posters know the mods are reading AND ACTIVE, they behave better. One day, newsroom decided that the IT guys were too heavy handed and StoryChat got absorbed into the LIC. Bad idea. They just don't have the time to deal with it or the experience to even know what's going on. So most of our threads now go off-topic and end up in vicious and abusive shouting matches between our regular posters that I'm positive dissuades our level-headed readers from even thinking of participating.
ReplyDeleteNewsrooms: Sometimes your best assets when it comes to online are in your IT department. Most of us actually ran your damn website before you even cared about it. Don't discount our experience just because we don't have a journalism degree.
You're right about IT. I wonder if that's why I keep running into tension between the dot-com folks and the print folks.
ReplyDelete"Most of us actually ran your damn website before you even cared about it. Don't discount our experience just because we don't have a journalism degree."
ReplyDeleteThat comment made my day ... exactly what Gannett web folks are going through these days ... as newsroom people just start to ask questions that were being answered by "those web people" years ago.
So, how can you guys bridge this divide between print and online staffers?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous #2 back.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure it can be bridged. Papers all over Gannett marginalized their non-newsroom online staffers once the new Content Management System (Saxotech) went into place. The message was "Hey...you don't need those geeks anymore now that you can point and click to add a story to the website!" It was frustrating and confusing to us in IT, since we had gone from being partners with news in the whole online project to being scolded by editors when we touched the site to try and fix broken images and/or bad links.
I do know that all Gannett sites will have the same design (and feature one of 4 or 5 color paletes) by the end of 2008. My coworker had to help the LIC editor set up the WebEx meeting, so he stayed and listened in. So there will be even less room for input when it comes to technical things.
I feel like such a chowderhead for not knowing more about the perspective from IT. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteHey, it's Anonymous #1. So I decided for very obvious reasons not to put any actual quotes from our forum here, but we've seen racist posts, threats of violence to posters, postings of fellow posters' telephone numbers and addresses and too many rumors stated as fact to count. This all goes live immediately. There is a "report abuse" button, but only one person charged with keeping track of the forum. Hard for that one person to be there 24/7, huh? I know that the tone of some threads has kept some of the more rational readers away.
ReplyDeleteAt our paper, we never used IT staff for anything Web. We always were outsourced. The "online department" is staffed by a few full-time editorial staffers who have had Web duties thrown on top of their already overloaded schedules. There is an editor - also overworked - charged with overseeing all this.