From a new American Journalism Review story about Gannett outsourcing abusive comment moderation to software firm Pluck:
To see if outsourcing moderation would work, Gannett launched a test at 10 of its sites in February in which moderators decided what to do about posts that had been flagged by readers as abusive. The test was a success, and in July Pluck began dealing with challenged posts at all of the company's online operations.
But with an estimated 165,000 abuse reports per month, Pluck still has a full plate. Based on detailed guidelines set by Gannett about what type of comments are suitable, the moderator judges whether or not a disputed post should remain on the site.
Pluck has 20 employees who provide around the clock support to about 100 clients. These moderators make hundreds of thousands of decisions on comments each month.
(Updated at 5:47 p.m. ET to change the original headline saying 165,000 abuse reports were from GCI alone; the AJR story leaves open the possibility that those are from all clients combined.)
Friday, July 23, 2010
9 comments:
Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
This is the first I read that Pluck is working with all GCI papers. Wonder if Demand Media's story products also appearing in addition to the USA Today Travel Tips. Do we know?
ReplyDeleteThe more I look at these numbers, the less sense they make.
ReplyDeleteThe story references an "estimated 165,000" abuse reports per month, then says that the 20 employees make "hundreds of thousands" of decisions on comments each month.
Even at the lower number -- 165,000 -- that's an average of 413 comments a day for each of the 20 moderators to review, assuming a standard 40-hour week.
I am sure they are hyping the numbers. It makes business sense for them to portray this as a horrible problem. But I doubt there are that many referrals from upset readers recommending some comment be deleted. I bet most of what they do is eliminate the comments flagged by readers rather than comb through all these comments in search of the offensive.
ReplyDeletePerhaps a single newspaper is a client. If they're handing all Gannett papers, then that's 80-or-so clients.
ReplyDeleteAlso, 413 comments a day works out to less than one a minute with an 8 hours worked per day. That seems reasonable to me, since Gannett's going to be paying for assembly line work here, not news judgment. Foul word? Kill it. Calling someone names? Kill it. Picking on a 13-year-old? Kill it. The only thing these employees need to worry about is getting carpal tunnel.
How much do you guys think Pluck is paying their part-timers to do this? $7.00 an hour? Are the employees located in the U.S.? If so, wouldn't outsourcing them to a country with lower wages be much more efficient? No one is going to know the difference, other than the folks who end up getting their posts cut for no good reason.
Demand actually pays its contractors on projects pretty well -- much better than a majority of its newspapers pay its people, 10:47.
ReplyDeleteIs Pluck handling the comments for topix too, anyone know?
ReplyDeleteThis posting is about Pluck, not Demand. But as far as Demand goes, "pretty well" is pretty vague don't you think? If you'd like to help us understand things, how, and how much does Demand pay its contractor employees?
ReplyDeleteI think Demand is the Chinese company to which I applied for freelance work after Gannett laid me off. Its online management had trouble with English and its piece-work pay was ludicrously low.
ReplyDeleteIts test edits were on copy that had information that wasn't factually accurate (besides being inane as news "content"). I researched and deleted info that wasn't certain fact, as I did in my newspaper career.
I didn't get the editing "job." I'm certain my grammar and spelling editing were fine, so I have to think Demand doesn't know or care about the actual content of its copy.
Anyway, the only way that piece-work pay even met minimum wage in America is if the editor did just a cursory glance for typos.
And now my email is on Demand's spam list. I now get unsolicited ads for its, and perhaps associates', scam products. The spam appears to start in China. Go figure.
Someone correct me if it seems like I'm confused about companies.
You're correct about Demand. It pays about $15 for a 400-word story, and gives the contractor lots of instructions on format, etc. Follow the format and insane lists of "what-to-dos", so the copy editors only make cursory changes for about $1.50 to $3.50 an article.
ReplyDelete