Where I live, the city newspaper started allowing online comments maybe three or four years ago. There is no policy, there is no accountability-- anyone can say anything he/she wants, under as many different names as he/she wishes. The result is a collection of jibberish so offensive I can't stomach it. It's a far cry from free speech. About a year ago a highly respected young doctor was tragically killed in a MedFlight accident and the comments were so wretched I haven't read the newspaper online since.

We also have an alternative weekly and you have to register to comment there. The feedback, while often controversial, is at least thoughtful and articulate.

A print newspaper never would have published "letters to the editor" that ripped the subjects of obituaries to pieces. Sometimes I worry traditional media is so amped to get on the social media train that they have completely lost their minds, not to mention their sense of dignity.

I agree. I don't think there should be comments on obituaries.

I agree, comments on obituaries is an absurd concept. I can't fathom how these people sleep at night writing such rude comments on someone's obituary. To Gwen's point, this is someones child, sibling, grand parent etc. What gives a person the right to interfere with the grieving process of the family. In death, we are supposed to honor the life of our loved ones since past. When comments like those highlighted above are allowed to take place, memories are not honored properly.

I think the article begs a larger question of personal accountability. There are few consequences for individuals actions as it pertains to online content. Do we make individuals responsible for what they write online or the administrators that run a page, newspaper or online community? Freedom of speech is such a fine line. Gwen- do you think there is a way for people to be more accountable without taking away this right?

Howdy!

This is a long response, but I sincerely want you and others to know that we're here for you and we want to have this kind of discussion and this type of idea waved in front of our faces. So grab a beer and some patience, and let's get to it!

I hear what you're saying. You'll either be thrilled or dismayed to know that the comments -- and management thereof -- are something that my boss and other folks here at the Camera are thinking pretty hard about. So when I got your note, I marched right in to ask him a few questions about where things stand in relation to what you've written here.

It may come as a surprise to a lot of folks who don't hear me talk about this often, but he -- that is, the editor of the Camera -- is a very online media-savvy guy. It would be fair to say that part of why I was comfortable leaving my former gig at the Huffington Post to work at -- gaaaasp -- a newspaper was that I knew I could trust him and the city editors (all of whom I knew previously) to be fighting tooth and nail to keep up with the quickly-changing technologies and relevant standards in media, and that they'd be open to any weird ideas I might have. I've been here since June. I still feel very comfortable with that.

OK! Sucking up and disclaiming aside, here are some thoughts on your idea (which is a nice idea, by the way):

Comments are a huge challenge for newspapers. There are a lot of reasons for that, some of which are emotional, some of which are legal, some of which are... I don't know, "other." So I'd like to try to respond using both of those frames -- legal and emotional.

The most interesting thing I learned from asking Kevin about this situation was that there is a different legal implication if we "moderate" comments. In case you don't know about our current model, we use "IntenseDebate, and we ask our commenters to self-police. There is a "report" button on comments. If someone finds a comment offensive and clicks "report," it's flagged and someone here at the paper will look at it. In all honesty, the people right now who are looking at these most frequently are our editor and VP of new media. (Didn't I say it was something they're thinking about a lot right now?) If it makes them squirmy, they delete the comment or ban the user (or even contact the user directly to tell 'em to knock it off which, you may not be surprised to find out, is not terribly effective).

So:

Q: Why don't you moderate the comments on stories?
A: The two best reasons are that we don't have the manpower and that it would put us in a legal gray area. "Moderating" comments is not what we do. When you "moderate" comments, it may a different kind of legal responsibility on you -- may, I say, because this is the kind of thing that's actually not been decided in court yet, but I'm told they're working on that -- and you might have to start fact-checking every comment and doing that kind of thing, in which case I refer you again to the question of manpower.

I used to work at HuffPost. We had a community manager who oversaw a veritable army of comment moderators. We did not have city reporters, county reporters, a science & environment reporter, a higher education reporter or other such staff. (And if you're curious about whether or not the Camera is a lean organization, trust me, it is; some newsfolk may be galled to discover that we do not have a "Web team" in the newsroom -- no, in fact, the news side has no Web team! We post our own stories, goshdarnit, and we tweet 'em and facebook 'em, too.)

Where was I? OK -- emotions.

Q: Why don't you shut comments off on obituaries?
A: Two-part answer -- one, I don't think you're just talking about obituaries. The struck pedestrian story is not an obituary. I don't mean to be a pain in the ass, I just want to be clear on terms.

Two, people do have things to say -- constructive, emotional, sometimes beautiful, sometimes clumsy-but-well-intentioned things to say. I know of no one who would understand the value of those things more than you, Gwen.

Here's a weird generalization about Boulder commenters: If a dog dies, the comments will be overwhelmingly sympathetic and mournful. If a person dies, you are much more likely to encounter the kind of jeering comment that you describe. They're not the majority -- and neither are the perpetrators of such comments -- but they're there. We sit in here smacking our foreheads! Why? Why put in the effort to write nasty things about the deceased like "he deserved it"? And so, a lot of the time, people will hit that little "report" button and we'll get rid of them. Sometimes, people don't hit the "report" button and they stay.

We fight the instinct to shut down comments on tragedy stories because of a handful of nice arguments against that. (So we have a struggle between bad apples and good apples.)

I don't know how much of our news you read, but a little while back, in a story quite like the one you reference above, a man named John Breaux was killed while riding his bike. He was well-known and well-loved and the comments floored the newsroom. It was an outpouring of emotion and mourning for this man. It seemed so important to have those comments open, not for any legal reason -- people get very confused about the First Amendment, by the way, and the way in which it pertains to online comments (it doesn't) -- but because it was this important, instant digital togetherness. It would have been a shame to have missed that -- and it'd be a shame to miss that in the future.

Q: Why is it anonymous?
A: We require an email address and we track IP address, but yes, the Internet has a way of being anonymous if it wants to be. It is very difficult to make things not anonymous. For example, one way would involve using a credit card. But would you run your credit card (even for no charge) to be a part of the discussion on dailycamera.com?

Thanks for inspiring me to go into the office and ask the question and learn. As is often the case, the answers are not very black-and-white, and they won't result in much in the way of instant gratification beyond more (and more substantial) consideration of the topic from a different perspective. But there's a lot of value in that, and I hope you find some value in this little novella.

It is a focus for us. We are working on finding the right balance -- and we are fired up to find the right balance. When people like you have ideas like this, we will listen to them and consider them.

best,
dave

P.S. I apologize if some of the thoughts are incomplete or fuzzy. After all, it is Friday at 5...

I should also mention that a "mission statement" or a "commenting policy" or something in between is in the works.

I've closed comments on most of the posts that I've written about my dad or about my grieving process, for two reasons: 1) I didn't want there to be any confusion (for myself or for my readers) about why I was writing, that these posts were not meant to provoke a landslide of sympathetic comments, that they were for me, for narrating my grief, and 2) I didn't want to risk any disturbing commentary. As it happened, I actually got upsetting e-mails (not terrible ones, but still upsetting) in lieu of comments, which I guess proves the point: in an open forum, someone is always going to end up saying the wrong thing. On most topics, that's not such a big deal, but on something like loss/grief/mourning? UGH.

I continue to keep comments closed on most of those posts. It's all that I can think to do. It saddens me sometimes, because the community support through this process has been tremendous, but it seems necessary to protect myself, and my dad's memory.

(Wrote about the toxic e-mails here: http://herbadmother.com/2009/09/its-my-story-and-ill-cry-if-i-want-to/ )

Thanks for writing this, Gwen. Such a difficult and complicated subject.

I've been lucky enough to not have any hateful comments yet, which sometimes surprises me. I probably won't establish a commenting policy until I do. I was going to put something in a while back, but I couldn't think of anything better than "Here's the commenting rules: Don't be an asshole. Thanks!", and I think that might just encourage people to be rude!

I really admire sites like Shapely Prose that have a strict commenting policy and actually stick to it. A lot of comments don't get published there, and I'm okay with that, if for no other reason than one of the purposes of that site is to provide a safe space. As far as news sites, I generally try to ignore the comments if at all possible, because I know looking at them will just upset me.

At an Ignite event I attended in Boulder awhile back, one of the presenters...well, presented a cartoon showing

Normal Human Being + Internet + Anonymity = Flaming A-Hole

Anonymity is at the crux of the problem. If we had to say who we are, our comment even when harsh would be better thought out. But, as Dave points out, it's hard to get folks to say who they are. Until we figure out how to do so, many comment forums will continue to be nasty, unhealthy, malevolent, petty. Think those words are too harsh? Try reading just about any comment stream on dailycamera.com...it's crazy, you wonder that those commenters don't have anything better to do that tear people apart.

I find the same thing on http://www.elephantjournal.com ...folks love to argue politics or yoga or anything in comments. More rarely, they enjoy saying something "nice." It's like an itch—99% of your body (readership) may be fine, but it's the 1%—the itch—that gets scratched (and inspires folks to comment).

I like how treehugger.com has handled it for years: the "SUBMIT" button says "LEAVE A THOUGHTFUL AND RESPECTFUL COMMENT" instead of just "SUBMIT." It gives a moment of pause, of self-reflection. And if I choose to go ahead with a scathing comment, well, as least there's been a moment of responsibility and consciousness around that.

Gwen, I think we're still having some difficulty communicating. You and I agree that there are new standards to work out. But here:

--
Gwen said:

One thing I'm going to have to push back on is this. You said, "Moderating" comments is not what we do."

Correction. Moderating comments wasn't what you used to do as newspaper people. Now, moderating comments is indeed what you do. The degree to which you do or don't moderate is the question. But it's not a question about whether moderating comments is what you do.

--

What I meant was that we don't moderate comments -- as in, the comments appear without going through a vetting process. They show up instantly (unless they get hit by IntenseDebate's spam or profanity filters).

By "moderating," I am referring to a process by which each comment would not be live until it had been read and approved by a moderator. That's the process that would cause both financial and legal problems.

It really is out of hand and it's only gonna get worse. Sorta reminds me of the HBO series Deadwood. Only it's not the ungoverned wild-west, it's cyber space and it's a free for all.

This subject is being discussed by concerned citizens, and it's a start, here's a comment I left on another blog, sharing the similar concern for cyber-pribacy and an opt-out option.

"Hmmmm. I believe we won’t see a big “privacy” movement until there’s some emotionally wrenching tragic event, could be a sensational murder, child abuse or it could be some sorta act of terrorism. Someday, tomorrow, next week or next year, something will rock the public perception of social media from social and fun to sitting duck and dangerous.

When it does, there will be a screaming public outcry, politicians will leverage the tragedy to spark publicity and enhance their political polish and on-line leaders will police themselves to insure continued growth, ad sales, etc.

In the mean time, there’s too much money to me made mining the data, voluntary protections aren’t likely. Most civilians aren’t aware of the pitfalls and negative possibilities."

Cheers Gwen.