Every so often I get a note like this and try to pretend it's not true:
"I really enjoy your Daily except for the non-stop stream of childishness in your comments section. I know that I'm thinking just like a lot of other people. It's like listening to kids in the back seat bicker during a long boring trip. It begins to wear one down. It would be nice to see them have their own page where their comments don't show up at all unless one browses to that "comments" part of the Daily. I'm willing to bet that some of the more egotistical offenders would "dry up" a bit when their comments aren't spread out all through the Daily. It would certainly be a relief to we "innocents" who just want to enjoy the positive side of what you're presenting.
Although there are also a good group of participants among the crowd, there is a culture of incivility, paranoia and "one upmanship" that is not getting any
better. It's so bad that you'd have to spend your entire day enforcing your
comments policy. I like the 'We make no promise to post any comment' one.
Sorry, Doug, nothing personal against you or the fantastic job you're doing
providing Ocean City with it's own online daily. It's just that I'm fed up."
The note came signed and by e-mail — the author, of course, not willing to enter the circus ring that is the OCNJ Daily comment strings.
One of the absolute joys of online journalism, I've always believed, is the immediacy and interactivity of online forums — an instant snapshot of the community, a public debate on vital issues, and perspectives and insights that add infinite depth to news reporting. But I've come to concede: The reality is that the comments section is now a long boring ride with kids bickering in the back seat.
Many of the comments have become a predictable and repetitive mix of misinformation, provocative statements, off-topic posts and personal grudges — the domain of "trolls," as the purveyors of the "art" have come to be known.
A little more than a year ago, OCNJ Daily announced a policy that required commenters to use their real first and last names. (Read more:
RIP Anonymous Commenters: A Eulogy to the Unnamed.)
The hope, of course, was that the removal of anonymity would lend civility to the discourse. The opposite occurred.
In a sort of reverse Darwinism, it became survival of the least fit — with a small number of the most zealous commenters dominating the forums and scaring off those unwilling to enter into the unending back-seat bickerfest.
OCNJ Daily has received 3,483 comments since implementing its new policy (along with 4,553 spam comments, though technology now does a nice job of filtering those automatically).
In the past two months, we've posted 660 comments from more than 150 different people. But just seven regulars accounted for 275 of those comments.
The premise of the new policy was "to post only items that are signed, constructive, relevant and interesting."
It's a noble idea, but it's lost in a sea of gray — with the editor allowing most comments to go through in an effort to separate his personal opinion from others' views, to allow response but not attack, to allow dissent but not blatant misinformation. Any sort of self-policing among commenters inevitably descended into a spiral of mean-spiritedness.
One thing is certain: It's a monumental effort for a small newsroom operation to moderate comments 24/7/365 and then to listen to the relentless protests of anybody who has been moderated.
Our time and limited resources are better spent in gathering news, and we've worked hard to build a reputation for providing timely, reliable, accurate and balanced news coverage.
And so OCNJ Daily announces the end of story comments. The comment boxes will not appear on new stories, and our "Recent Comments" stream has been removed.
The issue is not unique to Ocean City, and newspapers throughout the world are struggling to come up with policies to keep comments appropriate, relevant and sustainable.
OCNJ Daily remains firmly committed to giving a voice to the extended Ocean City community of year-round residents, property owners and visitors. It just won't come in the form of a free-for-all at the end of every news story.
We'll invite comments on select stories on issues of vital importance to the city. We'll continue to accept "letters to the editor" for consideration. We'll work to develop new interactive social media initiatives.
And we're always open to suggestions. Don't comment (you can't). Just email the editor:
[email protected].
