Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Sick of Internet Comments?

Saturday, April 12, 2014
Chicago Sun-Times and suntimes.com
Sick of Internet comments? Us, too – here’s what we’re doing about it
To our readers,

Starting this weekend, the Chicago Sun-Times and the other titles in the Sun-Times Media group will temporarily cease to run comments with our articles.

The world of Internet commenting offers a marvelous opportunity for discussion and the exchange of ideas. But as anyone who has ever ventured into a comment thread can attest, these forums too often turn into a morass of negativity, racism, hate speech and general trollish behaviors that detract from the content.

In fact, the general tone and demeanor is one of the chief criticisms we hear in regard to the usability and quality of our websites and articles. Not only have we heard your criticisms, but we often find ourselves as frustrated as our readers are with the tone and quality of commentary on our pages.

To that end, we are working on development of a new commenting system we hope will not only allow for free discussion, but encourage increased quality of the commentary and help us better police the worst elements of these threads. We’ll have more in the weeks to come on this development. In the meantime, we encourage you to connect with us on Facebook and Twitter to offer your thoughts, feedback and suggestions. This is your site and your voice is an important part of how we work as a community to better serve Chicago.

Again, we are not doing away with comments. But we do want to take some time and work on the qualitative aspect of how they are handled and how we can foster a productive discussion rather than an embarrassing mishmash of fringe ranting and ill-informed, shrill bomb-throwing.

Thank you for your patience – and stay in touch (@suntimes and TheChicagoSunTimes on Facebook).

Craig M. Newman
Managing Editor
Chicago Sun-Times and suntimes.com

COMMENTARY
I'd much prefer not having a single comment if it... (1) Doesn't stay on the topic. (2) Doesn't add to the topic in some way by providing more information which can be verified by providing a link to a source. (3) Takes a personal off-topic poke or slanders someone. (4) Contains plain old useless trash talking negativity.

Do me a favor. Read over comments left at other websites and blogs. Then see how many of the comments fall under categories 1-4 above. I think you will find nearly all comments fall under one or more of the categories above. Once they are eliminated, there's very little substance left.

That's what I have done. After lamenting in the past over receiving so few comments I now consider it a blessing. The few that do come in are either spam or jibber jabber nonsense that gets taken down before most people read these posts.

Would I still like to hear from readers?
Absolutely!
(But not from those like one or more of the four above)


I'm no longer gauging the success of this blog by the number of comments. Rather I've come to realize, by the large number of readers who visit regularly, a lot of intelligent people understand they needn't babble on needlessly about everything they've read. Because of that, I am grateful this blog has attracted a higher caliber of readership. I wish to thank all who visit my little blog. It's my hope you will continue coming back and/or continue your subscriptions.

Much Thanks Again
     LVCI

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