Reed Looks Like Atlanta Mayor; AJC Allows Vitriol To Flow
Decatur Metro | December 2, 2009I can’t say that I was able to sit around last night and await the verdict in the Atlanta mayor’s race, but a leisurely scroll up my AJC feed on Google Reader and a check on CL’s excellent, continuously updated election post gave me a good recap of the night’s razor-thin, unofficial win by Kasim Reed.
Reed is already making the media rounds this morning, making pledges of a new, better, friendlier Atlanta police chief. Low hanging fruit indeed, but really who could resist such a scrumptious political apple? Yum…police chief.
And though Mary Norwood is still promising a recount, the fall-out has already begun…in the AJC blog comments section.
It took precisely three comments on Jim Galloway’s fine recap of last night for the conversation to devolve into some sort of emotional therapy for those who suffer from knee-jerk reaction syndrome.
Why the AJC continues to allow itself to be a platform to yahoos and trolls is beyond me. But if it’s simply a budget issue, please suck it the heck up and hire yourself a comments moderator.
The New York Times has 11 of ‘em. Do Atlanta and its new mayor (regardless of who it is) a favor and hire at least ONE.
Speaking as a retired forum troll myself (way back in the halcyon days of USENET, when things were completely unmoderated) I can safely say that the AJC will never hire comment moderators for two key reasons; first, that would require spending money, and second, the ridiculous race-baiters, flamers, moonbats and other sundry trolls probably make up a pretty sizable portion of their pageviews. Every idiot hitting F5 over and over and over looking for something to raise hell about is a hit, and a hit is a hit, especially when you’re selling adspace, you know?
“Why the AJC continues to allow itself to be a platform to yahoos and trolls is beyond me. But if it’s simply a budget issue, please suck it the heck up and hire yourself a comments moderator.”
Obviously budget issues are very important — the AJC is hurting financially, we all know that. They’ve got to make tough decisions on where to put their resources. The money to pay a comments moderator has to come from someplace, and maybe hiring a moderator would come at the expense of some other more important position at the paper. “Sucking it up” is not a much of a basis for a rational business decision.
Also, what is the source of your urge to have comments moderated? I’m sure lots of stupid things get posted to the AJC. You can choose not to read the discussions, or to skim and then skip over the posts you deem to be knee-jerk reactions. Maybe the AJC thinks this is a better solution than hiring someone to simply delete the posts deemed to be ill-considered, offensive, stupid, etc. Personally, I prefer tomake up my own mind, even if the “cost” of that is to have to skim through a lot of trash to find the insightful posts.
I’ll take your word for it that the NYT has 11 comments moderators. They’re also bleeding money like crazy. This is what you might call unsustainable.
The consequence of flame wars and trolls in comments is not just a bunch of angry posts that you can skip over. It is poison in the well. When intelligent posts are consistently greeted with anger and ad hominem attacks, intelligent posters go elsewhere, or don’t post at all.
(I was tempted to close with “You got that, you moron!?!”, but wasn’t sure it would be taken in the fun-loving spirit it was meant.)
NYT is definitely bleeding money, but they’re doing a helluva lot better than the AJC, and have managed to maintain some level of integrity. Meanwhile, the AJC has morphed into a bastard hybrid of USA Today, TMZ and Highlights.
I fully expect the editorial page to be replaced by Goofus & Gallant any day now.
LOL re: Highlights
May I add to that by suggesting that we discuss who amongst their editorial staff would
be “Goofus” and who might be “Gallant”/
Great thoughts guys.
KOBP, I understand the appeal of catering to anything that gets you pageviews (though any advertiser worth his/her salt will also look at uniques)…especially when it’s the easiest and cheapest way of doing so…but I also believe that when you allow trolls to reign supreme you lose many viewers who aren’t interested in sifting through slander. And from a business standpoint, I’d always put my money on making any experience I offer EASY on the viewer. A large majority of people aren’t interested in filtering.
DEM, “sucking it up” wasn’t the basis for the decision, just the action associated with my unstated rationale.
I understand the AJC is bleeding money, along with NYT and everyone else that is still attempting to provide a wide-array of general news coverage. But I’d argue that “sucking it up” and hiring a comments moderator is imperative to any site that prides itself on advancing public dialogue.
Since the dawn of time, there have been two ways to convey information: the story and the discussion. The story model has long been ad-supported/something you could make money off of, but until recently the discussion was left to the kitchen tables and watercoolers. NOW, in an age of the buzz word “social media”, the discussion has become a place where you can put your ad dollars.
In my mind, that’s what this whole “news” shake up is all about. Discussion, which is much cheaper (but trickier) to produce than a well-researched story, is taking attention and as a result, ad-revenue, slowly from the non-discussion sources.
All of this to say, that if the AJC believes itself to be a purveyor of information, they must tend to their comments. Why? Because discussion can be a fragile thing. As soon as it’s hijacked by someone insulting someone else, it’s all over. Best of luck learning anything from that thread. Emotion takes over and it becomes a pissing match between two or three folks. That’s what reality tv is for, not a major daily’s comments section. You may still find a few well-meaning folks commenting within the AJC’s tripe while you’re filtering, but any sort of continued back-and-forth is pretty much impossible.
I understand some people take issue with any sort of overlord (like myself) determining what is appropriate and what is not. But the great thing about discussion is that to keep it alive someone like me is forced to walk a fine line and not stray to far in either direction. With no moderation, you have no discussion (mostly a land o’ trolls and haters). With too much moderation, you stifle discussion and no wants to post. I don’t really have a choice.
P.S. On my barometer, “offensive” is reason for moderation. “Ill-considered” and “stupid” are not for me to decide, and therefore are not reasons for moderation.
“Sifting through slander.” Nicely put, DM.
Well, as common ground, offensive — in terms of epithets, for example — is one thing. But I thought your complaint revolved more around what you termed knee-jerk reactions. Almost none of us are immune from those.
Sorry, probably not the best word choice. Don’t forget that I tied it to “emotional therapy” too. People ranting with little care for facts or actual debate. They just want to feel good.
That’s kinda what I was aiming at…poorly it seems.
I agree that the AJC comments are a cesspool. No section is safe from racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. remarks – not even the food articles!
I’m not sure what the deal is with the NYT, but a close relative who works in newspapers tells me that the reason most newspapers don’t have moderators is for legal, not budgetary, reasons. My proposal is that people should be required to comment with their real names, just like in the letters to the editor section, and possibly only subscribers should be allowed to comment.
I just got some clarification from my relative about this. It’s apparently both legal and budgetary. The legal problem is that if newspapers moderate at all, they open themselves up to defamation lawsuits. So, if they moderate, they have to go whole hog. This is where the budgetary problems comes in – in order to fully moderate, it takes a heckuva lot of full-time staff (in the case of the NYT, eleven). Most papers simply don’t have the resources to devote to moderation. So don’t hold your breath waiting for the AJC to start moderating…
That’s great info Paula! Thanks for following up with your relative.
Problem is…the AJC has already dipped into casual moderation, as evidenced by this recent Galloway post.
http://blogs.ajc.com/political-insider-jim-galloway/2009/11/11/its-time-to-play-nice/?cxntfid=blogs_political_insider_jim_galloway
So then, wouldn’t they already be open to defamation lawsuits?
Hmmm… don’t know. I’ll follow-up on the follow-up.
Even with sports or whale shark news, ajc.com comments go from zero-to-insane in about four comments.
The AJC comments are rediculous garbage and I have really pretty much stopped reading them all together, with the exception of the food section.
However, I really enjoy reading the comments on the NYT website. They are generally pretty thought provoking, and sometimes you can learn from them as well as much as the articles.
I like that the comments here are moderated. it’s done in a thoughtful way in my opinion.
Last week I was reading an AJC article about a Rhodes Scholar and in the artcile, a very obvious word, “the”, was misspelled. I thought, maybe an article about eduction should be better edited?? This is not uncommon, almost everyday really in the AJC. A friend of mine who worked there, said reporters are not edited before a story goes online (not sure about actual print.)
I used to work in content heavy media and it’s a struggle to do tons of work with less people working on things. Budget issues have effected everyone, but quality is important, it’s really the most important thing you have. It’s disappointing to see what were great and very original pieces, that i have read in other major metro papers the week before appear a week later in the AJC, but with an Atlanta twist. Insulting to the readers really.
Okay, so back to comments about comments.
Semi-monitoring would seem like a great opportunity for a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed intern. With pretty close supervision for first amendment issues under a more experienced journalist. Not saying to take out what i think most intelligent people would consider disgusting drivel necessarily, but just the comments, that read “first” “second” “third” and the like or people that post the same comments 5 times, or as i have seen on the AJC site, pages and pages of the same.
OK, i’m done. I hope no one takes a red pen to this…
I love catching my own typos after something has already been posted. Yay!
On an part of your post that hasn’t received much comment: I thought Galloway was a bit off actually in this morning’s Political Insider. He does make a useful observation that generational change took place in a couple of races.
To argue, however, that the voters were making some sort of calibrated choice for change-but-not too-much-change is plain silly. First of all, Kasim is about as far from a vote for change as you could get, given that he was the two-time campaign manager for the incumbent (and that’s not an anti-Kasim sentiment; just a fact). Second, voters just don’t make choices based on such abstractions — at least not the voters of the humanoid persuasion. A handful more voters voted for Reed than for Norwood, and there were a multitude of reasons for it. The sort of analysis that requires one to try to find messages where they don’t exist is very flawed.
On the other hand, MY analysis — that Norwood proved a white candidate can win an Atlanta mayor’s race — is brilliant.
It’s here: http://atlantaunsheltered.com/2009/12/02/lesson-1-%E2%80%94-white-mayoral-candidate-can-win-in-atlanta/
Allowing anonymous political comments is akin to allowing the KKK to hide behind their masks. When you have to show your face to the world, it cuts down on a lot of silly behavior.
I have to disagree with your analogy. While being masked online does sometimes open people up to an ugly level, it also allows others to say what they really feel (in a polite and non-aggressive manner) without fear of personal reprisals.
A good example is this blog itself. Like the city of Decatur, there is a very strong current of liberal thought here. Those who disagree with the left are often wary about commenting with their full names in the expectation that their relationships with their neighbors will suffer. I know this phenomenon because I’ve experienced it.
Thus, you can require the full name, but I doubt you would get people’s real thoughts and opinions.
It’s a conundrum whether or not blog posters should be allowed to be anonymous. On the one hand, I agree that folks would edit their thoughts and restrain their emotions better if they had to identify themselves. It would be easier to catch dishonesty or misrepresentation. Ideally, one should be willing to stand openly behind one’s convictions! On the other hand, it’s true that a lot of folks would not comment any longer on a local blog like this one. What if a neighbor doesn’t invite your family to a social event because of the liberal or conservative views you expressed? What if your child’s chances of getting a school award are affected by what one has said about school issues? What if a friend who owns a restaurant has hurt feelings because you said the food wasn’t original? You’d hope that no one would ever consciously retaliate but it’s unreasonable to think that people in a small town setting don’t do so unconsciously. It’s just human nature.
In addition, Decatur, like many small towns, seems to have a cultural belief that it’s not polite to question others in public. So you’ll hear people complain and express frustration endlessly in small groups to the point that they might even pull their kids out of CSD and put them in private school, or vote against an incumbent, or move elsewhere, or most commonly just give up and become passive-aggressive, but those same folks will never speak up at a School Board or City Commission meeting or write a letter of concern or indicate disapproval in any other public forum. The only way that you can gauge their frustration is by anonymous surveys or by their ultimate actions. I wonder if anonymous blogs give these folks a voice.
It would be an interesting to see what happened if Decatur Metro experimented with only allowing postings by persons who identified themselves. Of course there’d be some trolls and cheaters but I bet most would either comply or not post at all. It would be interesting to see whether this blog changed in nature. I know my postings would be a lot fewer and blander.
I have a hard time seeing the educational value of comment/discussion sections of web pages–aside from a glimpse into sociological and psychological aspects of media communication.
Like this blog, a person goes to these sites for information, news, and the comment sections are only effective in entertaining and showing a viewer how screwed up people are–whether they spout liberal or conservative or offensive or trollish views. I think a lot of the posters are just bored and probably not as caustic in person as their comments–real trouble comes when you take them seriously.
The whole thing is just like an ongoing masquerade party where people never take off their masks, and they can say what ever they want to whomever they want whenever they want. (I see an, “I want” theme here, uhhmmm…)
True sometimes but I gotta say, I have on many occasions either learned something new or better understood other perspectives through the comments here on DM. Yes, we all have our character personas but, back to the original discussion, this forum is pretty compelling evidence that you can boost the value of discussion through moderation. If it were a free-for-all that courted the lowest common denominator, I don’t think I’d visit nearly as often.
This is ironic, but, yes, useful comment boards should be moderated and if DM’s was a free-for-all it would lose it’s useful information value but, again, not it’s entertainment value.
I think, perhaps, too, that we are putting too much importance on the comment portions of the web–oddly, just like we are putting too much importance on other peoples’ supposed opinions.
I’m all for using our real names–hell, how about our addresses and phone numbers.
However, if you invite enough people, then you are going to get the lowest common denominator. (That is, without moderation.)
The world is your playground of “screwed up” people Gibbs.
‘Tis true, yes, but it doesn’t change the entertaining aspect of it.
DM – wondering how much of your time is spent moderating? Ironically enough I was wondering this earlier today prior to your posting this thread. One wonders if you’re hiring?
Slappy, I don’t honestly spend that much time “moderating”.
Probably the most time is spent reading every comment, but I would do that regardless. There really aren’t that many comments that get pulled or “blocked”.
Most of that has to do with the environment that’s evolved here. Self-policing is a beautiful thing. Flamers and trolls get ganged up on pretty quickly here, and not always by me, so they go find other, easier sites to invade (I imagine).
And when I say “moderation”, I don’t do the full, every-comment-is-moderated-before-posting thing. It’s only new commenters that must be approved before they can post without moderation. There were a couple cases of clear slander that motivated this, and I think this new set up works pretty well.
So ultimately, not that much time anymore. Knock on wood.
We’re skirting an important line of discussion here, one that only KBP hit on: We’re all talking about the AJC!
For a city that hardly give two burps what the AJC does or says, there is an awful lot of discussion about them and their policies. Dare we say that this type of controversy is actually good for the paper (rather than bad.)
What an irony that even a discussion of how bad a business is, makes that business more relevant in some way.