Printed Matters

In the interest of balance, let’s discuss five reasons to avoid letting users comment on stories on news websites – to go with yesterday’s 10 reasons to do comments.

1. Moderation – the labour involved in moderating comments can be substantial. At CBC.ca, for example, they’ve hired an outside company just to take care of moderating comments on their news stories and in special discussions set up for the purpose of soliciting reader comments.
2. Glib responses – given an easy venue for comment, readers may choose to write short, not-very-well-thought-out responses to issues rather than the longer, more thought-out essays they would have written in a letter to the editor.
3. Libel issues – even with moderation, the volume of comments may preclude busy editors from checking the comments for defamatory materials.
4. Maintaining tone – every newspaper or news organization has a particular voice and character that editors maintain with special care in its publication – including its websites. Comments may swamp or overwhelm that voice.
5. Advertiser alienation – ad clients may pull campaigns if the things they see on your website – including comments – do not fit with their image. You don’t want to piss off your advertisers.

All of these points have to do with moderation, in the end. Setting good moderation policy for comments should make decisions quick and efficient. A for the cost of moderation itself: I’d wager that the benefits of added content and community discussed in the last post outweigh the relatively small cost of editing free, user-generated content.