Newspaper Wants You To Pay To Comment
from the well,-that-seems-safe dept
It's no secret that many online publications struggle with how best to handle their comment sections. Should they allow anonymous comments? Should there be some kind of moderation? Well, it appears that the Sun Chronicle, which appears to be based in Massachusetts, has chosen to go to a pretty extreme position. Reader Shawn alerts us that The Sun Chronicle disabled their comment system a few months back, after it got upset about a few anonymous readers "disrupting" things. Shawn says "When the comments went away I found myself spending less time on the site but didnt care enough to complain." However, he recently went back and was surprised that, in order to comment you need to hand over your credit card, and the paper will charge you $0.99. Obviously, this is more to prove that you are who you say you are, but it does seem a bit distorted when the newspaper wants to charge people just to comment. Also, once charged, your name and hometown are automatically associated with your comments. I can't see how that's all that appealing to most people. The newspaper says this is "a necessary step," but I'm not sure how many people in the community will agree. Instead, they might just go elsewhere.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: anonymity, comments, fee, newspaper
Companies: sun chronicle
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99 cents
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Actually its going to bias the story toward the person willing to spend the most money. Think Lobbyist, and anyone else wanting to drown out discenting voices.
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Huh? It's only $0.99 to be able to comment, no matter how many comments you make.
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Wow! What a reply! Got anything substantive to say?
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Prior Art
The commentary their is routinely humorous and insightful and free from spam and (most) stupidity.
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Re: Prior Art
The commentary there is routinely humorous and insightful and free from spam and (most) stupidity.
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Re: Re: Prior Art
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On the other hand, it seems likely that the spam blockers may be focused more on offending IP addresses and/or domains as opposed to heuristic methods...
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Probably, but unfortunately the U.S. government is now seeking to turn the Internet into the same advertisement filled nonsense that everything outside the Internet has become.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100616/0137529843.shtml
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I've never had one of my comments delayed by it.
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I have had one held back. That was my post on all the URLs for all of rupert murdochs newspaper websites. It took an hour to show up.
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This is correct. We have a filter that catches most of the spam (we get on the order of 10,000 spam comments per day). It also tends to catch a small number of legit comments in the process (and miss a small number of spam comments that get through). We review what's caught in the filter pretty regularly and release it when we spot it. And if we see spam that gets through we delete it.
For the most part the automated system works with a little bit of oversight.
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For the most part the automated system works with a little bit of oversight."
10,000 spams a day?!?! Wow!
You don't sleep much, do you, Mike? :)
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But the PR of saying 10k comments a day are sorted through is priceless.
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We used Akismet in the past, but we stopped using it maybe two years ago when it slowed down processing of the site. We use our own filter tool.
But the PR of saying 10k comments a day are sorted through is priceless.
The system we uses filters comments into multiple buckets based on what triggered the filter. Based on that there are certain actions (not going to reveal what) that are *without a doubt spam*. Those are not reviewed, and those represent probably 95 to 99% of the spam on a given day. So, no, a human does not review all 10k spam posts.
So, a human generally has to review maybe 500 posts per day (usually less), and that can be done pretty quickly, honestly, since the obvious spam ones can be spotted quickly.
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The funny part is that most of my posts that get caught on the filter have no links in it.
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If the comment is on topic, it is posted. And, no, it does not mean you are a spammer. It either means that you have done things that look like a spammer or that you are using an IP address regularly used by spammers. If you use a proxy service, that could be the issue. If this is a problem for you, don't use a proxy service. Otherwise you have to wait for comments to be approved. That is the tradeoff.
The funny part is that most of my posts that get caught on the filter have no links in it.
Not all spam is link based.
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But the PR of saying 10k comments a day are sorted through is priceless.
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But the PR of saying 10k comments a day are sorted through is priceless.
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All barriers are bad always? Meh.
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I wouldn't pay
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Newspaper Posts: We value your opinion, that will be $10.00 please, thank you for reading our paper.
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considering the important points you missed in that story, would you perhaps like to add some stuff to this story?
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Enable your comments, remove the fee, and hire some 15 year old summer student to watch them for spam.
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Hahaha.
Never mind all the TYRANNY, LoHAN is going to jail for 90 days! I feel safer already!
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Well..
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Newpapers don't get it
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Re: Newpapers don't get it
Care to cite a source for this? And since when does more equal better?
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Hah
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Re: Hah
Hmm. First of all, this is not true. We've never not allowed a comment that disagrees with us. We have blocked out spam and totally off-topic comments. But even if the spam filter catches a comment that totally disagrees with our position, we let it through. That should be obvious from all of the comments that disagree with us on this site.
Second, even if that were true (again, it's not), it would be quite different. Moderating comments is totally different from charging people to comment.
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Re: Hah
You realize how many pro-copyright people we have comment? There's the AntiMike and Darryl right off the top of my head. They are kind of like the part of the family we love but completely disagree with. As a community you're always invited to the table for the dicussion, yes we may get rowdy sometimes, but I don't think anyone has EVER been intentionally blocked because they disagree.
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Cheaper than Something Awful's forum. And honestly, I think SA had the right idea. It works. It would be nearly impossible to maintain a community that vast and that hyperactive for so long unless there was some kind of standard of quality. And what better standard than having members literally put their money where their mouth is?
Of course, the catch is that you need to be on the same philosophical page as your members, and you need to be able to communicate your intentions in a way that they'll accept this hoop in the interests of quality management. Will that happen here? I don't know. It's an easy thing to screw up.
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Worth a shot
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Re: Worth a shot
I just tried to help Mike monetize this site by signing up for a membership, but the t-shirts in my size were all sold out.
Can't us XXL's get some love too?
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Re: Re: Worth a shot
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Can't us XXL's get some love too?
We'll be refreshing options soon... hang in there.
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There are special websites for XXL love.
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But, the main paper that I go to allows all comments without moderation and the site has turned into just terrible comments....all around....racist comments and insults everywhere....it is killing the site
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My letter to the publisher
J
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All,
I'm writing in response to changes to your online commenting policy, which I became aware of via http://techdirt.com/articles/20100705/15004510071.shtml.
While they are your publications to do with as you wish, I cannot help but strongly disagree with your actions. I appreciate the difficulties preventing a few bad apples from ruining things for others, these measures seem like overkill.
My objections are two-fold: requiring payment and real names. While $0.99 may seem trivial ("it's an iTunes track!"), there's a longstanding argument that there are two prices on the Internet: free and expensive (http://redeye.firstround.com/2007/03/the_first_penny.html). Even if the fee was only $0.01 and connected to some magic 1-click eCommerce solution, there's a mental cost associated with the transaction that will turn some potentially high quality commenters away. This isn't idle speculation - as those of us who spend our time trying to build communities will tell you, we often fight to lower barriers of entry (e.g., "Do we absolutely need to know the visitor's age/gender/location to do this function? No? Then don't ask it").
Likewise, enforced usage of real names carries with it a severe mental cost. While fees can be amortized to near nothing, reputation is forever. I'm unsure if I'd want my idle commentary forever linked to me by anyone who can search the web.
The core of this issue, and the reason why I wrote, is community and the evolving role that the fourth estate can play in it. Fundamental to that is the idea that while your corporation may own the stories and the publishing platform, no one entity can own the conversation surrounding them. At best, you can hope to cultivate a place where reasoned debates and insights take place. At worst, you can smother it by trying to control it.
Regardless, best of luck with this latest change - I'll be watching to see how it plays out.
Sincerely,
Josh
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NO Way Jöse!
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It is possible to pay the readers to comment
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sohbet
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sohbet
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chat sohbet
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Nintendo too!
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