Newspaper Wants You To Pay To Comment

from the well,-that-seems-safe dept

Fri, Jul 9th 2010 7:03am — Mike Masnick

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.

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Filed Under: anonymity, comments, fee, newspaper
Companies: sun chronicle

64 Comments

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quickbrownfox, 9 Jul 2010 @ 7:08am

99 cents
Readers of the Sun Chronicle will now have to choose between an iTunes download and a story comment. Tough choice!
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average_joe (profile), 9 Jul 2010 @ 7:16am

I get where they're coming from. Some comment sections are just terrible. Charging $0.99 might weed out some of the idiots.
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lavi d (profile), 9 Jul 2010 @ 7:19am

Prior Art
Metafilter has charged a $5 membership fee forever. It certainly seems to go a long ways towards weeding out the morons.

The commentary their is routinely humorous and insightful and free from spam and (most) stupidity.
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lavi d (profile), 9 Jul 2010 @ 7:20am

Re: Prior Art
Metafilter has charged a one time $5 membership fee forever. It certainly seems to go a long ways towards weeding out the morons.

The commentary there is routinely humorous and insightful and free from spam and (most) stupidity.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2010 @ 7:20am

Imagine how many newspapers are lost in history due to 95 year copyright length. Unacceptable. IP maximists are so short sighted that they long term historical archives for short term profits. Can’t have past content compete with present content you know.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2010 @ 7:21am

Re:
that they trade *
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2010 @ 7:28am

So why isn't there more spam here? I know we get the usual troll but I don't think I have seen spam on any of the comments, unlike some of the other tech places which seem to have spam as the first or second comment, and there you have to register.
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Rick Sarvas, 9 Jul 2010 @ 7:31am

-
It appears that the 99 cents is the one-time fee charged to create an account that in turn allows you to comment on the Chronicle related web sites, and not 99 cents per comment. Not so bad, provided you don't want to post a rant that can be linked back to your name and address.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2010 @ 7:37am

No Comment.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2010 @ 7:39am

Re: -
Yeah, I think Mike already noted this.
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Anonymously Brave, 9 Jul 2010 @ 7:51am

Discourse is always poorer when barriers are erected...physical, psychological, or otherwise.
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imbrucy (profile), 9 Jul 2010 @ 7:52am

Re:
Charging anything is more likely to weed out everyone then just the idiots.
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Pixelation, 9 Jul 2010 @ 7:55am

Will the paper now be responsible for any comments made since they are making money from them? I imagine someone could find a way to have a faked registration.
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Tamara, 9 Jul 2010 @ 7:58am

Re:
They won't be making money from them. The one-time 99c for lifetime membership covers administrative fees.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2010 @ 7:58am

Re:
because each commment is reviewed before it is allowed to be posted, so the spam is denied. The only real solution to spam is human review, but it takes some time and money to do.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2010 @ 7:58am

Re:
because each commment is reviewed before it is allowed to be posted, so the spam is denied. The only real solution to spam is human review, but it takes some time and money to do.
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John Doe, 9 Jul 2010 @ 8:14am

Re: Re:
Comments show up immediately so I don't believe they are reviewed by a human. There are several spam blocker packages for blogs so I suspect Mike is using one or more of those.
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John Doe, 9 Jul 2010 @ 8:17am

I wouldn't pay
There are places where I comment under my real name (John Doe) and there are places where I comment under a fake name. Many times I comment under a fake name because the internet, like the elephant, never forgets. Who knows, one day I may run for office and someone will google me and find some comment I made on a religious, political or other hot button topic and sink my campaign. I don't want to even think about "the photos". ;)
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Dark Helmet (profile), 9 Jul 2010 @ 8:17am

Re: Re: Re:
Which is pretty cool actually. The heuristics are good enough that we're able to share links w/each other, sometimes even to personal items/sites. Lord knows I've referred people to the Doc Stoc link where I have one of my novels several times, and I always worried it would come off as spammish.

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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redwall_hp (profile), 9 Jul 2010 @ 8:25am

Is it a one-time fee or per comment? It sucks if it's the latter, but there are other forums that have went for the one-time fee thing. If you want to post on the IMDB forums you have to verify your account either by making a small credit card transaction or by linking it to an Amazon account with at least one purchase. I think they also let you verify by SMS now, which is less of a deterrent for bozos.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2010 @ 8:26am

Hmm, its a one time fee, which makes it less obtrusive. Still, I dont like the idea, but the implementation seems to be good.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2010 @ 8:26am

User Posts: "LOL"
Newspaper Posts: We value your opinion, that will be $10.00 please, thank you for reading our paper.
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Overcast (profile), 9 Jul 2010 @ 8:39am

It's one of maybe 250,000 sites - that offer the same information. News.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2010 @ 8:39am

http://techdirt.com/articles/20100706/23322610092.shtml

considering the important points you missed in that story, would you perhaps like to add some stuff to this story?
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Chad, 9 Jul 2010 @ 8:40am

What a cop out. Putting them back with a fee they might as well have left them disabled. This is done so that the comments are still technically disabled (nobody would want to pay for that), while giving them the appearance of being enabled so that people stop complaining.

Enable your comments, remove the fee, and hire some 15 year old summer student to watch them for spam.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2010 @ 8:47am

Re: Re: Re: Re:
"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..."

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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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2010 @ 8:49am

Re: Re:
No, that's not true. IIRC Mike has some Bayesian filter that only catches comments that resemble spam. Those comments are held for moderation, only appearing after they're approved. All other comments are immediate.

I've never had one of my comments delayed by it.
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Hephaestus (profile), 9 Jul 2010 @ 8:59am

Re:
"I get where they're coming from. Some comment sections are just terrible. Charging $0.99 might weed out some of the idiots."

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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Hephaestus (profile), 9 Jul 2010 @ 9:02am

Re: Re: Re:
"I've never had one of my comments delayed by it."

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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Infowars, 9 Jul 2010 @ 9:02am

Hahaha.
Notice how there is not ONE comment in any of the articles I glanced at! hahaha.. Love it..

Never mind all the TYRANNY, LoHAN is going to jail for 90 days! I feel safer already!
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2010 @ 9:06am

Re: Re: Prior Art
Too bad the site design is horrible. I won't visit or comment on a site with horrid layout/coloring.
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David T, 9 Jul 2010 @ 9:09am

Well..
I like the idea of having the OPTION to using a real identity, in that there is a formal structure to do so. But it must also be coupled with the ability to mute any comments made by people NOT using their true identity.
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ds, 9 Jul 2010 @ 9:38am

Re:
How do we weed out you?
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ted hidell, 9 Jul 2010 @ 9:55am

Newpapers don't get it
The more comments the more readers. If they do start charge will get less viewers and less comments. They also need to stop making apinions and report news as is with out yellow journalism. Would get more reader than you could shake a paper at. The reason most papers are losing is they feel they have to find the nex watergate etc. Reporter aren't reporting they are commenting on the news this is not real journalism. There are a lot of yellow out there the one who will win it the newpaper that just reports. I hope if they stay the way they are (NewPaper)they do loss. The winner will be the true journalist.
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Dude, 9 Jul 2010 @ 10:50am

Hah
You routinely refuse to run my comments that say pro-copyright things. How are you any different?
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average_joe (profile), 9 Jul 2010 @ 11:04am

Re: Re:
"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."

Huh? It's only $0.99 to be able to comment, no matter how many comments you make.
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average_joe (profile), 9 Jul 2010 @ 11:07am

Re: Re:
"How do we weed out you?"

Wow! What a reply! Got anything substantive to say?
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average_joe (profile), 9 Jul 2010 @ 11:11am

Re:
"Discourse is always poorer when barriers are erected...physical, psychological, or otherwise."

All barriers are bad always? Meh.
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average_joe (profile), 9 Jul 2010 @ 11:14am

Re: Newpapers don't get it
"The more comments the more readers."

Care to cite a source for this? And since when does more equal better?
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Eugene (profile), 9 Jul 2010 @ 11:42am

From the Sun's site: "The credit card will be charged a one-time fee of 99 cents to activate the account."

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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Mike Masnick (profile), 9 Jul 2010 @ 12:16pm

Re: Re: Re:
No, that's not true. IIRC Mike has some Bayesian filter that only catches comments that resemble spam. Those comments are held for moderation, only appearing after they're approved. All other comments are immediate

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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Mike Masnick (profile), 9 Jul 2010 @ 12:19pm

Re: Hah
You routinely refuse to run my comments that say pro-copyright things. How are you any different?

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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Saragon, 9 Jul 2010 @ 12:25pm

Worth a shot
While I don't really think it's going to be successful, I'm actually a little bit encouraged to see that a newspaper tried to monetize their website in a different way. Everyone can pass all those stories around without paywalls getting in the way, but for "premium" benefits you have to pay. In theory it's very close to a lot of the ideas TechDirt's batted around before. I'm not sure it's workable -- I just don't know if the demand for commenting on ever-changing news articles can be monetized -- but it's a lot better than other plans.
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average_joe (profile), 9 Jul 2010 @ 1:06pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
"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."

10,000 spams a day?!?! Wow!

You don't sleep much, do you, Mike? :)
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average_joe (profile), 9 Jul 2010 @ 1:19pm

Re: Worth a shot
"While I don't really think it's going to be successful, I'm actually a little bit encouraged to see that a newspaper tried to monetize their website in a different way. Everyone can pass all those stories around without paywalls getting in the way, but for "premium" benefits you have to pay. In theory it's very close to a lot of the ideas TechDirt's batted around before. I'm not sure it's workable -- I just don't know if the demand for commenting on ever-changing news articles can be monetized -- but it's a lot better than other plans."

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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DanVan (profile), 9 Jul 2010 @ 1:24pm

I hope they make changes as well though I do not know how to solve the problem

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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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2010 @ 1:33pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I doubt Mike personally reads the each spammy comment. More likely, he uses a wordpress plugin called Akismet which runs about $50 a month.

But the PR of saying 10k comments a day are sorted through is priceless.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2010 @ 1:33pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I doubt Mike personally reads the each spammy comment. More likely, he uses a wordpress plugin called Akismet which runs about $50 a month.

But the PR of saying 10k comments a day are sorted through is priceless.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2010 @ 1:33pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I doubt Mike personally reads each spammy comment. More likely, he uses a wordpress plugin called Akismet which runs about $50 a month.

But the PR of saying 10k comments a day are sorted through is priceless.
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AW, 9 Jul 2010 @ 1:51pm

Re: Hah
Dude,
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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AW, 9 Jul 2010 @ 1:52pm

Re: Re: Worth a shot
heh...love the Average Joes reference coupled with the XXL. Something about that just makes me smile
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Mike Masnick (profile), 9 Jul 2010 @ 3:19pm

Re: 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?

We'll be refreshing options soon... hang in there.
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Mike Masnick (profile), 9 Jul 2010 @ 3:22pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I doubt Mike personally reads the each spammy comment. More likely, he uses a wordpress plugin called Akismet which runs about $50 a month.

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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Anonymous Weasel, 9 Jul 2010 @ 5:07pm

Re: Re: Worth a shot
"Can't us XXL's get some love too?"

There are special websites for XXL love.
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Anonymous Coward, 9 Jul 2010 @ 5:20pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Hmmm...my comments rarely get a green light, some are posted after a few hours and some never come to light, those that mean I'm a spammer?

The funny part is that most of my posts that get caught on the filter have no links in it.
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Mike Masnick (profile), 9 Jul 2010 @ 7:08pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Hmmm...my comments rarely get a green light, some are posted after a few hours and some never come to light, those that mean I'm a spammer?

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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Anonymous Coward, 10 Jul 2010 @ 2:41am

dee dee dee
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Josh, 12 Jul 2010 @ 5:08pm

My letter to the publisher
I sent the following to the publisher of the Sun Chronicle.

J

------------------

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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guitar lessons, 4 Aug 2010 @ 3:27pm

NO Way Jöse!
I cannot believe that those FAT CATS at the big press are now wanting to get me to pay my hard earned money to tell them how much they aren't so good. I have to admit that as someone who learned a lot online, music espcially that this isn't right. Education should be free. I learned guitar music theory online and I didn't pay a dime!
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pacquiao vs margarito, 5 Aug 2010 @ 5:30pm

It is possible to pay the readers to comment
Why? it is because a time consuming reading all those problems in earthing news. So that all of readers can be more helpful to the newspaper company.
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melinda, 25 Aug 2010 @ 9:32am

sohbet
Thanks you admin
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sedatre (profile), 25 Aug 2010 @ 9:44am

sohbet
Thanks you admin
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Chat, 29 Apr 2011 @ 7:10am

chat sohbet
You realize how many pro-copyright people we have comment? There's the AntiMike and Darryl right off the top of my head.
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Guest, 20 Feb 2014 @ 7:59am

Nintendo too!
Now Nintendo is doing this too!
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