The Athletic keeps growing .......

Yeah, it worked. The final score was barely germane to that larger story.

 

Would The Athletic ever consider having a writer cover West Virginia?

 

Interesting thread here from the comments section on one of the articles about the women's hockey situation. Basically, some users saying their comments are being deleted because they don't agree with the point of view of the reporters. A moderator for the site jumped in and said the comments were removed or the comments section disabled because other users flagged them ...

Layne J.
May 3, 5:10pm
34 likes

Just curious as to why the comment section from the previous article was shut down? There was a lot of complaining about moderation in the fact that comments were deleted if they didn’t side with the authors..

Clay P.
May 3, 5:29pm
56 likes

@Layne J. I've noticed this clear across The Athletic and it's starting to make me question the management of the site and comment sections. Obviously if someone is saying really outrageously racist/harassing/etc things it should be removed, but yesterday was at least the fourth time I've seen where comments were either deleted or closed because opinions other than the authors were being posted. Were some of them over the line? Maybe, but also maybe not. More importantly, they probably weren't wrong, and that's the fact the authors and moderators need to acknowledge.

Everyone is paying to be here, which clears out a lot of the problems most sites have. Likewise if someone gets banned, it's X amount of dollars they've essentially lost. Since we're behind a paywall and since this is something we're all paying to do I would expect much better management that what I've seen so far.

Sam C.
May 3, 5:51pm
18 likes

@Clay P. Journalism is not a place for dissenting opinion.

(/s obviously)

Clay P.
May 3, 6:15pm
24 likes

@Layne J. Exactly my takeaway on it. The message of the article was "we need things to get better!" and the comments were (primarily) "ok, here's whats wrong, here's what could happen, here's what challenges stand in the way". Again, some of it was quite crass, but not a lot of the comments fell into the "that's not true" pile.

In a way, by shutting down discussion like that the authors/moderators basically spoke for the people involved in the article and projected an image that they just want to complain but not listen to some hard truths and discussion surrounding the situation. It's silly, I know, to link the authors and the subject, but I'm sure that relation was made for many readers/commentators.

Matthew D.
May 3, 6:41pm
17 likes

@Layne J. Not that it will have any impact, but I certainly sent the Athletic an email voicing my displeasure at the shutting down of community engagement.

John R.
May 3, 6:52pm
16 likes

@Clay P. agree that shutting down debate is not a winning strategy

Bria F.
May 3, 7:22pm
32 likes

I wanted to comment on this too. I was scrolling down the comments, reading them, and then planned on commenting myself, when I noticed I no longer could. As a woman, I didn’t think the comment section was overly aggressive or hostile, and certainly not as much as say, the daily game probability posts.

Honestly, it angered me. I am disappointed with the choice whoever on The Athletic made to do this, and it damaged their credibility as quality journalism in my eyes, not to mention the stance of the women in the article (my original intended comment was to say I felt the players were being exceedingly self important if they thought that the solution to not getting more exposure was to remove themselves and limit it even more. Boycotts work where there is an overwhelming demand and the one doing the boycott has $$ power, and that as a woman I disliked feeling like I owed them support because we are the same sex. People can and should follow their dreams, but if they can’t be self supporting, they aren’t owed any subsidizing. My husband would love to make a living making art, but we have bills, so he has a different job instead. It’s called maturing.)

Megan Reyes
STAFF
May 3, 7:47pm
8 likes

Community moderator for The Athletic here. Currently, comments flagged by our community are temporarily removed and placed under moderator review. We strongly encourage thoughtful discussions in our comments sections. However, there were a number of violations in the previous article that negatively impacted the experience of other readers and thus the decision was made to disable the section.

Steven M.
May 3, 7:54pm
28 likes

So basically you want to censor the comments that don’t think a women’s hockey league is financially viable? That’s what happened to me in the other thread. I said nothing wrong and was not disrespectful. Its why I cancelled my sub. People can’t have a dialogue because feelings might get hurt. This place is worse than Facebook.

Brian G.
May 3, 8:03pm
21 likes

Megan, this is untrue! In another women’s league related article I flagged a comment from someone who said they don’t trust old white men to run a women’s league and even I commented that they were being racist. I can’t say I don’t trust black people to do...... you name it, nor do I wish to. But the comment remained up, never even temporarily being taken down for review. The moderation on the Athletic needs to be fixed. Nobody wants to see a league fail, female or otherwise, but a moderator should not be removing or keeping up comments just because it supports or is against their personal perspective. I’ve been seriously considering cancelling my membership over this.

Megan Reyes
STAFF
May 3, 8:19pm
3 likes

@Brian G. Hi Brian, we appreciate your concern and you flagging the comment. To clarify, comments are placed under moderator review after 4 flags by our community. That comment does sound like a violation and we’re sorry we missed that one. We’re continuing to expand our moderation capacity to uphold a high-quality comments section for subscribers.

Brian G.
May 3, 8:32pm
6 likes

Hi Megan, thank you for the response. I appreciate that moderating is not easy. Have a wonderful weekend.

Megan Reyes
STAFF
May 3, 8:33pm
1 like

@Steven M. Hi Steven, it appears your comment was flagged by other users and placed in our moderation queue for review. We certainly encourage our community to engage in thoughtful conversations, but unfortunately there were a large number of actual violations. We appreciate your support and hope you’ll reconsider your decision.

Jeff Y.
May 4, 3:37pm
4 likes

@megan Reyes Shutting down a comment section is simply not the answer. Removing actual violations is simply allowed but shutting down all debate is essentially a JOURNALISM ORGANIZATION saying it believes in abridging all free speech about an article simply because someone, somewhere did something wrong.

Jeff Y.
May 4, 4:39pm
3 likes

Even worse, MIGHT do something wrong.

@Jeff Y. Free speech is dying and real journalism is dead. If you believe in trash journalism and censorship then subscribe to The Athletic!

 

Sigh. Once again, a total misunderstanding of what the term "free speech" means. The butthurt is strong among these ones.

 

I wonder if their Search function works.

 

I think the fact that paying customers get their jollies by flagging and trying to delete comments they may not agree with is more sad than the way the Athletic handles it. Go read a book....

 

Don’t give the SJ management any ide...

Wait, you’re part of it.

We have a decent paywall and it still amazes me how vicious the comments can get.

 

Our comments all but disappeared when we started requiring Facebook registration. It saved a lot of deleting time... since almost every (seemingly anonymous) comment was inappropriate in some way.

 

It's amazing how quickly the anonymous trolls disappear when they know their name is going to be attached to something and not just an anonymous screen name.

 

Will The Athletic expand its footprint in New Orleans now that one of the newspapers laid all their employees off?

 

Your post reminds me of yet another hilariously bad decision by the suits. When the newspaper Websites were in their early years, suits were big not only on the concept of citizen journalists (yeah that worked well) but also on reader comments on stories. Whereas any reporter with a brain (pretty much all reporters compared to suits) quickly noticed the trash talk coming from readers disguised as "comments," and complained about such comments, the suits issued oh, so many edicts and e-mails. Popular e-mailed orders/commands were demands that reporters "engage with the reader; respond to their comments." Oh yes, that really worked. It enabled the author of the pieces to get defamed/blasted/criticized/buried by the commentors who played dirty. Of course the reporters couldn't fight back against personal attacks in the comments section, but ordered to be nice to the "valued readers." Yes it took forever for the suits to even consider the possibility that allowing anonymous comments was improper (in some cases libelous which instituted "moderators" to kill the nastiest comments). Finally ... way down the line, papers stopped the problem by making the commentors sign up through Facebook. That ended the comments altogether. Commentors dare not agree to be outed for their vicious/improper comments.
Good job, suits. You further devalued your reporters by FOR YEARS allowing commentors to defame your employees. The devaluing of the product is one of the many reasons newspapers are on life support, hanging on because of the baby boomers who cannot be without newspapers even in their wretched condition. Congratulations suits. Hope you are enjoying your big-buck salaries. Many reporters were silenced regarding the "comments section" back in the day. The reporters were right/the suits wrong. The reporters have been let go; the suits have learned how to drive boats and yachts.