Seattle's Steve Kelley hates anonymous comments

This is the reason my company killed the comment section from all websites. Too many shots, racists, etc. for the editor(s) to handle in a day. Everyone was happy about the decision. Those would still feel they have a bone to pick call or email.

 

Reminds me of the recent NYTimes story on topix.com and how it somehow has become the clearinghouse for life-ruining gossip in small towns. Even the places where everyone knows everyone...can now flame anonymously. Ours has become an interesting society, to say the least.

 

I think some (most?) mainstream media sites probably shouldn't allow comments for the reasons already listed. But I find that too many media people who have to deal with comment threads tend to lump the majority of their readers together as drooling savages when, from my experience, it's usually a few very determined trolls who ruin the fun for everyone.

If you're a mainstream site that can't or won't pay for proper full-time moderation, then your comments will inevitably deteriorate into a nightmare. I'm guessing the problem is that newspapers want the extra traffic that comes with allowing user comments, but don't want to pay for the moderation required to keep those comments civil.

Comments are essentially instant "letters to the editor". Imagine if old-school. pre-Internet newspapers printed every letter that every reader sent in? Why can't newspapers have an intern trying to break into the business scan the submitted comments and only publish the ones that meet the standard of the publication?

That last question was a rhetorical one I already know the answer to, but I wonder if that's been considered by many media companies.