2012.03.09
Roundup #2: Commenting thoughts and role of reader-generated content
It’s been a vibrant second week on the blog! Our post on Monday about comments generated more than 60 comments. We are reading each of your posts, and your ideas are being passed on to the teams working on the redesign and other digital products. Keep them coming!
Here are the takeaways for us this week. See if you agree and continue adding your thoughts.
On commenting:
- Anonymous vs. Facebook comments: Many commenters were against the idea of commenting through Facebook accounts. There were privacy concerns, concerns about if the comments would appear on their friends’ Facebook pages, and concerns about how to sign on from work, because some companies do not allow Facebook access. And there are readers who don’t have Facebook accounts. These are all good points.
Question: What if we offered commenting with Facebook as one way to comment, but along with other methods as well?
- Comment threads/tools: A good idea we heard was allowing the ability to comment on comments, essentially creating nests of comments within a thread. Also suggested was the ability to “like/dislike” or “approve/disapprove” comments, much like the Facebook “like” button.
- Commenting on stories: Some of you lamented the fact that we don’t allow commenting on every story, just on what appears on our blogs. This is a topic that we’ve debated about in the newsroom. We aim to keep the discourse civil, and opening up every story to commenting also opens the possibility of haters taking over. But we also don’t have the resources to monitor every comment that would come in. More discussion to come.
- Hiding comments: Some have asked for the ability for individuals to “hide” certain commenters the way you can hide them on Facebook. It would make the comment-reading experience (which a lot of you enjoy) more pleasant, it seems. Good idea.
- Spam & browsers: CAPTCHA code woes. Right now we ask readers to fill out a Captcha code when submitting comments to block out spammers. It’s worked wonders against spamming (when “Fridge Magnet” blogger Lindsey Nair turned it off recently to test this theory, she got more than 300 spams overnight), but it frustrates some readers. Also, it seems things might work a little differently on different browsers (Google Chrome vs. Firefox vs. Explorer). We’ll continue to explore.
- You love Kevin Myatt’s ‘Weather Journal’ blog along with many other Roanoke Times bloggers you mentioned. That’s awesome and we’re glad to hear it.
On the value of reader-generated content:
This post didn’t generate as much discussion, but it’s clear that while readers see the value of reader-generated content, they don’t want to see it dilute or replace news stories that our staff produces. There could be good and useful ways to mesh the two, however, on certain types of stories.
As the editor of the Extra section, which often publishes solicited reader-generated content, I see their value in the newspaper. From funny Scared-of-Santa photos to poignant letters from women to their younger selves, I have enjoyed having readers share a bit of themselves in the paper. To me, that’s what makes The Roanoke Times a community resource and something you can’t get anywhere else. It teaches us about the people in our community.
But it doesn’t replace news or news coverage. It’s just another way we can represent our little corner of the world. This is also a topic we’ll continue to explore, so please keep sharing your thoughts.
Thanks for all your input this week. Your feedback is very valuable to us.
I think if there can be a very clear delineation between RT-generated news and the user-submitted stuff, that would help. The Burgs has the 2 so intertwined that I don’t bother.
Like right now…on the main roanoke.com page under ‘Headlines’ for The Burgs section…it has pictures of wildlife in Bisset Park, and pictures of a theater readying for a show. Really? It also has an arts schedule.
Those should be under some sort of ‘Community’ tag, not headlines…they’re not news.
Comment by Other John — March 9, 2012 @ 12:37 pm
As a follow-up…The Burgs has, in my mind, largely become an open community blog, rather than a publication by the New River Valley bureau of the Roanoke Times. If that’s what the aim was, then congrats…it’s been achieved. It has lost all value and relevance for me, especially because when I do load the main RT site, I scan the links to see if there’s anything eye-grabbing…and when the highlights from the NRV are someone’s photo of a squirrel and who bowled well last week, well, it’s not going to compel me to look.
One of the things mentioned is the mobile format for the blog, and the site. The mobile roanoke.com site is not really all that good. If it’s not a breaking news headline, or one of the random blogs/articles linked, it’s darn near impossible to find anything. For example, I am not able to locate sports or other sections from the mobile site, and I do not get the option of loading the full site on my phone. So, I only use it sparingly.
Many of the blogs appear pretty well though, like the Weather Journal, which I do check from my phone regularly. It’s not as easy to navigate as the full web version, but it’s not too difficult either.
Comment by Other John — March 9, 2012 @ 12:46 pm
Thanks, @Other John, for your comments.
It’s clear that you have not been happy with the changes that came with the transition of The Current to The Burgs. Our community publications, such as The Burgs and So Salem, may be the subject of a future post, so stay tuned.
And we appreciate your comments about the mobile site. Our mobile presence is certainly one we care about, so look for more discussion about that, too, in the future.
- Kathy Lu, RefreshRT team
Comment by Kathy Lu — March 9, 2012 @ 1:33 pm
There is a BIG difference between solicited content from readers, such as you mention for some of your Extra section stories, and reader-generated content. The latter I put in the category of just about everything that you are using to fill The Burgs these days in place of any kind of hard news. When you ask readers to provide information for a specific story, that is a good thing and there is no problem with that. Continue on with the practice. But as someone else said, when you are down to producing the Wendell Jone Photo Magazine, you’ve kind of lost sight of why you are publishing your “news”paper.
Comment by Joe Hokie — March 9, 2012 @ 2:12 pm
I’m not entirely sure why the RT is so insistent upon Facebook playing a role in the upcoming Refresh. I love Facebook, I use it a lot. However it should not be ingrained in my news source. I should be able to post to Facebook (i.e. link stories), but that should be the extent.
I hate the idea of the Roanoke Times being another entity that has become enslaved to Facebook.
Comment by Meg J — March 9, 2012 @ 9:46 pm
Anonymous vs Facebook: Definitely ok with having the Facebook login but still having an option of logging on in some other fashion. For as much as I use Facebook, you can add me to the number of folks who aren’t interested in using it elsewhere.
And yes, LOVE the Weather Journal Blog.
Comment by Amanda (in FC) — March 9, 2012 @ 10:20 pm
I’m glad someone mentioned The Burgs, as that’s the first RT product that comes to mind when I think of “reader generated content.”
No disrespect meant to Mike Shaw, whom I know works hard every day to produce what he can for the site, but I got the impression from the beginning that it was more about taking user-produced content and sharing it for free rather than paying staff to create it. I don’t spend a lot of time on The Burgs site, but it feels like half of the posts on the site’s Facebook page are photos from some random high school sporting event. Do people that don’t have a vested interest in it really want to see pictures from a JV volleyball game or girls’ soccer scrimmage? (Science update: I went through the posts currently on the page, and the actual number is closer to 20% or 25%, but I wonder if that’s not skewed downward some due to the VT trial. Still, I believe perception counts for something.)
I appreciate the community focus. I moved back to the NRV from Richmond, where there is a very thriving network of community-based hyperlocal blogs. I really appreciate the extra bit of connection that a product like that can provide to a community, but I’m not sure The Burgs is where it’s at. Is it appropriate to solicit content from your readers and/or use unsolicited content? Absolutely – the news business is no longer unidirectional. There’s room for some of it, but I’d like to see more local news in The Burgs and less local “news,” if that makes any sense.
Regarding CAPTCHA/spamfiltering: I’m in favor of spamfiltering that happens transparent to the user experience, similar to some of the spamfiltering tools that come with a default WordPress install. Hopefully your web folks can find some solutions without CAPTCHAs or excessive moderation.
(As an aside, I’ve had problems with CAPTCHA tokens timing out when I try to submit a comment after taking a long time to write it. Requires me reloading the page and getting a new CAPTCHA before I’m able to submit.)
Comment by Dan — March 10, 2012 @ 12:20 am
I have seen way too many personal attacks on the blogs to be comfortable with “going public”. Dan Casey’s blog’s obsession with certain posters is disturbing and borders on cyber-bullying
Comment by Henry — March 11, 2012 @ 3:34 pm
Taken the paper for 35 years and I dropped a year ago with the Burgs BS instead of a more general NRV section (Floyd,Radford,Pulaski etc). When I go online now, the news is also so far outdated it is ridiculous unless it is a forecasted snow or a wreck on 81.
Maybe your reviews of the revamped RT are good, but not to me or the people I talk to and I doubt they are or you wouldn’t be soliciting feedback like this.
Thanks for the opportunity to speak out.
Comment by palmetto state hokie — March 11, 2012 @ 8:01 pm
I’ll chime in on ‘The Burgs’, since it essentially devolved the NRV Current into a user-generated site for Blacksburg and Christiansburg. It seems an overt effort by the Rt to cater solely to the high population areas of the New River Valley, and to do so by having users generated virtually all the content.
I really can’t begin to describe how horrible and insulting it is to think that THIS is what the RT offers to its customers. I sure hope you guys are saving as much money as you projected on this, and that some day you stop to realize the opportunity cost of lost customer interest that you have set in place.
Comment by crooked road — March 12, 2012 @ 11:00 am
I got this comment from a reader on my blog and thought it would make sense to share it here:
“THANK GOODNESS I remembered to ‘copy’ my comment above! The @#%$*&%#@$ CAPTCHA CODE I had was unreadable so I got it wrong and would have lost my comment otherwise. I would NOT have retyped all of that. Rename it the ‘GOTCHA CODE!!!!!’ Can’t they fix it so your comment will stay if you enter the wrong code, forget to enter it at all, or it ‘times out?’”
Comment by Lindsey — March 23, 2012 @ 3:48 pm
Just wanted to throw in how much I appreciate Kevin Myatt’s blog too! When there is major weather(snow, major storms, tornado warnings, etc.) going on in Roanoke – it is my first source. Thanks for the RT for supporting him – and thanks for his work in doing the blog!
Comment by NLee — March 23, 2012 @ 9:15 pm