On moderating comments
I’m working on some content today for beatblogging.org about the moderation of user comments on stories and blogs.
I need your help.
How does you news organization handle these moderating duties? Are your comments moderated or unmoderated? If they are moderated, who does it? Do your writers and bloggers interact with posters?
What has worked well for you? What hasn’t worked well?
For point of referrence, this blog has a policy were everyone’s first comment is automatically held for moderation. If it is deemed appropriate, subsequent comments are not held for moderation. There are some other guidelines that garner why a post might get held for moderation as well.
It has worked well for me so far, especially since I actively moderate this blog myself and interact with readers.
August 7th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
I will talk about this ad nauseum. We moderate at WRAL.com and I lead the team of moderators. It works very well, and believe that all news organizations should be doing it if they care about their brand and want to serve the community effectively.
August 8th, 2008 at 1:55 am
I moderate all the comments on my blog, I usually only get a few each week. Sometimes they come as a flood, but mostly as a trickle. We plan to moderate all the comments on our student newspaper online.
I think that you must moderate to keep out trolls, spam and people who think it is fun to post any crazy thing they think of.