We spend a lot of time talking about why people don’t comment more on Gotham Gazette stories. By “a lot of time,” I actually mean about 20 minutes every three weeks, but nonetheless as a project with a mission to improve public discourse and engage New Yorkers in public policy conversations, we gauge our impact in part by how many people are reading and responding to our reporting. When popular blogs reference our reporting we see lively and contentious conversations. But rarely do we get much discussion on our own site.
This week, though, I made an interesting discovery. After a few tests and a bit of wrangling to establish canonical URLs we implemented commenting with Disqus this week. The move runs altogether contrary to my D.I.Y. instincts and my free software instincts but the tools we were using (multiple instances of Phorum ) were spambait and I wasn’t ever able to reign them in and still get other work done. So I let go a little bit and farmed out our comment capacity.
This week, we ran a (excellent, but that isn’t the point) article on City Council attendance records and we’re seeing a lot of comments on it. We’ve never run this story at this moment in time before, so I can’t really tell you whether or not we would have gotten as many comments (five, so far. Sadly, that is a lot for us) if readers were stuck with our old forums.
I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t have. So I’m going to go out on a limb and say that people do want to participate (and yes: participation is about a lot more than just reacting) and will if they don’t have to leap technical hurdles to do so.
So I’m wondering: how are other small sites (and big ones?) facilitating reader comments? Are you happy with it? Looking for better tools?
How relevant to an issue that came up for me yesterday. Frustrated by yet another failed attempt to post a comment on a local news site, WickedLocal.com, this time I chose not to simply move on. Instead, I put a screenshot on flickr.
The flickr post was picked up by another local blog, which brought a response by someone from WickedLocal.
Here’s part of my response to WickedLocal, which seems to address what you’re talking about at the Gotham Gazette:
“While I understand the fear of the unregistered masses, WickedLocal is a rare and important local resource and could host more interesting comments and discussion than registration (esp non-functioning registration) allows.
Moderation does take more time and resources, but there are some good tools that make it easy. And you might find that bad comments aren’t such a problem anyway. Maybe you have other reasons to require registration, but I’d encourage you to explore how to do away with it, or simplify the requirements. There’s not a lot of good local reporting out there, and if you add to that the wealth of commentary you might get from the people in your coverage areas, you can end up with an even more valuable community resource than you already have.”
Perhaps you can share your findings with the WickedLocal folks, who I’m sure want to find a better solution than what they currently have.
Keeping rabid trolls at bay is a good tactic too. Crazy commenters get old fast, and allowing slashdotty +/- evaluations of others’ comments helps move the crud off the main page.
We are pretty good at managing real trolls (people with a libelous attitude or a foul mouth), and I wouldn’t want Disqus to get involved there. Our problem was the tidal wave of porn, discount drugs and cell phone service offers.
But yes: KC, I’m looking forward to seeing whether readers find they’re more inclined to at least nudge a comment up or down now.
(and, Rekha: I’m just amanda at gothamgazette.com if you want to put anyone in touch.)
We went back and forth on outsourcing our comments. We had a solution that was half in-house code and half phpBB forums, but that wasn’t cutting it. We recently went to js-kit and the resutls have been pretty positive. Easy moderation, easy integration, more features, spam filters. There are limitations and headaches, but if there weren’t, this wouldn’t be called ‘work’. We started out on the free solution, but we’re probably going to upgrade to their first tier paid program.
What it really comes down to for us is that building a commenting system is not in our realm of expertise and building our own probably won’t result in a revenue stream. That’s pretty much the calling card of a project that should be outsourced.
“Building a commenting system is not in our realm of expertise and building our own probably won’t result in a revenue stream. That’s pretty much the calling card of a project that should be outsourced.”
Right. I might make a motivational poster for myself with about that message on it. I sometimes worry that my DIY instincts are possibly over-developed.
In reference to why people is not responding much to the Gotham Gazette stories. Even thought, your mission to improve public discourse and engage New Yorkers in public policy conversations. You can measure the success of your stories only by how many people are responding to your reporting. In many occasions the readers will find the story very interesting but may not have the time to go and post a comment. Prior to post a comment the ask to fill in many instances to much information. Sometimes, they give you error messages and all these can be very discouraging for some one to post a comment on your stories. However if you are are having a good comment in the most popular blogs is a good sign. Do not get discourage and keep posting your great stories.
How funny that you should speak about items being accessible to those of us that are less technologically savvy. I am writing from the perspective of one that is on the using not creating end of the technology spectrum.
When it comes to items needing to be super simple in order to be operated, I must say I am guilty of this. Shameful to admit, but it actually took me a while to figure out how to post on this site! And although there is lots of information to glean and to give, without easy-to-use software this can create a true hindrance.
I think that this is also something that we really need to keep in mind with relation to other countries and global media. As an avid traveler, I appreciate learning from perspectives of others and hearing varying points of view. When visiting developing countries and even when leaving and trying to figure out ways to keep in touch, it is easy to say email me, but when access and ease are barriers, we sometimes need to find other options.
Given that in 2004, internet penetration in Mexico was at 11.9 percent of the population and in Ghana was about .08 percent, we have to see why ease of use is vital.
With a mission as important as improving public discourse and engaging New Yorkers in public policy conversations, we have to keep in mind that the “public” equals people with differing backgrounds, abilities and differing levels of exposure to the media.
I appreciate your willingness to work to make your site accessible and readily available to all!