Changes to the RVANews comment policy
It’s been a long time coming, but, finally, we have a new comment policy.
I wanted to let y’all know about some changes to the RVANews comment policy that we’re implementing over the next couple of days.
First, what was the previous RVANews comment policy? Turns out, we didn’t really have one. The comment section, proudly and prominently featured below each and every article, was a mostly Wild West of anything goes–as long as you weren’t a total bigot. This led to many, many long and arduous comment threads where certain humans (I guess we’ll generously call them that) espoused their mostly insane views about this, that, and the other thing. We let it go on under the banner of Free Speech–which, as you know, is Very Important.
Over the years, our readership has grown and the number of comments left on RVANews has also grown. This has brought with it a directly related increase in snark, vitriol, zzzzzzz, and just plain rudeness. I took a couple of minutes and pulled the last 150 or so comments on RVANews and categorized each one as useful, useless, and rude. Here are the results:
That’s…not so great. Of course, I could have told you this without pulling the data; wading into the comments section on RVANews has felt like crash landing your X-Wing on Dagobah for a while now. It’s gotten to the point where I’m embarrassed by a substantial portion of what’s typed into the little box below each piece.
I’m embarrassed because I’ve failed to protect our writers, who work extremely hard, from unnecessary poison sprayed in their general directions. I’m embarrassed because I’ve given equal footing to random strangers who spend their time screaming misspelled insults at people they’ve never met. I’m embarrassed because it’s taken me this long to make a change.
What causes (presumably) reasonable people to violate all known societal rules of discourse when confronted with an internet textbox and a submit button? When did we decide that frequent rudeness and sometimes open hatred was OK–and possibly encouraged? I don’t know, and I’m just not into it. So! Moving forward, we’re going to do two things:
- The comments section will, by default, be hidden, yet accessible with an additional click (similar to what you see below).
- We’ve finally got a comment policy, and here it is:
Comments that are not conducive to an interesting and thoughtful conversation may be removed at the editor’s discretion.
Isn’t that nice and straightforward? I considered something with more heft, like the new Comic Book Resources policy or NPR’s relatively clearer community discussion rules. But in the end, I landed on a policy taken from, of all places, the Creepy PMs subreddit. It reads:
CreepyPMs is also a support sub, a safe space for people who have been creeped on. That means comments that are not conducive to a supportive and positive environment may be removed, even if they don’t violate the rules.
I hope that these two changes, combined with more time spent removing offending comments on our end, will contribute to a more peaceful, thoughtful corner of the internet.
If you’ve got thoughts or feedback you can…leave them in the comments below.
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Ross Catrow
Founder and publisher of RVANews.
Notice: Comments that are not conducive to an interesting and thoughtful conversation may be removed at the editor’s discretion.
So we now let the debates begin as to whether comments were censored because the “review board” doesnt agree with a counter position, political view, idealism, or personal bias? Or…..are we strickly filtering out hate, rudeness, and obvious off-topic nonsense?
Truth be told, Sometime you may not like what you hear from others…or it may not be the popular view/position, but its fair game from an objective standpoint.
I think after re-reading the poetic policy (is that snarky :) ) it may be more clear to me that it is former….however….healthy debates are not always a “positive environment”.
I agree something had to be done. Check under the hood in a few months see if she needs a tune up.
I am Sam Davies and I approve of this comment policy.
Comment sections are not the public square. They are letters to the editor in someone else’s newspaper, in a land where everyone can print their own newspaper for free.
If you write something interesting in response to an RVANews article and post it on your own site, I almost guarantee you the folks at RVANews will read it (and if it is super-interesting, they might even link to it!)
Solid policy. It seems comments are becoming more and more hateful recently across all of the interent (see Jezebel and Gawker media changing their comment policy in the recent months). It stinks that you have dedicate limited resources to weed out the trolls, but unfortunately that’s what websites have to do these days. Good job!
Richmond’s more popular local news sites would kill for these ratios.
It’s interesting…maybe I just hadn’t been spending enough time reading RVANews (good heavens!) but I didn’t realize things were so poorly.
Seems like a good change to me. Sometimes there is important or interesting information (or viewpoints) in the comments, and I’ll be glad if this change means those are easier to find.
I love it when people don’t give up, and do what they can to elevate the status quo. You will get some hateful comments (that may or may not get published) about this, but at the end of the day, bravo.
I’ve been a moderator of a few discussion boards on community-driven websites and listservs, so I know how much deliberation can go into the decision to leave questionable content on your site. It seems so simple to lay down the law from time to time to clean things up, but case by case the the most caustic comments still may harbor a shred of merit.
From a participant view, it can be really disconcerting to know that someone’s subjective values are deciding whether your comment is posted or not. Maybe that helps commenters exercise a little more cautiousness with their words. Maybe what’s left is an echo chamber, not because of moderation but because of the way the threat of moderated comments is received by readers who like to react. One of my favorite sites for reading about MMA/UFC has a very strict comment policy, where longstanding commenters are routinely banned or suspended. When I post there, I always second guess my comment for fear of offending the moderators. But I’m glad they’re out there, because otherwise the comments would be an eruption of Neanderthal wannabe vikings following every post, because the context (a group of fight fans) seems to bring out the base element in people (surprise). The site gets a reputation as a ‘PC-Nazis’ or whatever, but what’s left in the comments is still informative and a lot of fun, just not at everyone else’s expense.
It’ll be interesting to see what kind of reputation your moderation policy (in practice) creates and what kind of commenting culture results.
Technical note: it’d be cool if, when clicking the comment count on the home page for a particular story, I could skip the extra click to load the comment section. Seems to me that if I click the comment count, it’s clear that I want to go straight to comments, right?
Seems like a reasonable policy. I just want to thank you for not going the exclusive route of “must use Facebook to comment,” which was where I was initially worried this article was headed.
Being nice to people is always a good policy.
With only office comments posted so far I’m wondering if some haven’t already been censored. Truely off point or hateful items should be removed but I’m hoping that it won’t be just when readers disagree.
The idea is not to discourage disagreements, but to remove rude things. If there was a town hall meeting about movies (if only!) and someone got up and told me I was a complete moron and killjoy for not liking Terrible Blockbuster X, they’d be probably asked to leave. If they said “That’s interesting. I thought the opposite about this point, let us discuss!” they would be roundly encouraged, especially by me. Discourse, not abuse.
I’m a little disheartened at how vague your definition is. I understand your desire to protect your reporters, but are you also going to protect their egos? One running article has inspired me to comment several times, though I do not troll or attack the reporter; my direct criticisms might now be deleted in order to “protect” him. At least in the past I knew my voice was at least heard. Now I don’t even have that to rely on. Protect your reporters from irrational rudeness and threats, but please remember that this site exists because people read your reporters’ stories. If the community you’re working to build feels silenced, it hurts everyone in the situation.
Your policy is now free speech for those who think like me. From the wild west to the west end
I am reminded here of the old saw “who minds the minders?” Like others, I am concerned comments may be deleted merely for disagreement and hope that will not be the case. Perhaps I have been fortunate at this website, because I can’t recall ever seeing trolls here — and they are as nearly ubiquitous as they are irritating on internet comment sites. I hope the authors will not be the sole judges of what’s “helpful” or “useful” — that will certainly lead to abuse. I write that of someone who has been accused of “not being helpful” in an internet comment site (not here) in a discussion of the Iraq War — after providing reasoned and, I thought, useful comments based on my service there. However, someone else disagreed — hence the accusation.
It is NEVER my intent merely to throw gas on a fire, but I do think for myself and do not follow the crowd. I hope I will not see my comments deleted here merely for that reason.
Oops. I wrote “I write that of someone” but should have written “I write that *as* someone”
Good policy. I don’t see how we can lose by making the effort to help us reach up instead of sink down.
There’s no reason debate can’t happen with civility (and, we hope, at least a modicum of intelligence). I dont think this is any kind of censorship of ideas or opinions but a reigning in of rude behavior purporting to have some merit just because it can be said/written.