The weekly newspapers in Kitsap County owned by Sound
Publishing will soon require
readers to log-in with a Facebook account if they’d like to
comment on a story.
I wasn’t planning to write anything about the change, because
it’s one of many experiments being tried in the industry and not
something we’re pursuing. I’ve written
about other attempts to change commenting before, and
stated my feeling that tech solutions alone aren’t the answer to
the downside of online commentary on news sites. I disagree that
eliminating anonymous comments will alone somehow “mature” the
discussion on newspaper websites, and, despite the occasional
heartburn we experience here in monitoring comment threads, I
believe there is good reason to allow pseudonyms in online forums
and we’ve committed to that. It’s also not my cup of tea to hand a
website’s registration process over to Facebook, or to force my
readers to sign up for a site they may have no interest in.
That said, after seeing our newspaper’s “credibility”
called
into question (yes, it’s our newspaper Lary Coppola is
talking about if you scroll down on the comments), I felt like
responding by sharing a quick story.
A few weeks ago I wrote two emails to readers who use pseudonyms
to comment on our site. They had, I felt, commandeered a comment
thread by pointing in a direction I thought was off-topic from the
story itself. Their part of the discussion took on a fairly weighty
and serious topic in the context of a lighter feature story, which
seemed inappropriate. I asked that they keep the heavier and
controversial discussion to stories with a more direct relation to
their argument. (Sorry, but I’m keeping it general out of respect
to these readers. Some of you may still figure out who these guys
are, but that’s beside my point here.)
One called me back the next morning and we talked about it, the
other guy actually showed up in the office. They both get bashed
from time to time on the threads because of some divergent
viewpoints, but both were pleasant and reasonable and I really
enjoyed both conversations.
I don’t often hear outpourings of thanks like the one that came
from one of these guys. Kitsapsun.com discussion forums are
incredibly important to him, and the anonymity is key. Because of
his contrarian viewpoints on certain topics, this man doesn’t want
to use his name. He’s not advocating hate, lying about who he is or
bashing others simply to bash; he’s expressing a view that could
harm his business or ostracize him from his in-laws or long-time
friends. He uses our forums as an outlet, hoping to engage others
in a discussion that is near to his core beliefs, or perhaps to see
that others in our community think like he does. That utopian idea
of enlightened back-and-forth doesn’t always happen, of
course (just as it doesn’t always happen in real life), and
some threads have a tendency to devolve and allow one or two
critics to harp on this guy. But he remained optimistic about the
free, open forum that has coalesced into a community on
kitsapsun.com, and his optimism is something I tend to share.
I think the anonymity offered on our comment boards gives
critics of it a faulty perch on which they assume the worst of
people: that is, the argument those who won’t use their “real name”
are jaded cretins wallowing in hate and aggression. There’s
probably some like that, sure, and there’s others who won’t engage
cooperatively or listen to reason. The two men I spoke with have
experienced the short end of that stick again and again. They’ve
learned, like I have all the times the Sun gets beat up on those
forums, that in the online world you need both thick skin and a
decent sense of humor.
So I’ll stand by the practice of allowing pseudonyms as part of
the community that’s developed on our site. That sort of “free
speech” doesn’t mean we allow all speech, as we’ve repeated many
times when pointing users toward our comment
guidelines. But I’ll take the responsibility that
comes with hosting an open forum, where contrarian views can be
held and all opinions can be offered, because I believe that’s part
of how we communicate online. Pseudonyms let readers remain
anonymous, but they also allow commentors to build credibility
through being consistent in opinions or reasonable in debates. And
I think most of us are smart enough to sort out which of those we
trust.
One last point, to briefly clear up another fallacy that was
raised on that Port Orchard Independent piece I linked to above. We
don’t keep anonymous comments because it somehow benefits us
monetarily. (In fact, as far as staff time on moderation is
concerned, we offer them at a loss.)
It’s true that part of online advertising is based on
page views, but looking at our statistics does not bear out that
the majority of our page views come from stories with high comment
traffic. We get more traffic from obituaries than most stories with
multiple comments. Even on opinion pieces that draw more than 100
comments over a period of days, those rarely compete with our most
viewed stories of the day, and they tend to draw the same small
group of repeat readers rather than a broad range of unique
visitors, which advertisers may also find more
attractive. There’s no moral choice of sacrificing ethics in a
chase for page views.
My guess is there will be some discussion beneath this post, so
I’ll try to answer any more questions there. Thanks for
reading.
—David
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