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rus wrote >>
A CC would not prevent posting anonymously.
Step 1: Buy visa gift card with cash.
Step 2: Register gift card with address of 1060 West Addison, Chicago, IL.
Step 3: Post as Elwood Blues.
Step 4: Profit?
Columbus Underground Messageboard » General Columbus Discussion
Dispatch - Pay to Comment?
[33 posts] [17 contributors]
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Mercurius
First Avenue
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Talcott
Clintonville
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drew wrote >>
Really, the requirements are no different than for a letter to the editor, except that the barriers to being published are much lower and you're out a buck. The possible consequences you mention are exactly the same as in the LTE scenario.Is there any way that real names are enforced for letters to the editor? Is there anything preventing me from mailing them a letter under the name Armin Tamzarian? I’ve never sent in a letter, so I honestly don’t know.
cc wrote >>
I don't think is about $, just a hoop to jump through to weed out some of the rabble. I don't think there is a real market for pay to comment online media. There was a thread about CU chargiing and the feedback was almost all against it.I’d be against having to pay for CU as well, but I think that’s different that The Dispatch. The Dispatch is a news service with comments attached, while CU is (at least now) a message board with news attached. I’m not losing anything essential if I check out The Dispatch but can’t post (if anything, I’d be more likely to post in their comments if they cleaned them up somehow), but CU would lose a lot of its value to me if everyone couldn’t post here freely.
Posted 1 year ago # -
jimbach
Short North (WP division)
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I can understand why newspapers don't want their stories' comment sections to remain the cesspools of guttersnipe opinion that they've become, but I personally don't care what people post in the comments section - it's not like stupid opinions go away just because I can't see them anymore. If anything, I browse them as a source of entertainment, much like (I guess) some people watch trainwreck reality shows like Big Brother.
Posted 1 year ago # -
drew
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Talcott wrote >>
Is there any way that real names are enforced for letters to the editor? Is there anything preventing me from mailing them a letter under the name Armin Tamzarian? I’ve never sent in a letter, so I honestly don’t know.I can't speak to all situations, but generally they contact you to confirm that you are who you say you are. Your letter will almost inevitably be edited as well.
Posted 1 year ago # -
myliftkk
Columbus, OH
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jimbach wrote >>
I can understand why newspapers don't want their stories' comment sections to remain the cesspools of guttersnipe opinion that they've become, but I personally don't care what people post in the comments section - it's not like stupid opinions go away just because I can't see them anymore. If anything, I browse them as a source of entertainment, much like (I guess) some people watch trainwreck reality shows like Big Brother.The problem is newspapers never really moderated comment sections in the first place. Part of that was because they were never in the business of moderating debate, they were in the business of broadcasting news and pontificating about it from their ivory tower (which they still are for most of them). Part of what separates CU from most newspaper attempts at community involvement is that that CU is very attentive to the community involvement aspect and thrives off of having a "healthy" community. This just smacks of another cheap corporate attempt at moderation without actually wanting to commit the resources to do it properly. The newspaper industry has never figured out how to turn the feedback loop that the web provides into a positive for their business model, and they've never really liked it anyhow.
For example, part of the reason so much valuable information spills out onto the web is because it provides a reasonable cover of anonymity to people who are in positions of power and with access to important information who can add to the public debate without unnecessarily compromising their livelihoods. If every newspaper forum had someone like Walker nurturing and building relationships with their online community, they'd undoubtedly have better forums. But, the industry doesn't really want to seem to do that. I don't mind that let's say a newspaper took a credit card so that they had access to the users name if say the terms of service were wantonly violated by said user and could be cut off, but I'd want that name information protected under the same freedom of speech laws that they hand out to anonymous sources and not broadcast on every comment a user makes.
Posted 1 year ago # -
cc
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I also think that the bang for your buck in comments sections isn't that great. Online revenue is helped by unique page hits and people clicking on advertising banners. I think that the people posting in the CU forums and Dispatch comments section are actually a small minority of actual users. Since it may not be 'where the money is' it may be not be the best use of moderation time. I think that if the Dispatch places that extra $.99 hoop it may be 'good enough' since I doubt BigD cares too much about the community aspect of it and does not see it as a funds generator.
Posted 1 year ago # -
JonMyers
Ao Nang, Krabi, Thailand
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I'll be watching this one closely and am curious as to how it will play out. I really like the idea, but I agree with Rus, this will not stop anonymous commenting. Virtual credit cards are very easy to come by. You can buy them at any 7-11.
I know people pay for content, digital services and interactions online and this could lead to something smarter.
I can see a news commenting system where there are profiles, points, achievements, leaderboards, custom avatars, sharing that's rewarded and other forms of recognition, which people would happily hand over money.
Think of the game mechanics of farmville and foursquare.
Heck I would pay for a dofollow backlink from some newspaper's commenting section.
Posted 1 year ago # -
rus
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anillo wrote >>
rus wrote >>
A CC would not prevent posting anonymously.
Step 1: Buy visa gift card with cash.
Step 2: Register gift card with address of 1060 West Addison, Chicago, IL.
Step 3: Post as Elwood Blues.Step 4: Profit?
If by profit you mean "post anonymously" then yeah.
Figure it might stop random trolling, but for the real hate inspired cuddle parties it's not that big of a hoop to jump through.
Posted 1 year ago # -
drew
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cc wrote >>
I would bet that even the act of having to buy a prepaid cc would deter most of the posters. I think they post crap because it is easy and because they can.I tend to agree. As JonMyers suggests, there's obviously much more than can be done to rectify the situation, but this idea would seem to be useful in that it'd be relatively easy to implement, and I'm sure the papers like the idea of generating some sort of revenue stream from their readership (even if it's of a break-even nature, it's customer conditioning...)
Posted 1 year ago # -
myliftkk
Columbus, OH
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JonMyers wrote >>
I can see a news commenting system where there are profiles,points, achievements, leaderboards,custom avatars, sharing that's rewarded and other forms of recognition,which people would happily hand over money.Already exists at TPM, one of the most forward-leaning of news media, and it doesn't stop trolls. Besides, I don't think adding gaming elements to newspaper's online sites actually does anything to better achieve a newspaper's mission, to inform and educate the public it serves. We could deploy the fanciest web tools in the world and that doesn't make us more civilized in our speech if no one makes us follow the terms of the debate.
More to the point, I don't think newspapers have grasped, or look capable of grasping the essence of what informing the public is in an era of instant communications. To wit, look at the Mouton thread and think about how the elements of the Mouton thread: it's anticipated birth, it's welcomed acceptance, it's turbulent experience, and it's recovery would have been covered by the Dispatch. They would've written a single point-in-tine story about each of those events individually (were they even quick enough to react to them - as opposed to some later retrospective piece) and probably linked them to each other. In that, the Dispatch would be nothing more than a stenographer and commenters on the individual threads would be disconnected from each other and the timeline in which it was occurring. In CU's forum/thread format, the timeline unfolds in front of a reader as they read it, and the debate being read isn't some inaccurately reduced synopsis by a reporter, but a real debate happening in the community, possibly changing and evolving as the seconds pass. It's the difference between being a two-way forum where everyone's right to speak is equal (within the TOS) and being a one-way broadcaster from the powerful to the not so, that is what is killing newspapers. In a forum, our ability to launch a debate is far less hindered than in a site like the Dispatch's where commentary is allowed on only the topics they've decided to deliver to us.
Newspapers aren't fans of the Grecian forum format, and there's a lot of reasons why, mostly to do with money. But, if they're to remain relevant to modern discussions at all, they'll have to decide whether committing to fostering healthy community debate is something they're willing to do, or whether they'll slowly fade as a different paradigm takes further shape. Half-measures like pay-to-comment don't show any recognition of the paradigm shift, and so don't show that this industry has even seriously begun to acknowledge the realities facing it.
Posted 1 year ago #
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