I'm starting to think the Daily Post should reinstate the old 'have your say' option under our web articles.
We used to have them but they were scrapped because posts had to be moderated before they could be uploaded manually.
This meant sometimes comments posted on Saturday evening wouldn't appear online until Monday morning.
So now we have the forums - which are moderated after the post has been uploaded. So you get the odd spam advert on them, and the occasional idiot indulging in name-calling, but otherwise it runs smoothly.
All well and good.
But I suspect some people prefer to just comment-and-go, rather than go through the hassle of signing in to a forum and, potentially, having to create a new thread.
The Lancashire Evening Telegraph offers this this.
Maybe forums are areas were people have conversations with each other, and comment boxes are where they have conversations with the newspaper?
We used to have them but they were scrapped because posts had to be moderated before they could be uploaded manually.
This meant sometimes comments posted on Saturday evening wouldn't appear online until Monday morning.
So now we have the forums - which are moderated after the post has been uploaded. So you get the odd spam advert on them, and the occasional idiot indulging in name-calling, but otherwise it runs smoothly.
All well and good.
But I suspect some people prefer to just comment-and-go, rather than go through the hassle of signing in to a forum and, potentially, having to create a new thread.
The Lancashire Evening Telegraph offers this this.
Maybe forums are areas were people have conversations with each other, and comment boxes are where they have conversations with the newspaper?
2 comments:
Forums can be quite daunting places. They live or die on how existing members react to new members, which is why a lot of people don't use them.
Comment facility is an absolute must at the bottom of stories. People see a story, they react. They don't want to link through to a forum and then post underneath the story. Likewise, forums don't work if moderators are too heavy handed with them. Populating forums with links to stories is heavyhanded. Leading horses to water, and all that.
Forum users expect a greater level of control over their discussions than most editorial led websites will feel comfortable with. I don't mean the specific wording of posts, or even moderation. I'm talking about the ability to set the agenda, start discussions, create new areas, etc. The more control that's handed over to users, the further those discussions will drift from your core editorial purpose and the less value those discussions will have for your newspaper. Comments in pages, however, give users little control over the discussion agenda and, because of this, are more likely to remain focused and relevant. It's also a lot easier to moderate.
Best of luck!
Robin Hamman
(social media person from the BBC)
Post a Comment