“We can’t cede the social world to large companies.”... discussed the Times’ attitude toward commenters and shared the results of a Times survey that asked commenters why they comment:... News organizations, he said, need to make building community around news more of a priority. (Though, of course, that’s easy for an editor from the Times to s…

Three months into Dialog, I’m excited to say we’ve succeeded in creating a well-lit place for thoughtful, live conversations between the Digg community and the people who make the best stuff on the Internet... Clear community guidelines work. Pre-moderation works. And most of all, the amount of personalized attention we’re willing to give each use…

As a reporte... there may be a simple solution to the bad commenter problem: You. When reporters get involved, it results in fewer uncivil comments, according to research... “it’s like a teacher walks into a classroom and suddenly all the kids are quiet and fold their hands at their desks.” Here are a few tips and best practices for reporters in …

uncivil comments dropped by 15 percent when reporters were participating in the conversation

a closer look at what types of comment sections news organizations ... value they are adding to news organizations’ overarching strategies...a list of questions to ask and best practices for news organizations seeking return on investment...key questions, considerations and links to further reading for evaluating what commenting strategy works bes…

bringing new technology into the newsroom to change how the outlet commissions and publishes opinion pieces ... expand the coverage beyond just text, into visual story formats that can be accessed and shared across different platforms.... the FT's comment section is a "huge source of strength and a very valuable asset".... a new Facebook commu…

In recent years, a core group of commenters have helped to transform The New York Times for the digital era. Their voices have enhanced our journalism, offering new information, insight and analysis on many of the day’s most pressing issues.These frequent commenters have also become a community, one that has its own luminaries.But who are they? We…

On Thursday night, as part of its ongoing coverage of the shootings in San Bernardino, Calif., The New York Times highlighted reader comments in one of its most prominent digital spaces: The top of its homepage... While Times journalists interact with readers on social platforms, the paper also makes an effort to bring the conversation back to …

NYTimes' “verified commenters.”... few hundred people whose comments are posted without moderation can end up dominating the reader commenting system... causes quite understandable resentment among thousands of others...Because they go up first, their comments are almost guaranteed to get the most exposure, “and hence rise to the top and be seen …

People who advocate for comments on social media ... often argue that Twitter and Facebook engender higher-quality discussion in part because commenters are (usually) attached to real names ... [but] Twitter trolls are rampant, too. And a retweet or quick comment isn’t exactly the same as a thoughtful response. So recently we’ve seen a couple o…

Here’s what we’re doing so far on Makerbase to discourage abuse before it starts and address it right away when it does happen. - 8 Steps for Preventing Abuse in a Web Community — Making Makerbase — Medium

... because in the past I used marginal notes to provide additional info, remarks and links without breaking the flow of my main text.... I’ve just gone through one of my longest posts to turn all of my suddenly-set-to-Private notes into Responses. Now it looks like I’m having a massively narcissistic conversation with myself & my Profile is a…

We at Motherboard have decided to turn off our comments section, a decision we've debated for a year or more. What finally turned the tide was our belief that killing comments and focusing on other avenues of communication will foster smarter, more valuable discussion and criticism of our work... Sending an email knowing that a human will actua…

I spoke to seven news organizations - Recode, The Verge, Reuters, Mic, Popular Science, The Week, and USA Today's FTW - about their decision to suspend comments, the results of that change, and how they manage reader engagement now... Here's how they're all using social media to encourage reader discussion. - What happened after 7 news site…

"by simply learning from disciplines like urban planning, zoning regulations, crowd control, effective and humane policing, and the simple practices it takes to stage an effective public event, we can come up with a set of principles to prevent the overwhelming majority of the worst behaviors on the Internet... Businesses that run cruise ships …

"... that encourages conversation around stories and can help create community on Digg, instead of farming out that chatter to Twitter or Facebook... This year could be a tipping point in how media companies employ reader comments and conversation...expected to debut this fall. You can sign up to follow the project — and be a beta tester ..." …

If you don’t want comments on your website, that’s fine, don’t have them. But don’t act like comments are some sort of intractable problem that can’t be realistically addressed by mortals. They’re not... you could fix this, but your priorities are elsewhere.... Having threads that close, having moderators that redirect entrenched disagreements,…

In studies, people report that they feel better after venting. But researchers find they actually become angrier and more aggressive. People who vent anonymously may become the angriest and most aggressive.... We typically sound angrier in print. And when we write down something, we can reread it, over and over, and stew. With e-venting you don…

What separates Medium from everyone else is that responses create this amazing platform for discussion and stories breed their own little ecosystems. So why don't we treat responses and their result with as much respect as we currently do recommendations?... a story that inspires twenty responses is more "successful" in my opinion than one that…

"I can accept that. Here are my theories on why Medium sucks and I would like for people to tell me why I am wrong.... Why are comments so deprecated here? ... The recent I Racist post ... garnered 33 “notes” on one paragraph... it is painful to read as a bizarre little sidebar on the side of the page... nobody is here. Everyone is cross po…

The conversation continued through various responses and notes in different responses, blooming outward, but at that point to actually follow it you needed to perform a very impressive feat of what Gutbloom so aptly calls “digital spelunking”. Which then led everyone to discuss what could make the social part of Medium better... the thing I’d m…

The Coral Project aims to change how publishers, contributors and readers think about interacting in online communities ... to further opportunities for online engagement, extending beyond comments into conversations and contributor contributions... The goal of the open-source software is to enable publishers to better manage contributions and …

Some really advanced techniques in handling trolls here - The Internet’s Most Trolled Cartoonist — The Nib — Medium

From a nondescript office building in St. Petersburg, Russia, an army of well-paid “trolls” has tried to wreak havoc all around the Internet — and in real-life American communities.

“In fact, the very point was to get them, and these comments, off my pages,” - After deciding to charge for comments, Tablet’s conversation moves…to Facebook » Nieman Journalism Lab

Comment moderation and online community management strategies for news organisations, but relevant to government sites too: "Comments are a way for readers to connect with one another, and with the journalists and editors reporting the news. But ... can quickly turn uncivil, and news organizations often don’t have the resources or manpower to con…

Good case study, concluding with observations on the role of journalists which also apply to government communicators: "An engaged journalist's role in the 21st century is not only to inform but to bring readers directly into the conversation through... real-time coverage, alternative story forms, crowdsourcing, beat blogging, user-generated co…

"Crowdsourcing is not about work. Crowdsourcing is about community. Without a solid community, you get not-solid results from your crowdsourcing endeavor.... The goal of many of these tactics is not to stop assholes from being assholes, just to slow them down and demotivate them from destroying your community." - Crowdsourcing isn’t broken — Bac…

" online comments can be worth having, if the publisher puts the work in." Excellent case study. Found this stat particularly interesting: "Users who log in, which is required if you want to comment, view seven pages per session on average, while non-registered users make it to only 1.7" I'd suggest that users who both view 4 times as much conte…

"Guardian digital editor Aron Pilhofer say killing off comments is a “monumental mistake.”... ... many traditional newsrooms are failing to take full advantage of the web’s ability to create a two-way relationship with readers, and that this is a crucial element of what journalism has become in a digital age... ... "You see site after site movin…