The powers that be at the Lewistown News-Argus, fed up with “the nastiness that has pervaded so many of our online discussions,” are making some changes to their policies regarding online comments.
They are requiring commenters to use a first and last name and to post comments under only one name. They also promise to more carefully review comments before they are posted.
Another portion of the story hit close to home: “Many websites have taken the easy way out by simply shutting down their online comments — others have required that people can only comment by using their Facebook accounts.
“We’re not ready to go to those extremes quite yet.”
I bring this up because I’m wondering what readers of Last Best News think of our using Facebook for our commenting system. The rationale for this is explained elsewhere on this site, but basically we are using Facebook because we don’t have the time to review and moderate comments. Facebook also provides the simplest way of ensuring that comments are made by people using their real names.
Until reading that piece in the News-Argus, I hadn’t considered use of Facebook as “extreme.” At the annual conference of Local Independent Online News Publishers in Chicago last fall, Facebook was the method of choice among most of the small publishers I met there.
I didn’t hear anybody say their readers hated it or that they had received many complaints, but a lot of this is new to me and maybe I’m missing something.
So, I was wondering what readers think about this. Is it a good system? Do you mind being asked to use Facebook? If you’re not able to respond because you don’t use Facebook, let me know your thoughts via email at edkemmick@lastbestnews.com.
