Comment sections need a makeover

Remember when you were in high school and you didn’t particularly enjoy raising your hand to add input to a discussion?

I’m curious what it takes to get people to comment on a news story, and why they comment.

Anna Tarkov, a media savvy maven, wants comments sections to get a makeover and I must agree.

Most news sites use discussions boards just because and without real thought as to why or how to better utilize them. I’m not sure I have the answer but newsrooms should begin a dialogue about this issue.

So, what ideas do you have to offer?

Anonymous comments, newsroom policies

Photo courtesy of Rolling Stone's Peter Yang

A big debate in newsrooms is whether or not to allow anonymous comments.

Regardless of policy, are anonymous comments really anonymous?

After reading the feature article in the current edition of Rolling Stone about the most dangerous man on the Web, it got me thinking, should a newsroom use the same software to protect those who can post anonymous comments and its own database of information?

The story about Jack Applebaum, the brain who invented the software that keeps whistle-blowers anonymous on Wikileaks, is somewhat unsettling because he sheds light on how un-anonymous we all are on the Web.

“I don’t want to live in a world where everyone is watched all the time,” Applebaum tells Rolling Stone.

Applebaum is a crusader for freedom of speech but in a way that’s unconventional and according to some highly controversial. He travels the world and promotes his software that keeps people anonymous by teaching “political dissidents and human rights activists,” how to use the program to protect their online activity from oppressive regimes. Applebaum believes that anonymity on the Web is a means to achieve freedom of speech.

“The dangers of the Web may remain abstract for most Americans, but for much of the world, visiting restricted websites or saying something controversial in an e-mail can lead to imprisonment, torture or death.”

Governments aren’t the only ones that keep accumulating information on its citizens, one American newsroom collects information from its community in an effort to help reporting.

An NPR newsroom developed a system to gather anonymous information about community members: Public Insight Network. The idea is to go beyond the “rolodex” style reporting and create a limitless number of go-to sources for certain subjects.

According to Minnesota Public Radio the network has information on approximately 75,000 people. The way the system works is like a glorified digital business card. A citizen offers information to the newsroom like what he or she is good at, maybe a profession, or a certain experience. The idea is that when the station is doing a story on say hunting, news directors will be able to access the digital database for “hunting” and out comes people who have put hunting into their profile.

This opens up a wealth of information and sources for a newsroom. The 21st century version of reporting–keeping tabs on all citizens to help with the 2.0 era of journalism.

The real question is how protected is this information and who in NPR is allowed to see this personal information? Could a newsroom who engages an audience in this manner benefit from the Applebaum’s Tor software?