Moderating Your Talk forms …
Throughout my journalism career, I’ve often found myself sighing out loud and muttering, “They didn’t teach about this in journalism school.”
Never has that been more frequent than the six months since we launched MonroeTalks.com, the discussion forum Web site that is getting more and more attention in Monroe County.
The site features talk, talk and more talk, on a variety of topics that is spellbinding. You name it, and it’s discussed on MonroeTalks.com. The site, just launched in mid-June, has received more than a million page views a month since October. There now are more than 1,700 people actively participating and thousands more listening in but not registered to talk.
One of the attractions, we believe, is that the site is largely not moderated. It’s a free-for-all; anyone can start a topic and anyone can participate in any discussion.
There are some rules, of course - terms of service that users agree to when they register. Things like no personal attacks on individuals, no pornography, no plagiarism of copyrighted material, etc.
So someone, and that often is me, does have to decide occasionally whether a post on MonroeTalks.com crosses the line.
Thankfully, we don’t need to do much moderating because MonroeTalks is a very well behaved on-line community. When someone starts to cross over the line, others reel them in. At times participants in a discussion have demanded that a poster withdraw a comment, and they’ve complied.
A few times, we’ve had to step in and delete a comment or two, or even more rarely, an entire thread.
That happened this week when a thread was started accusing state Rep. Kathy Angerer of using her influence to get charges dropped against her daughter, Megan Angerer. Some of the people commenting on the thread made further accusations or derogatory remarks about Megan.
We don’t do this often, but this seemed like a place where we should be proactive in determining the facts of the case and posting them, because the speculation was getting wilder and wilder. We did that, posting that Ms. Angerer indeed was arrested and that her case was handled the same as any other person charged with shoplifting for the first time - she was sent into a diversion program that allows her to keep her record clean if she completes a two-day program and pays restitution.
The next day a second thread began attacking Ms. Angerer again. We deleted the thread and explained why - it violated the terms of service, which prohibit personal attacks on individuals.
Naturally, another thread started discussing whether The Evening News would treat comments on MonroeTalks.com the same if they didn’t involve a public officials’ daughter.
That thread is still there, because it discusses a legitimate topic. Here’s the link. By the way, the answer to the question is that we have on several occasions deleted comments or threads because of personal attacks on individuals, and we’ll do it again when we have to. We hope it doesn’t happen often.
Dundee Dad, one of our regular posters on MonroeTalks, cut me a little slack today. “In fairness, moderating a forum like this probably isn’t easy,” he said, on the same thread where he questioned whether we would treat anyone else the same way that we treated Ms. Angerer.
Others on the thread pointed out that we have allowed comments that are critical of businesses, as well as candidates for public office. In those cases, there was a legitimate public interest in the discussion. When a private individual who isn’t in a public office (or running for office) is involved, a different standard applies.
Yes, DundeeDad, it is challenging moderating a public forum. It’s also fun and fascinating, and we’re figuring out the details as we go. Suggestions are always welcome.