[ NNSquad ] Re: Washington Post Ombudsman reveals new plan to deal with abusive online comments

[Barry Gold <BarryDGold@ca.rr.com>]

Lauren Weinstein wrote:
> Washington Post Ombudsman reveals new plan to deal with abusive 
> online comments
>
> http://bit.ly/9ky0tI  (Washington Post)
>
> The outlined plan appears to have considerable merit.
> It will be interesting to see how it plays out in practice
> when deployed.
>
> In general, the combination of "crowdsourcing" *in combination* with
> interaction by employees at appropriate levels holds much promise for
> scaling solutions to these kinds of problems.

This sounds like a good approach.  It's similar to the method used by 
many email groups (e.g., some of the Yahoo! groups I help moderate) and 
some bulletin boards: new members have their posts looked at by a 
moderator before they appear to the rest of the world.  Those who have 
generated one or two on-topic posts are then put on unmoderated status.

We use this as a weapon against spam, but it should also help deal with 
the often childish posts found on many websites that allow user comments.


My one concern is with the economics of this: having an employee look at 
postings means that you have to _pay_ that employee, or that an existing 
employee is doing the moderating instead of something else that 
generates revenue.  So... how long will the Post continue this practice 
once the bean counters look at the price tag?

  [ Horrors!  Sometimes you actually do need to *pay* people to get a
    job done.  And after all, most people do need to eat, pay the
    rent, etc.

    Right?    

           -- Lauren Weinstein
              NNSquad Moderator ]