audience engagement
The Atlantic closes its comments - and makes them more important, too
The Atlantic joins many other sites in turning off comments - but that doesn’t mean its abandoning reader commentary.
commenters
Commenting life behind the paywall
Douglas Boulton [http://dougbolton.co.uk], one of this academic year’s crop of Interactive Journalism students at City, has just finished a couple of weeks as Ben Whitelaw’s personal coffee tabledoing shifts on The Times‘s community desk [http://www.interhacktives.com/2014/12/31/how-to-comment-online-without-being-a-jerk/] , and he’
anonymity
Why "real names" commenting isn't a panacea
Cory Doctorow explores the disaster that YouTube’s switch to Google+ commenting [http://boingboing.net/2013/11/13/vi-hart-cramming-g-into-yout.html] has been: > The promise of G+ in the beginning was that making people use their real names would incentivize them to behave themselves. It’s abundantly clear now that
commenters
Comments: we're talking about the wrong thing
Daniel Ha, CEO of Disqus, writing for WIRED [http://www.wired.com/insights/2013/02/anonymity-isnt-the-problem-with-web-comments/] : > But for too long, the debate about online discussion has been about the commenters. We need to move away from pointing the finger at pseudonyms or anonymity as the sole problem, because it’
commenters
Why comments matter: conversation
> The purpose of writing on blogs, community sites like Comment is free, and much of social media is to start or further a conversation – not to share a few writerly pearls of wisdom. The great majority of writers on this site (and the New Statesman, for that matter) are
articles
Kill your antiquated article structure not your comments
David Higgerson published an interesting meditation on comments under articles yesterday [http://davidhiggerson.wordpress.com/2011/08/02/here-come-the-angry-brigade-are-comments-on-stories-more-hassle-than-they-are-worth/] . “Are comments under articles worth doing?” he asks, and flirts with the answer “no”, without coming to a definitive conclusion. The post, and the comments underneath (ironically) are well worth reading.
BBC
The BBC's revamped blogs are a road crash
I’ve been watching the revamp of the BBC’s blogs [http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2011/05/our_next_step_in_news_blogging.html] with a mix of horror and awe. It feels as if they’ve decided to go back and make all the mistakes that
Blogging
Science Online: Bloggers, Commenters and the Reputation Game
This slideshow requires JavaScript. I dropped into one of the unconference sessions, looking at engaging with your readers (of obvious interest to me). The panel did a sterling job of giving a beginner’s guide to managing comments and commenters, from different scales (personal blogs to Ars Technica). I thought
commenters
Things I Failed To Blog About
Just clearing down some tabs that I meant to blog about – but never got around to. They’re worth a look, though. 1. [Some really interesting stuff about journalists as programmers](http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/05/the-programmer-majored-in-english-a-fascinating-study-of-the-nyts-interactive-news-unit/). Bet nobody clicks that link on a sunny Friday afternoon with the
commenters
Everything You Need To Know About Comments
commenters
Links: The Community Conversation
So, back in the office. First proper day back at work, and despite a few of last year’s niggle raising their heads again, I’m still pretty positive about the year ahead – and looking forward to some new challenges that are on the horizon. More on that when I
commenters
The Truth About YouTube Comments
Finally, it’s all explained: Local Idiot to Post Comment on The Internet [http://engagement101.blogspot.com/2008/08/local-idiot-to-post-comment-on-internet.html] . (Personally, I suspect he posts on Comment is Free [http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.