Re: Do we want comments on news items? [Was: content protest--correction]

[Christian Fredrik Kalager Schaller <Uraeus linuxrising org>]

On Sat, 2002-04-20 at 11:17, Jeff Waugh wrote:
> <quote who="Alan Cox">
> 
> > Given the kind of content appearing in the discussion side of things
> > someone should either wipe all the crud (free speech does not include the
> > right to exercise it as graffiti on other peoples walls...) or put up an
> > 18 warning and ICRA rating tags for the comment part. I know which looks
> > the more professional.
> 
> As it happens, everything that goes through is moderated. Why some of the
> stuff that goes through does, I do not know. I didn't moderate those ones.
> ;-)
> 
> Anyway, given that we've kicked off the discussion, what does everyone think
> about removing comments entirely from the news system on the new website
> (which will not be squishdot-based)? Various people want them out completely
> in favour of mailing lists (which have better social pressure patterns),
> some want to keep them there.
> 
> Thoughts?

First of all I am one of those who currently do moderate. Judging by the
undo option in squishdot it is me and Zana who does 95% of the
moderation currently. What messages get moderated and which do not get
moderated is of course a question of the judgement of each moderator and
even if I think I probably have a lower threshold for judging a message
unfit than Zana I think we mostly manage to clean away 95% of the crud.
Of course there is some messages that we approve by mistake also. I am
not sure what people objected to in regards to the Abiword article (is
it fixed already?), but I will keep a lookout for rude language in
future postings.

As for removing comments I strongly disagree. Comments do create life on
the website and I am sure that if we remove comments traffic on the news
site and website in general will be lower. While one could argue that
many of these questions etc. should move to the mailing-lists there is
no doubt that many people get their problems solved thanks to the
threads on gnotices, and a removal of the comments do not automatically
mean these people will find their answers in the mailing-lists.

Christian