Wall Street Journal now censoring reader comments to articles

[Longhornfan1024 1,707]

5 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

What's going on in those first two pics? (I assume the second is the lovely Mrs. Candace Owens?)

Ted Lieu playing Owen's previous comments about Nationalism and Hitler back to her during a hearing on White Nationalism.  She didn't appreciate it.

[GHOSTUSER 361]

According to the new head censor, the WSJ needed to create a safe space for women and snowflake millennials who supposedly couldn’t handle the logic and wisdom of the regular WSJ commenters. What the lame ass journalists really want to do is silence the voices of those that are the majority at the WSJ - namely white men, Christians and Jews rightfully critical of rabid anti-Semites like Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, those that support our President and want to stem the illegal immigrant horde. We’re not going away. Netanyahu winning is a precursor to the GOP and Trump winning in 2020. MAGA. I’m out and so are a lot of people. Fuck this shit.

https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/04/goodbye-moderators-hello-audience-voice-reporters-heres-how-the-wall-street-journal-is-refocusing-the-comments-to-incentivize-better-behavior/

Goodbye “moderators,” hello “audience voice reporters”: Here’s how The Wall Street Journal is refocusing the comments to incentivize better behavior

“In the case of commenting, we have concluded that overly focusing on the small subset of users who comment frequently and want no one intervening at all in their comments is costing us the opportunity of engaging with our much larger, growing, and diversifying audience.”

By LOUISE STORY April 9, 2019, 8:13 a.m. 

 

 

Editor’s note: The Wall Street Journal is making some changes in how it thinks about commenting and conversation on its digital platforms, announced a few hours ago by editor-in-chief Matt Murray. Here, Louise Story, the Journal’s editor of newsroom strategy and interim chief technology and product officer, explains the research and strategy underlying the changes.

 

Our readers this week will see a lot of changes built around the goal of elevating the quality of community discourse on WSJ.com. It’s a project we’ve been working on for months, starting with rigorous research and ending with a strategy to foster healthy conversations around our coverage. First, a few of the changes:

• Audience posts will be more prominently featured in our stories that are open for audience conversation.
• Select articles will be open for audience posts, and we will feature clear boxes on every article page showing where audience conversation can be found.
• Conversations will begin with question prompts from our reporters, who will occasionally engage directly.
• Participation in these conversations will be an exclusive benefit for Wall Street Journal members.
• We’ve relabeled “comments” as “conversations” to help create an environment where everyone is welcome and encouraged to share their thoughts.
• These efforts will be supported by a new Audience Voices & Community newsroom team comprised of an editor, reporters, and multimedia producers.

Last year, as the midterm election approached, web sites of all sorts were seeing increasingly hostile comments posted by their users. In our news coverage, we wrote about some examples, like hate speech on YouTube Super Chats.

But at some point, we looked at ourselves and asked what we were doing about it. Were we providing a forum for thoughtful conversation? Were we providing an experience that interested most of our audience? Were we leading by example?

We decided we could do more to foster elevated discourse and to welcome broader parts of our audience to join in conversations around our articles. We kicked off a five-month process of in-depth audience research and news product development. It involved everyone from the Journal’s Standards desk, community team and numerous reporters to the product, design, technology, R&D teams, and the membership and customer service desks.

We know there will inevitably be a small group of people who may not like the changes, but there is a far larger group that would like to contribute to audience conversations if the postings became more thoughtful. Here is what we have learned from our research about audience conversation:

From the perspective of heavy commenters:

• Heavy commenters are often not reading much of the articles they comment on. They go to the headline, sometimes scan a small part of the story, and skip right on down to the comment box. In a sense, some have more interest in having a place to post their thoughts than in engaging with the journalism.
• Some heavy commenters do not post original comments; instead, they stick to replying to other people’s comments. These “repliers” tend to have a higher frequency of breaching our comments policies (which bans abusive or disparaging posts) than do commenters who post original thoughts.
• Most heavy commenters appreciate moderation but don’t want it to feel like censorship.
• Some heavy commenters are concerned about censorship, but many appreciate moderation and want standards upheld. “I think moderation is a good idea, to keep people from going over the top. To keep people from misbehaving.”

From the perspective of light commenters:

• Light commenters are more likely to say that moderation improves comment quality.
• Even light commenters check back to see what the reaction to their comments has been, albeit only once or twice per story.
• And light commenters are open to posting more — one thing that holds them back is feeling that our journalists don’t look at their comments. They said they would comment more if they knew someone was reading or acknowledging their words. (And indeed, when we tested asking reporters to pose questions on the top of the comments boxes, it led to more thoughtful comments.)

There are, of course, also tons of non-commenters. In fact, there are also lots of people who subscribe to the Journal and never, ever take a peek at our comments sections.

 

The comments box and first few comments on one of the first articles open for audience posts under the new system.

One of the concepts you learn in Economics 101 is opportunity cost — which means that when you do one thing, you’re missing out on doing something else. The thing you are missing out on is the opportunity cost. In the case of commenting, we have concluded that overly focusing on the small subset of users who comment frequently and want no one intervening at all in their comments is costing us the opportunity of engaging with our much larger, growing, and diversifying audience.

Indeed, when we looked at the demographics of our heavy commenters, we found they don’t represent the Journal as a whole. That led us to focus on the people who are not commenting as much. Women and younger people have been less represented among our commenters than they are among our subscribers, so we took a look at what was keeping them away. What we heard was they want to feel safe from bullying and share their comments in a forum in which they won’t be attacked. This is important feedback that led us to look at workflow changes that would enable us to better enforce our existing commenting policies.

Some other audience findings shaped our approach. Among them: Most commenters don’t expect to be able to comment on all articles. (Yes, some may, but research found them to be a real minority.) From this insight, we realized we could use our resources better if we picked articles each day for audience conversation, listed them openly for the audience to find and had our moderators spend more time finding great comments and story leads and bringing those into our journalism. In fact, we have reframed the approach so much, that we are not calling our team “moderators”; instead, we are calling them “audience voice reporters.” They will report on the audience conversation.

So where does this leave us? We hope in a place where more people will participate in our audience conversation. Visiting our site should feel like there is more focus on that conversation, even though it’s happening on fewer stories, because we have modules on every article about which stories are open for conversation. And we will be featuring thoughtful audience posts high up in stories in a revolving carousel to capture a variety of perspectives.

Our standards for posts remain the same — and they can be found here — but they will be enforced more than they were. We owe it to our readers and our journalists to lead the way with thoughtful discourse.

 

Louise Story is editor of newsroom strategy and interim chief technology and product officer at The Wall Street Journal.

 

 

Edited April 10, 2019 by Iconoclast Texan

[GHOSTUSER 361]

2 minutes ago, Longhornfan1024 said:

Ted Lieu playing Owen's previous comments about Nationalism and Hitler back to her during a hearing on White Nationalism.  She didn't appreciate it.

Candace Owens destroyed Ted Lieu

 

[Js1 85,056]

Jesus doesn't like when your weak ass breaks your Lent promise to bitch about your inability to be a piece of shit human being. 

[Continental Op 3,934]

Star Wars vs Right Wing Crybabies fan fiction a few posts up from here.

[Longhornfan1024 1,707]

6 minutes ago, Iconoclast Texan said:

Candace Owens destroyed Ted Lieu

 

Just saying something and wanting it to be true doesn't actually make it true.  

[Foosters 17,691]

11 minutes ago, Iconoclast Texan said:

According to the new head censor, the WSJ needed to create a safe space for women and snowflake millennials who supposedly couldn’t handle the logic and wisdom of the regular WSJ commenters. What the lame ass journalists really want to do is silence the voices of those that are the majority at the WSJ - namely white men, Christians and Jews rightfully critical of rabid anti-Semites like Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, those that support our President and want to stem the illegal immigrant horde. We’re not going away. Netanyahu winning is a precursor to the GOP and Trump winning in 2020. MAGA. I’m out and so are a lot of people. Fuck this shit.

https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/04/goodbye-moderators-hello-audience-voice-reporters-heres-how-the-wall-street-journal-is-refocusing-the-comments-to-incentivize-better-behavior/

Goodbye “moderators,” hello “audience voice reporters”: Here’s how The Wall Street Journal is refocusing the comments to incentivize better behavior

“In the case of commenting, we have concluded that overly focusing on the small subset of users who comment frequently and want no one intervening at all in their comments is costing us the opportunity of engaging with our much larger, growing, and diversifying audience.”

By LOUISE STORY April 9, 2019, 8:13 a.m. 

 

 

Editor’s note: The Wall Street Journal is making some changes in how it thinks about commenting and conversation on its digital platforms, announced a few hours ago by editor-in-chief Matt Murray. Here, Louise Story, the Journal’s editor of newsroom strategy and interim chief technology and product officer, explains the research and strategy underlying the changes.

 

Our readers this week will see a lot of changes built around the goal of elevating the quality of community discourse on WSJ.com. It’s a project we’ve been working on for months, starting with rigorous research and ending with a strategy to foster healthy conversations around our coverage. First, a few of the changes:

• Audience posts will be more prominently featured in our stories that are open for audience conversation.
• Select articles will be open for audience posts, and we will feature clear boxes on every article page showing where audience conversation can be found.
• Conversations will begin with question prompts from our reporters, who will occasionally engage directly.
• Participation in these conversations will be an exclusive benefit for Wall Street Journal members.
• We’ve relabeled “comments” as “conversations” to help create an environment where everyone is welcome and encouraged to share their thoughts.
• These efforts will be supported by a new Audience Voices & Community newsroom team comprised of an editor, reporters, and multimedia producers.

Last year, as the midterm election approached, web sites of all sorts were seeing increasingly hostile comments posted by their users. In our news coverage, we wrote about some examples, like hate speech on YouTube Super Chats.

But at some point, we looked at ourselves and asked what we were doing about it. Were we providing a forum for thoughtful conversation? Were we providing an experience that interested most of our audience? Were we leading by example?

We decided we could do more to foster elevated discourse and to welcome broader parts of our audience to join in conversations around our articles. We kicked off a five-month process of in-depth audience research and news product development. It involved everyone from the Journal’s Standards desk, community team and numerous reporters to the product, design, technology, R&D teams, and the membership and customer service desks.

We know there will inevitably be a small group of people who may not like the changes, but there is a far larger group that would like to contribute to audience conversations if the postings became more thoughtful. Here is what we have learned from our research about audience conversation:

From the perspective of heavy commenters:

• Heavy commenters are often not reading much of the articles they comment on. They go to the headline, sometimes scan a small part of the story, and skip right on down to the comment box. In a sense, some have more interest in having a place to post their thoughts than in engaging with the journalism.
• Some heavy commenters do not post original comments; instead, they stick to replying to other people’s comments. These “repliers” tend to have a higher frequency of breaching our comments policies (which bans abusive or disparaging posts) than do commenters who post original thoughts.
• Most heavy commenters appreciate moderation but don’t want it to feel like censorship.
• Some heavy commenters are concerned about censorship, but many appreciate moderation and want standards upheld. “I think moderation is a good idea, to keep people from going over the top. To keep people from misbehaving.”

From the perspective of light commenters:

• Light commenters are more likely to say that moderation improves comment quality.
• Even light commenters check back to see what the reaction to their comments has been, albeit only once or twice per story.
• And light commenters are open to posting more — one thing that holds them back is feeling that our journalists don’t look at their comments. They said they would comment more if they knew someone was reading or acknowledging their words. (And indeed, when we tested asking reporters to pose questions on the top of the comments boxes, it led to more thoughtful comments.)

There are, of course, also tons of non-commenters. In fact, there are also lots of people who subscribe to the Journal and never, ever take a peek at our comments sections.

 

The comments box and first few comments on one of the first articles open for audience posts under the new system.

One of the concepts you learn in Economics 101 is opportunity cost — which means that when you do one thing, you’re missing out on doing something else. The thing you are missing out on is the opportunity cost. In the case of commenting, we have concluded that overly focusing on the small subset of users who comment frequently and want no one intervening at all in their comments is costing us the opportunity of engaging with our much larger, growing, and diversifying audience.

Indeed, when we looked at the demographics of our heavy commenters, we found they don’t represent the Journal as a whole. That led us to focus on the people who are not commenting as much. Women and younger people have been less represented among our commenters than they are among our subscribers, so we took a look at what was keeping them away. What we heard was they want to feel safe from bullying and share their comments in a forum in which they won’t be attacked. This is important feedback that led us to look at workflow changes that would enable us to better enforce our existing commenting policies.

Some other audience findings shaped our approach. Among them: Most commenters don’t expect to be able to comment on all articles. (Yes, some may, but research found them to be a real minority.) From this insight, we realized we could use our resources better if we picked articles each day for audience conversation, listed them openly for the audience to find and had our moderators spend more time finding great comments and story leads and bringing those into our journalism. In fact, we have reframed the approach so much, that we are not calling our team “moderators”; instead, we are calling them “audience voice reporters.” They will report on the audience conversation.

So where does this leave us? We hope in a place where more people will participate in our audience conversation. Visiting our site should feel like there is more focus on that conversation, even though it’s happening on fewer stories, because we have modules on every article about which stories are open for conversation. And we will be featuring thoughtful audience posts high up in stories in a revolving carousel to capture a variety of perspectives.

Our standards for posts remain the same — and they can be found here — but they will be enforced more than they were. We owe it to our readers and our journalists to lead the way with thoughtful discourse.

 

Louise Story is editor of newsroom strategy and interim chief technology and product officer at The Wall Street Journal.

 

 

 

Goddam you're such a pussy.

[High Plains Drifter 10,970]

I'm actually glad its the WSJ who was the first to do this. Hopefully this starts a trend.

[workswithseed 2,033]

1 minute ago, High Plains Drifter said:

I'm actually glad its the WSJ who was the first to do this. Hopefully this starts a trend.

I'd call CR a news outlet. We should get rid of comments too.

[Js1 85,056]

7 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

I'm actually glad its the WSJ who was the first to do this. Hopefully this starts a trend.

BuT mUh FiRsT aMenDmEnT rIGhT! 

[bolverk 29,360]

Very tempted to neg for not spoilering all that shit.

[High Plains Drifter 10,970]

14 minutes ago, workswithseed said:

I'd call CR a news outlet. We should get rid of comments too.

I disagree, but whatever.

Or, just end internet anonymity. Problems solved.

[GHOSTUSER 361]

2 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Very tempted to neg for not spoilering all that shit.

I spoilered it for you, see I’m a nice guy.

[mdmost 42,775]

35 minutes ago, Iconoclast Texan said:

stem the illegal immigrant horde

This right here is why you get shit. You feel the need to dehumanize illegals. Why shouldn't you get the same treatment?

[GHOSTUSER 361]

1 minute ago, High Plains Drifter said:

I disagree, but whatever.

Or, just end internet anonymity. Problems solved.

You have to use your real name on the WSJ comments. Trolling, rude behavior and other nasty ad hominems that happen here don’t at the WSJ. It was a self regulated place that lots of people enjoyed. There is a strict paywall as well which keeps the riffraff out as well. It was a great place that is being censored by journalists who don’t like that we have a voice. Lots of good posters would question the research and conclusions of certain articles especially by the new liberal reporters like Rebecca Ballhaus. We are too white, conservative and male for them and our opinions don’t make them feel good. 

[GHOSTUSER 361]

7 minutes ago, mdmost said:

This right here is why you get shit. You feel the need to dehumanize illegals. Why shouldn't you get the same treatment?

The Border Patrol says they are at a breaking point because of the volume of people trying to come through. Pick another adjective if you don’t like “horde”. I think it fits and is reflective of the sheer number of people. I love Mexico and they are our neighbor and we have billions of dollars of trade going through just Texas every day. Closing the border is a stupid idea. I don’t have anything against the people coming. We can’t allow everyone in the world to come here. Don’t you agree?

Edited April 10, 2019 by Iconoclast Texan

[Blotto 23,418]

20 hours ago, Iconoclast Texan said:

The WSJ reader comments were a gold mine with some really funny, intelligent posts and lots of sarcasm by people I identify with - namely highly intelligent, conservative (No CR) professionals

Why the fuck would you identify with highly intelligent people? 

[Chuckie Finster 22,583]

I know Icono had a long reputation on shaggy, but something seems off about him since the site switch.  He's pretty obviously trolling, and not really even trying to hide it.  Surprised so many veteran posters are still engaging him in good faith.

I mean, come on...

20 hours ago, Iconoclast Texan said:

There was this one comment I read recently that had my laughing at my desk at work. It was a play on Democrats (Dhimmicrats) when referring to one of the new Muslim members of Congress. I thought that was funny as shit. 

Edited April 10, 2019 by Chuckie Finster

[wildcat09 29,187]

4 minutes ago, Iconoclast Texan said:

You have to use your real name on the WSJ comments. Trolling, rude behavior and other nasty ad hominems that happen here don’t at the WSJ. It was a self regulated place that lots of people enjoyed. There is a strict paywall as well which keeps the riffraff out as well. It was a great place that is being censored by journalists who don’t like that we have a voice. Lots of good posters would question the research and conclusions of certain articles especially by the new liberal reporters like Rebecca Ballhaus. We are too white, conservative and male for them and our opinions don’t make them feel good. 

You're definitely not too white for anyone.

I've asked this before, but if your friends got their way and turned America into a white ethnostate, you do realize you wouldn't be allowed to stay, right? Fascists don't make exceptions for "the good ones." Your proper place in their minds is back in Iran. At best, your allies want to send you back to live with a bunch of people you despise. At worst, they'd just kill you because that's easier than sending you back.

[mdmost 42,775]

No, he has a long reputation of being an idiot so it's not a shock the Trump presidency has amped up his ridiculousness. Remember guys, he's the born again Christian who loves to spew hateful, unchristian bile at every opportunity. He's the born again Christian who said he'd love to open fire on illegals trying to get into the country. He's exactly the hate-filled xenophobe Trump plays to. 

Edited April 10, 2019 by mdmost

[Francisco 2.0 32,290]

Nothing finer and more entitled than an offended snowflake creating a thread on a message board bitching about (checks notes) censorship on a privately held publication somewhere else.

Then carrying on and on about it endlessly like a victim would.

[Asithappens 974]

Based on what I've read in this thread about the OP, if he's against it, then I'm for it.

[Foosters 17,691]

Just now, Francisco 2.0 said:

Nothing finer and more entitled than an offended snowflake creating a thread on a message board bitching about (checks notes) censorship on a privately held publication somewhere else.

Then carrying on and on about it endlessly like a victim would.

Similar to those who defend the rights of private businesses to discriminate against LGBTQ, while simultaneously demanding that the government do something about Twitter silencing conservative voices.

Astounding stuff.

[GHOSTUSER 361]

1 minute ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

Nothing finer and more entitled than an offended snowflake creating a thread on a message board bitching about (checks notes) censorship on a privately held publication somewhere else.

Then carrying on and on about it endlessly like a victim would.

Would you bitch if immamac nuked the CR? I’m guessing yes since you post here. People who post on messageboards generally like to bitch about things. Witness the football board in season.

[Francisco 2.0 32,290]

1 minute ago, Iconoclast Texan said:

Would you bitch if immamac nuked the CR? I’m guessing yes since you post here. People who post on messageboards generally like to bitch about things. Witness the football board in season.

No, not at all.  I actually have a life away from the internets.  And quite frankly, it's his gig, so if he wanted to pull the plug, so be it.  The First Amendment doesn't work the way you want it to.  His ball, his bat, his field.  All of us are just temporary here.

I'm pretty certain if you canceled your subscription to the WSJ, they sure as hell wouldn't miss you.

We all get it.  You are entitled, and by God, you want things the way you want them, no matter what.  And it offends you and your sensibilities that not everyone or everything sees stuff the way you do.  Get a clue, dipshit.  Earth doesn't revolve around your pampered ass.

 

[Js1 85,056]

I guess if immamac shut down the CR, I would....(checks notes)

Be more productive at work

Pay more attention to what I'm watching on Netflix/Hulu

Continue to live my actual life where I don't log onto a message board while out with my friends or when I'm with my family to express my outrage at the headline du jour 

Play more interesting phone games while on the shitter

Edited April 10, 2019 by Js1

[mdmost 42,775]

If immamac shut down the CR, some would post obvious political posts in non-political forums because they needed their own safe space while at the same time decrying an organization creating safe spaces for users. 

[Longhornfan1024 1,707]

It's clear from this thread that Icono hates capitalism.  

[hayden_horn 11,360]

5 minutes ago, mdmost said:

If immamac shut down the CR, some would post obvious political posts in non-political forums because they needed their own safe space while at the same time decrying an organization creating safe spaces for users. 

lulz. too true. 

the irony dripping off this thread could water the fucking sahara.

[workswithseed 2,033]

Most of y'all would go to r/pol or Twitter for y'alls politics. I know that Hugo would at least do those things.

[Michael Knight 12,863]

So if someone starts moderating surly icono will leave?

[mdmost 42,775]

No. He'll just whine about it like he did on Shaggy. Meanwhile, he's probably jerking it to Trump's comments about the military needing to be allowed to "get rough" with the illegals. 

[JimmyJames 12,271]

Truly we are bearing witness to an American tragedy here. 

Icono’s true voice has now been muzzled and suppressed by the lame stream media corporate machine, clearly in violation of the first amendment.

One would only hope that our benevolent surly moderators do not choose to likewise follow this dark path, that leads straight to hell.

Soldier on fellow surliites. Soldier on.

[Beau Vine 53,965]

On 4/10/2019 at 11:37 AM, Blotto said:

Why the fuck would you identify with highly intelligent people? 

Hey, many  highly intelligent people fall for Russian DIRECTV scams!