angela_the golo editor: blog 
golo editor's blog
change is coming to our comments area
Published Jan 11, 2008Views: 606
Major change is on the way to the WRAL.com comments area.
The first change is that we are opening all of our news stories for comment beginning Wednesday, January 16.
From local and national news to strange news, political news and even local news briefs, every news story will be open for discussion.
We’ve received lots of feedback about stories being closed for comments, particularly when many others are open, and it has become increasingly clear that the community wants the opportunity to discuss it all. We want to provide that opportunity.
With a change of this magnitude, we have also made the decision to moderate all comments before they appear on the site, with the intent of weeding out the few who try to derail a conversation with off topic or abusive comments.
It is important to note that these changes will NOT apply to GOLO.
We will continue to rely on the GOLO community to bring questionable content to our attention.
GOLO members will have the ability to create their own profiles and blogs, post comments, upload and share image galleries and sound off on community issues 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We do, however, expect GOLO content to fall within our community guidelines and terms of use.
We recognize that full moderation is a tall task and for that reason we have hired a dedicated team of online community moderators.
Our moderators will work to provide consistency, objectivity and fairness while ensuring that comments promote productive community conversation and do not violate our terms of use.
We are also incorporating a voting tool that will let you decide the important stories of the day. In addition to voting on news stories, you will also be able to e-mail friends and encourage them to vote as well.
Story votes will be reset daily, in conjunction with comments, which will open at 7am and close at 7pm, Monday through Friday.
We believe this change will allow room for more opinions and encourage participation.
As always, we welcome your feedback about these changes and remain committed to providing a quality online experience.
-Angela
Click here to read my follow up blog and read comments.
Filed under: Human Interest
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January 20, 2008 3:00 p.m.
Response from WRAL.com:
N2theM8trix - Let me clear that up. No, the comments changes have nothing to do with typos. I want people to let us know when they see typos or mistakes in stories. Of course, I do not like to see any mistakes, but when a typo is made, it should be brought to our attention. -John Clark, General Manager, WRAL.com
GOLO member since July 14, 2007
January 18, 2008 1:24 a.m.
GOLO member since July 14, 2007
January 18, 2008 1:23 a.m.
WOW. Encouraging readers/viewers to move discussion from one place, to potentially hundreds of others. Good luck keeping up with server capacity and the like. I think you all need to review concepts associated with streamlining and efficiency. I have been on this site for quite a while, official registered just a few weeks ago, and can now see my self not coming back. Apparently, WRAL and GOLO are trying to create new ways to run a message board... but why? If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
GOLO member since January 8, 2008
January 17, 2008 7:01 p.m.
GOLO member since July 5, 2007
January 17, 2008 6:48 a.m.
Response from GOLO:
We’re not ignoring anything in regards to our recent changes. That couldn’t be further from the truth. We do not like a lot of the personal attacks, and frequent abuse we’ve seen in the comments, and that is why change was necessary. Believe me, we are not ignoring a single thing. We’re also not trying to make “rainbows and unicorns” - we’re trying to create a safe environment where all views can be shared – but shared in a civil way without abuse, attacks, sweeping generalizations and a complete lack of respect. That does not lend itself to productive community conversation.
Angela Connor; GOLO Managing Editor
the point is to actually comment on articles. not some idiots blog that means nothing. wral sucks
GOLO member since September 19, 2008
January 17, 2008 12:07 a.m.
And moderating everything is slowing everything down. I don't have time to spend waiting on a comment to post and then respond, wait, respond... it's much too time consuming. a 4 minute conversation could stretch hours. Forget that.
This will probably be the last of my comments.
January 16, 2008 2:26 p.m.
Maybe someone can come up with a local opinion site that would be easy to use and available to all who wanted to participate. Maybe a site named inmyopinion.com or something similar. I'm sure there's already a site by the name I just mentioned. I'm not even going to bother to check. But you get the message. Judging from the comments that have escaped WRAL's censors there certainly seems to be a market for a similar forum. Apparently WRAL is either not interested or they don't have the time. Either way, we're left in limbo. But that's about the way it's been on here anyway with the hours and hours time lag between posts!!
January 15, 2008 10:19 p.m.
GOLO member since July 10, 2007
January 15, 2008 3:48 p.m.
Response from GOLO:
Yes, beginning tomorrow news stories will be open for comment between 7am and 7pm. That's "news" stories only. GOLO blogs and other content will be open 24/7 and it will be very easy to start your own GOLO blog from within the comments area of news stories. We do plan to open news stories for comment on the weekends in the near future.
Angela Connor, GOLO Managing Editor
GOLO member since September 14, 2007
January 15, 2008 7:15 a.m.
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