[ezacharyk]

I was emailed this article last night:

When Comments Cross the Line


The article was written in response to the Sean Taylor shooting that happened recently.

The article discusses how some articles cause massive problems in the comments area when people start posting hate speech.

It gives a couple of other examples as well.

But something that stood out to me was this:

Quote:

The debate over what led to Taylor's death has abated, but the one over comments continues: What role does user commenting have on a news site, particularly on a fast-breaking, high-profile story such as this?

I think what was being aluded to here, was how do user comments affect the validity of a website or news cast?

In gaming journalism, we practically live off of user feedback. I don't think there is a major game news site that does not allow reader comments.

So where do we draw the line on moderation and how do we prevent such flame wars from happening in the first place (if at all possible)?

Here is an example of what can happen in a game journalistic setting:

GamePolitics.com » African Women’s Blog Critical of Resident Evil 5 Trailer

[bignobody]

Bill Maher once said something along the lines of "You have to cross the line sometimes. Otherwise, how would we know where the line is?"

The problem here I think is more the Trolling phenomenon. People often post outrageous things they don't really mean, just to get off on the reactions of others.

[ezacharyk]

Yes trolling is one of the most annoying things about blogs and other comments.

If there was a way to prevent trolling, it would have been done by now.

[Nyu001]

Creastiy:

"unquoted"

Err... Do you speak English!?

[nikolas]

No she doesn't! And apparently she's also banned and all her posted are deleted! We got hit by a few spam bots yesterday!