As someone whose first experience with opening a blog up to comments was being flooded by some jackass promoting online Texas Hold’em poker, I can sympathize with the LA Times and the failure – for now of their Wikitorial idea:
Unfortunately, we have had to remove this feature, at least temporarily, because a few readers were flooding the site with inappropriate material.
Thanks and apologies to the thousands of people who logged on in the right spirit.
One of the very great strengths of the Internet is narrow-interest aggregation. (That is, even if only 0.1% of the population is obsessed with some obscure gauge of model train, the Net allows them all to meet and talk and bitch about how that inferior ‘O’ gauge crap managed to dominate the marketplace.) Unfortunately, for some, that narrow interest happens to be “being a jerk”.
Which means that, when you open your site up with community features, you also open it up to that knot of jerks who seek out any opportunity to use your site to peddle their Viagra knock-offs, their pet conspiracy theory or their exotic personality disorder. Whatever their goals, they will happily overwhelm yours — and drive out the kind of dialogue and social networking you’re trying to build.
What’s the solution? Three fronts:
Set the tone right from the start. Be very clear about what your site’s purpose is, and isn’t. Demonstrate by example the kind of participation you’re looking for. (On this site, for instance, we’re looking for respectful disagreement, a little humour and a steady flow of generous gifts to the webmaster. Cash is acceptable.)
If you have a stick, wield it quickly and consistently. From spam filters to moderation to banning miscreants, the sooner and the more consistently you enforce your policies, the better. It limits the damage that inappropriate use can cause, helps maintain the tone you’re aiming for and reassures the community that you aren’t playing favourites.
Use good participation to drive out bad. Look for opportunities to increase the quality of interaction your community members have. Encourage and recognize positive contributions, and foster an atmosphere where participants reject malicious behaviour by not engaging with it. (Some places call this a “Don’t feed the trolls” approach.)
