Hey, there! Log in / Register

Whoa: Herald turns off comments on all news articles

That might explain the 100 simultaneous Turing tests running in the discussion area on WBZ's hospital-shooting story.

Via Boston Reddit.

Topics: 
Free tagging: 


Ad:


Like the job UHub is doing? Consider a contribution. Thanks!

Comments

The sports stories still have comments and they have this disclaimer at the top:

Welcome to our new commenting system
Discussions at BostonHerald.com are powered by Disqus, a commenting system that gives you the ability to voice your thoughts and share your opinions with other readers.

You are required to provide at least an email address to comment on our site, and you can comment by connecting your Disqus, Facebook, Twitter or Google Plus accounts also. Comments not associated with a verified account will be held for review, so to keep the conversation flowing, you'll want to use one of the verified methods.

You can now respond directly to a specific comment by clicking “reply.” All conversations stemming from one comment will have their own thread, making discussions neater and more focused. You can also vote specific comments up or down, and share them more easily on your favorite social network. Clicking “newest” in the top left of the discussion panel also sorts comments by newest, oldest, or best-rated.

Disqus has a help section and knowledge base if you'd like to learn more.

Happy Commenting,
The Boston Herald staff

So, I'm wondering if they just haven't finished rolling it out or decided to kill commenting on certain sections and not others.

up
Voting closed 0

I kinda wish most places would move to this or a linked facebook account. It would keep people in line and remove the anonymity of posts. USAT did this a few years ago, and it all but stopped the BS replies people have. Yes they still have some but people actually realize their real name is there so they have to maintain some sense of decorum when they post.

up
Voting closed 0

WBZ uses Disqus, with little or no effect on the abysmal quality of the comments.

up
Voting closed 0

its still better than BDC or some other places where its a free fall.

Honestly I think half of those accounts are fakers anyways with real email addresses. I'm firmly convinced that people are paid to post that garbage everywhere.

up
Voting closed 0

... the comment boards tend to be dominated by the same sort of ultra-right-wing American trolls (saying ths same sorts of rubbish) as those that dominate the comment sections of American news sites.

up
Voting closed 0

Who do you think reads the Daily Fail?

up
Voting closed 0

up
Voting closed 0

That's why the very strong American right wing presence was so surprising to me.

up
Voting closed 0

For some reason, when they went to discus, I couldn't get to the comments just to read them.
Of course, my Firefox has turned grey.

up
Voting closed 0

The Guardian is dominated by right wing trolls?

Or, people have different opinions and it makes you uncomfortable.

I read the Guardian and the comments are far from dominated by right wingers.

up
Voting closed 0

Having different opinions on things that cannot be objectively verified is fine. See also "does God exist or not"?

Being a troll with canned "opinions" that are easily and factually debunked is fair game for ridicule. Being a troll who believes that its debunked opinions should be required by law is fair game for contempt.

up
Voting closed 0

I am perfectly aware of the difference between intelligent conservatives and thuggish ultr-right-wing nincompoops. Maybe I just have had the bad luck to see comments on articles that especially attracted trolls.

up
Voting closed 0

 

up
Voting closed 0

but anyone with some moderate Google skills can figure out who I am ;) See below..

up
Voting closed 0

Cybah's real name is...{comment deleted by Adam}.

up
Voting closed 0

I have a throwaway email account (Adam, please note that I use my real email account here). I always use it on Disqus sites. I would never comment on the Herald or Gawker/Jezebel (kinja) or a million other places with my real or twitter name.

Forgot to add: it's a gmail account and I also refuse to comment on sites that use Google+ names either.

I have had online and offline stalkers. Randos on the internet don't need to know my full name and location.

up
Voting closed 0

Disqus isn't actually new at the Herald. When they moved to Drupal awhile back, they started out with Drupal's native commenting (just like this here thing), then ditched that for Disqus (which has a centralized registration/anti-spam system for the zillions of sites that use it). They just never changed that intro message.

up
Voting closed 0

Do you think we are we now going to see more of 'those kind' of commenters here? Would you ponder going to the Dan Kennedy real names only mode if that happens?

up
Voting closed 0

they would need to register first. Adam manually approves all 'anon' posts.

I'd love to be a fly over his shoulder at what DOESNT get posted.. I'm sure its very herald like.

up
Voting closed 0

I doubt this will change much here, but there has been a steady rise in anon comments that there's no way in hell I'll publish over the past couple of years, to the point where some days, when certain subjects *cough*highwayshutdowns*cough* come up, I'm deleting way more anon comments than I'm approving.

up
Voting closed 0

So are some people here suggesting that sites such as Universal Hub require commenters to use their real names, or simply having to verify their identities with valid email addresses?

Number of people who use their real names on this site is ... 2? Adam?

up
Voting closed 0

Bully on That.

up
Voting closed 0

I'd comment more with my "authentic" account tied to my gmail, but I frankly can't remember the password most of the time and it's just as easy to do it this way from my phone (which is where I read UHub from, probably 75% of the time).

Chalk it down to pure lazy.

up
Voting closed 0

I'm one of the many frequent UHub posters with an alias. I've got a bunch of reasons: Sometimes I comment on stuff that goes against the party line of my employer. Sometimes I comment on something which a future employer might not hire me over. And what's it matter? If you care about my comments I'm BostonDog. I don't need someone crazy looking me up because they don't like my comment on something.

Trolls suck. But requiring real names isn't the solution. Reasonable moderation coupled with a few barriers (make a login, etc) seem to work well.

If it really got bad Adam could just add a delay -- you can't post until you've had an account for 2-4 weeks. Most hotheads are too impatient to wait it out.

up
Voting closed 0

Yeah I second BostonDog's comment. (I was mid write of this when I saw it post)

Much like BostonDog, alot of it has to do with my some semblance of a career. HR folks DO google folks now to see what people are up to, so I'd prefer them not to see my rantings on here. Not that I am ashamed or anything but I've learned there's three things you don't talk about at work.. sex, politics, and religion. And we talk all three on here so very openly! So I'd prefer NOT to have my employer know.. or rather it's just none of their business what my opinions on said matters are!

But I will say that I have used this handle online, or some variation of it, for decades.. it's really no secret who I am. I use it everywhere. I just make it not so obvious who I am to prying eyes. :-)

(Not that any of this matters anyways, if you google my full name, you learn a lot about me! (I've been in the news a couple of times... in a good way))

up
Voting closed 0

Cybah, just so you know, this has nothing to do with you comment on UHub on (insert highway, bicycle, JP, crime, or whatever story), but your work has been slacking.

I've got union protection, and even I don't want to deal with that shitstorm.

up
Voting closed 0

The right to comment anonymously is the electronic version of the unsigned broadside from two hundred years ago, I think.

Adam could just let it go all wild, but the ACs would drive away most of the regulars. So, his moderation is good for the quality of the blog. Must be a pain in the ass, though.

The right to use a pseudonym protects many folks from the vitriol of the lefties.

up
Voting closed 0

the vitriol of the lefties.

Because the "righties" are just a bunch of Kumbaya-strumming hippies, amirite?

up
Voting closed 0

when certain subjects *cough*highwayshutdowns*cough* come up, I'm deleting way more anon comments than I'm approving

Which must be a HUGE time-sink. Can a bot manage any of the process?

up
Voting closed 0

nt

up
Voting closed 0

The admin console shows me a list of all the unapproved comments - and when you mouse over the subject lines, you get a popup with the first X characters of the post (150 or so, I guess). So I can quickly scroll through them and most of the time, the objectionable ones are quickly obvious. Check, check, check I go, to either approve a bunch at once or mass-delete.

Obviously, this wouldn't scale to something the size of an actual newspaper site, but if UHub ever got that big, I'd be able to afford to hire a full time community manager, I'd think (to go along with those full-time reporters I'd be hiring, too, of course).

up
Voting closed 0

Obama dumbocrat Kenyan EBT anchor baby illegal hack Kennedy conspiracy. I think I've covered everything.

up
Voting closed 0

Fauxcohantas.

up
Voting closed 0

You misspelled "Obola". Hope this helps.

up
Voting closed 0

Obummer is one of my favorites.

up
Voting closed 0

Anyone up for putting together a "random hospital doctor shooting" bingo card?

so far I have
"doctor with a gun"
various permutations of "obbummercare"
illegal doctor
illegal immigrant patient
muslim
I'm betting he's black
doctors are druggies
fetus murder
lefty logic

up
Voting closed 0

You forgot Benghazi. Because that has to be worked into every thread, no matter the actual topic.

up
Voting closed 0


up
Voting closed 0

kill anybody in Benghazi?

up
Voting closed 0

anti-cyclists
anti-car
anti-JP
anti-Southie in response

etc
etc

up
Voting closed 0

Iraq, Bankster, War Against Women, Waterboy, Thirsty, Racist, Willard, Misogynist, Bush, Trickle Down, Rednecks, 1%, Gun Nut, Wingnuts, Mittens, Wall Street, Party of No, Caribou Barbie, Obstructionist, Bridgegate, Christian Taliban, Faux News, Crony, Deniers, Repug, Rethug, Repuke, Bigot, Elitist, Extremist, Koch Bros, Fascist, Big Oil, MCarthyism, etc.

up
Voting closed 0

I noticed that this morning. I was wondering when they would do that.
This won't sit too well with a few people.

up
Voting closed 0

And the level of intelligence is about what you would expect...

1348 comments so far, as I write this.

up
Voting closed 0

Adam.. apparently that CBS article was linked via Drudge Report, which explains the comments.

Drudge and his followers are the most vapid bunch of jackasses around. Makes the Herald look like the Harvard Literary Review. Every time he links to an article, the comments always fill up with nonsense. It's very typical.

Sad to say that people like his followers actually believe his vapid garbage he and his followers spew.

Another reason I have little faith in America these days..

up
Voting closed 0

If you enter http://www.drudge.com/ in your browser address bar, it takes you to The Drudge Retort, which is something completely opposite to Matt Drudge's world of crap. I bet it burns him up that he was too late to register that domain.

up
Voting closed 0

Theres actually been a movement in the past 6 months of major media websites disabling comments. Some, for controversial news, others for all. So it fits that theyd leave sports for commenting because its harder to blame Obozo and illegals for a quarterback throwing an interception.

Quite simply, if the comments arent curated like they are here, they do more harm than good.

up
Voting closed 0

I was bounced from the Herald about three days after I posted a comment on the fact that WMEX did not make the ratings book in December, yet they had no problem trumpeting WRKO's one point drop in ratings as proof of Howie Carr's massive audience of both the living and the soon to be dead.

I first started commenting over there after the Martorano revelations were made public regarding Carr's unholy financial alliance with the murderer of women and children. Knowing full well that ole Tubby reads the comments daily and would not take kindly to my making note of his hypocritical stance on anyone who wears a t-shirt with Tsarnaev's face on it as being sympathetic to terrorists, but has no problem selling t-shirts and magnets with Whitey's picture on them at his "nights of slime". As we all know, Howie likes his murderers white and American.

So, mostly my commenting was on the moronic scribblings of Adriana Cohen and Carr, and they pretty much left me to my say. Then Howie puts all of financial eggs into one basket by striking out on his own and he damn well doesn't want to read anybody derogating the shitshow that is his new "show" and all of a sudden I'm bounced. To which I received this e-mail from Jennifer Gallagher Morse at Herald Interactive

We welcome and encourage people to use our commenting forum to engage in conversation and share their opinions. It came to our attention that several of your comments included facts that were false and misleading. Please refer to our Terms of Service for our commenting policies.

Thank you
Jenn

Now I did make a mistake in not knowing that MEX is not subscribed to local Nielsen, so their ratings are unavailable yet, but a cursory glance at the comments section and you can find hundreds of posts with false and misleading comments on everyone from Barack Obama to Elizabeth Warren.

So if you're interested in complaining about the lack of comments you can contact Jen Morse at the Herald to complain. Her email is jennifer dot morse at heraldinteractive dot com.

up
Voting closed 0

It came to our attention that several of your comments included facts

up
Voting closed 0

yeah that caught me too.

Its not a fact if it isn't true. :)

up
Voting closed 0

After the first article on the I-93 roadblocks got a huge number of comments, subsequent news articles had comments disabled. Perhaps the typical union worker who reads the Herald was offended for not getting credit for blocking I-93 first, years ago following prop 2 1/2 passage. That or fear of inflaming race riots.

up
Voting closed 0

Adam is a Master doing Journeyman's Work in terms of managing the site, the most of which I am assuming must be Comments. This is why I actually signed up after a long time of being the (not verified) type.

Thank you, Sir for what you're doing. I don't, largely, agree with much of the politics, but I appreciate both the debate and the intelligence of the arguments. There's been an awful lot in the debates of substance that has changed my mind on things.

up
Voting closed 0

CNN disabled comments a while back as well (in addition to a terrible website redesign).

I'm glad when commenting is removed because it prevents crybabies whining about "the downfall of America" by thinking internet comments are the state of affairs for every citizen.

up
Voting closed 0

And, if you write one to the Herald praising one of my columns, I'll personally see that you get an extra slice of pizza (with pepperoni!) at the party I'm planning to throw when I win a Pulitzer in 2024 for my Olympics coverage.

Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com

P.S. If you write a letter dissing me, they will give me your address and I will come to your place and tell you all 429 reasons why the Rajon Rondo trade was bad. You've been warned.

up
Voting closed 0