Bag A Troll

Presenter: Peter Dykstra – Publisher, The Daily Climate & Environmental Health News
@pdykstra | http://ehn.org

Would it work to have a “Troll of the Week”? Using shame as a deterrent?

Boston paper: They pay outside company about $5,000/month to moderate comments, then two regular people serve as moderators for Red Sox/Patriots forum.

Having columnists/reporters go into the comments and post has changed the tenor of the debate, but only when the reporters/columnists are men.

When it’s women, they get attacked. It’s a safety issue for female journalists and female commenters when they have to use their real names.

Some sites have a “bozo” feature – they get banned but they think they’re still posting.

UT San Diego – has hired company to moderate comments means nothing remains up for more than an hour. Comments have to be moderated.

Livestrong site: Using FB comments has been helpful. About 60% women on site. Still have people post fat shaming remarks, listing tempting foods in threads about dieting, also problem with pro-anoxeric posts

Martha Vineyard’s paper: Has had sources refuse to talk for a story because they don’t want to be subjected to the comments online. (This is my worst fear.)

Question from woman w/ Site that deals with intersection of LGBT/spirituality: Where are the sites that have good commenting?

Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates and NPR’s Code Switch mentioned as good examples of well-policed and thoughtful comment boards. Coates spends a lot of time there, NPR is quick to ban comments but always says exactly why.

Yahoo: Has invited trolls to create content for their site and let them see, subtly, how it feels, to get comments that are super critical

Cagle editorial cartoon site: what about dealing with institutional trolls? In response to a controversial cartoon, subject asked his supporters to flame Cagle, which got 10,000 comments, about 3,000 death threats.

Yahoo: Suspects that most of us have institutional trolls, but we may not know it because they don’t represent themselves that way.

Wendi C. Thomas, The Commercial Appeal

@wendi_c_thomas

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