Brendan R. Watson

I am not sure that structure is synonymous with additional hoop-jumping. But this notion of ’structuring comments’ got me thinking about what that means.

Currently, comments are largely a blank slate, which the reader can fill with whatever crosses their mind. And based on my experience moderating comments, readers minds are pretty sick and twisted (or just filled with a lot of dribble). But what happens if readers are given more structure? And what kind of structure do they need?

I am thinking of structure more in terms of a specific task than more data, though I agree with the Northwestern students that less anonymity for commenters results in better behavior. When you ask readers to send pictures of their children’s halloween costumes, you almost never get people sending you porn. I think this dribble is pretty inconsequential and that newspapers need to get out of the cute puppy photo business if they’re serious about journalism (and I don’t think that’s a given these days).

But this idea of giving your reader a structured task could be used for more productive ends. A great example of this is a site in the UK called FixMyStreet. Users can upload reports of nuisance problems in their neighborhood and the site sends the reports directly to the town council on the user’s behalf. The site reports a respectable degree of success getting problems resolved, but not always. And there’s nothing newspapers like more than reporting on an ineffective, non-responsive government. A project like this would be a prefect fit for newspapers’ reporting missions (unlike cute puppy photos).