Fabrice Florin on The Shortcomings of Socially Driven News

I've taken a look at NewsTrust. It feels more wiki-like (or encyclopedic) than anything else, to me. I don't think that's interesting to most people, in terms of community-building. Too dry, no real personal feel.

What interested me in the article was the idea that popularity may not be the be-all, end-all of a good news site, using Digg as an example. That's what some here are worried about. Me included. What sets Newsvine apart, IMHO, is the quality of discussion, which depends on civility (as vicaxp has pointed out), quality of the articles/seeds (as Ardith and Claus have pointed out).

When you hear people worry about the effect of the Leaderboard, I think that's the fear (emphasis on popularity). I like it mostly, myself. I was able to analyze my own stats, and improve my standing. I had also decided on a personal crusade to seed more high quality (meaning, seeds from what I consider high-quality sources, rather than edge sources).

Newsvine's decision to encourage citizen journalism sets it apart. The comment system allows constructive (or destructive) critique, which, when it works, works very well. As others have mentioned, beginners can learn a lot about how to write here. At the same time, some people are ill-mannered, or worse. How do we deal with that? I wish I knew.

I think most of the frustrations we've heard lately have a lot to do with the homepage. I like the NY Times homepage a lot, and hope that we eventually see more sections, more space given to authors and seeds (I don't mind how long the page becomes). I'd like to see a category of local news (so that when I seed local news for my DC Metro group I don't have to seed it to a major category, but it still counts in the Leaderboard). I'd also like to see Review added to the main categories of news (in addition to event, opinion, and other). And we either need to change the name of Featured Authors, or take seriously the desire by committed authors to have a category that really recognizes them. Or both.

I worry that some good people are leaving, have left. I've been close to it myself. At the same time, I have learned a lot, hopefully shared a lot, too. If we can encourage quality, while still keeping the fun stuff, allowing the long tail effect, not only the popularity effect, I think we can grow and prosper.

You just reminded me of something I've felt. Earlier on, when Calvin would make fairly frequent appearances to calm things down, his presence worked. I think (but can't prove), that when he wasn't able to fulfill the 'hall monitor' role, people were emboldened to be more extreme. Not a criticism of Calvin, rather noticing that a trusted human could calm things down. Problem with that is that there are few people who have his authority with users on Newsvine. Since it wasn't set up with moderators, it would be extremely hard to institute them now, though that might be an idea to investigate.

May be we need a group brainstorming session (in Newsvine Community) to hash out the frustrations, the experiences that people are having. We've also wondered where the NV team stands on issues, on directions for the site, etc. A council of sorts might help us all feel united in your/our vision for Newsvine.

Marilyn, Mike

I was at the end of a bottle of wine last night when I posted my comment and as such I'm surprised its even legible, but I do think the point could use a little refinement:

To supplement my thoughts to my "what's the goal" article on citizen journalism, I think that when social news is thrown into the mix, you really have to find a balance between the sort of dialogue the author (of this seed) is calling for and the sort of dialogue you find on slashdot, digg, etc. (Obviously, I don't think that social news and citizen-journalism are the same thing, but I think they compliment each other in a way that might be necessary to the success or failure of either.)

I just think that any dogged focus on quality (to an extreme) is going to limit content to the point of blandness. Eventually, the site will be comprised of 5-10 technically skilled writers giving themselves verbal hand-jobs based on the quality of each others work.

I think (part) of the promise of Newsvine is that everyone gets their fair shot and the good writers tend to do well and challenge those who really want to write well to do better. My first articles on Newsvine were utter crap, and I saw the efforts of some of the earlier contributors as a bit of a threat: "I better write more often -- and I better step it up when I do write." On the other hand, those I saw as a threat were people I could interact with (in several ways) and I think Newsvine tends to be a self-sustaining ecosystem in which everyone can feed off of everyone else.

I think when the focus shifts (primarily) to quality you just keep the "people are a threat" aspect and you lose some of the ecosystem. That may be fine for a site that is looking for a very tightly controlled feel -- in terms of content and social structure -- but I think you'd lose those that see writing as a "fun" pursuit. I think some of the best of Newsvine are in that category and I'd hate to see them go for the reasons laid out in the seeded article.

At any rate, I think the key is to "promote" quality through, rather than talk about it endlessly. Writing 5 quality articles is a gatrillion times better than writing one article about why their needs to be a focus on quality on Newsvine.

That is the tough part... determining -- without human (editorial) intervention -- who those people are.

Well, I think that (usually) the community has done a pretty good job in discovering this. People who -aren't- interested in getting smarter rarely stick around long enough to do so. I think 4-5 months is the threshold. On the other hand, when considering "get smarter here" I see a pretty open definition of "here" and I think others see it as "get smarter while reading original content."

That's certainly part of it, but I think one can get smarter while learning how to write via trial and error. I think one can get smarter by writing something crappy and reading through his/her comment thread. I think comment threads are at least 50% of the smarter-ing that occurs on Newsvine. (And, not coincidentally, also the area in which much of the policing needs to occur.)

Merry Christmas!

Hi Brian, I agree with most of your points. I find that you're focused on a different point than I am, though. I'm more concerned with hate speech, inconsiderate behavior, and behavior that makes people leave in general. And I feel that people come here for many reasons, not just to read original material, though I think that's vey important to the mix.

I just found an interesting post in Raw Story.

For a very long time, we were proud to be able to say that our comments threads were free forums where all readers could express their thoughts, no matter how trivial, profound, thoughtful or repugnant. Of course, comments that came to our attention as excessively profane, personally abusive or bigoted, or that suggested violence, were removed. Sadly, this time has now come to an end.

While we have been assured that we are working to implement a new comment system featuring conversation threads, guest registration and greater interactivity, it hasn't come as quickly as the escalation of the hate speech on our haloscan comments to an unmanageable level. As a result, all comments posted on our story pages will now be moderated. Please understand that this will cause a delay in the posting of some comments, but is a necessary move on our part.

If a personally abusive, excessively profane, bigoted, violent or otherwise inappropriate comment does slip by the updating staff, please let us know by emailing rawstory@gmail.com immediately. We do not feel compelled to host them.

Sounds like we're not alone in needing to find some new methods of moderating content in all its forms on the site.

As for censorship and dealing with troubling members --

I've been pretty vocal for some time now about my view that most people don't care if that type of personality is kept out. I certainly don't. As a community, I think it's acceptable to set a behavioral standard and to expects members to adhere to that standard. As I mention in my last comment, I think that people can generally be kept in line based on the efforts of the community, but I hope that anyone who crosses the line of decency is eventually booted -- once they've proven that they're not interested in providing any other style of contribution.

Maybe in addition to individual, responsible Viners being able to maintain order in some limited way we would also need some form of automated "meta-moderation" similar to how Slashdot works. All moderation actions (like collapsing or deleting a comment) should be subject to peer review.

I was just thinking... How about a system where after a certain number of reported violations (fairly high, since no one is perfect) a person is reviewed by a panel, or has their account set back to zero or deleted? I don't see how a totally automated system will work, nor a totally manual system.