Comment moderation guidelines meant to cultivate community forum

The perception of the intent of the moderation can get away from you fast. When you remove a comment without publicly noting that a comment has been removed and what guidelines it broke, you drive people to post about their deleted comment elsewhere and provide their own documentation with commentary, usually turning their whole social network against the moderator.

If you moderate transparently, people don't have to like your choices, but they'll be a lot less likely to take it to the streets. To build some credibility, comments can't disappear down the memory hole, there needs to be a post from a moderator in the thread that says what happened and why. This is the biggest difference between sites where the moderation works and sites where the moderation is a disaster. Hope you'll consider this approach.

Thanks, Eli. We talked about this and decided to not note where comments have been removed as it clutters the thread. We also anticipate getting a heavy volume of comments on some things and are not sure with our workflow how consuming it would be to post a note that a comment was removed every time we do it. We are always revisiting our guidelines though; every day, in fact. I'll pass the your point on to our moderation team.

Hi Stephanie, I also encourage you to minimize or preferably eliminate anonymous postings as, in my experience, full disclosure (or lack of anonymity if you will) discourages the BS. As I've noted on a number of occasions, I will only post using my real name (note no "quotes" there) so that my reputation is on the line with each post. I believe that this philosophy eliminates a lot of the crap that can occur in these types of situations. All you need to do is visit the Free Press site to see the impact of anonymous posts on the discussion, they basically shut it down. Another way to look a this is to ask yourself: "how may anonymous letters to the editor do the MSM typically print?" B

You don't have to note each edit separately, especially when it's a pile-on and you have to clean up a mess.... see Jessamyn's approach to this issue on mefi here, for instance. But a cluttered thread is preferable to a neutered one. If you disappear comments without comment, simply put, you lose the respect and subsequently the participation of your audience. The only thing worse than a wretched hive of scum and villiany is a sparkly clean hive of scum and villiany that nobody bothers to go to anymore because the management doesn't care what they think.

Eli, you forgot the "FIRST POST !@!!!1!!!" on your comment. I can go back and edit that in, if you want.

Arbor Update has cleaned up some threads that got out of control by posting something to the effect of [comment deleted] for each of them. I've also cleaned up some discussions here by noting in a comment that some off-topic or off-color posts were removed.

Matt Hampel circulated a really wonderful page that Edward Tufte lovingly edited about his comment moderation policy:

http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0000fT&topic_id=1

He's lovingly hand-curating a lifetime of work and gathering only the best content he ever wants to survive, so half of it gets discarded and the other half gets edited. I don't know if that works for news, but it really works for him.

I still think that collapsing unwanted comments or posting a short note is preferable to deleting them entirely.

I also think that plain-English explanations are much nicer than conciliatory language.

We have started noting where we unpublish comments in places where they are off-topic - especially multiple comments. The Google hiring story is a good example: http://www.annarbor.com/business-review/google-declines-to-discuss-ann-arbor-hiring-promise-as-new-exec-moves-in/

Macabre Sunset posted this comment on another story thread and I am moving his comment and my response to this discussion. I had removed a string of comments on a story about a robbery at a drug store. Here's his comment in response to that:

I wasn't part of this discussion. But while I'm pleased that you're finally taking an active interest in moderating the comments on your site (MLive was a little out of control, mostly because of the one-note posters), I think you're erring on the opposite end now.

This is how your community responded to the story. Sure, it would be nice if we all expressed proper outrage that this kind of thing happens in Ann Arbor - especially in an area that's considered relatively safe.

But the reality is a judicial system that lets this type of offender off with a slap on the wrist. Over and over.

So our society is different today. Since our politicians, protected by armed guards and living in the most exclusive neighborhoods, make the rules, they have no interest in the true cost of crime. Avoiding crime by reducing opportunity becomes the topic when a story like this comes out.

I hope you reconsider over-moderating. I've been on message boards for more than a decade now, and there needs to be a careful balance in moderating. Not everyone can find it. This is your community, though, so I hope you're listening when it has something to say.

Here's my reply to Macabre's concern:

We do welcome challenges to our moderation, but I also want to assure you that we are listening to the community. Since we were first announced, we've heard from many people and what they have told us, clearly and consistently, is that they are disgusted by the way the conversation has deteriorated on other sites, and they have urged us to moderate in a way that keeps the conversation here worth reading. I agree with you that it's very hard to find the right level of moderation. But the comments I removed from the robbery story started off-point and deteriorated sadly from there. It was exactly the kind of conversation that people have seen on other sites and have told us they don't want here. So far, there's been a lot of good conversation on this site, and very few posts have been removed. You've been a frequent commenter on this site, and we welcome your continued comments. Our commenting guidelines allow for wide-ranging conversation and disagreement, and all we are seeking to do is apply them consistently.

The following comment posted by cook1888 has been moved here from its original post on a story about a robbery at a drug store. It's here because the comment is about our moderation and not about the robbery itself.

How Big Brother to remove comments you deem "off-topic." The FACT that the robbery occurred in the middle of the night and whether a store open as such a time is inherently unsafe is absolutely part of the topic.

Just wait until the Comment Spam starts finding it's way into the fray. The most common types are propagated by spam bots, but there is a growing 'human' element to spam that is on the rise. An article at The Blog Herald explains in depth: http://www.blogherald.com/2007/07/11/stop-human-comment-spammers/
In a nutshell, certain low-life companies pay individuals to comment within a 'target' market leaving a link back to the offenders page. These can be a bit tougher to catch because they don't offend, they stay on point (albeit generic) and they are often complimentary to the author (e.g., "nice article on moderation, I agree with your ideas"). This coupled with the fact they can register themselves and side step any authenticating services you set up to avoid automated spam bots, can create another time-suck for moderators.

Since I've already had three comments removed, I thought I'd post a message here.

The removal of comments, for example, on the recent story where a bicyclists was killed in a crash makes total sense.

I don't understand how any of my comments have violated any of the reasonable guidance in this post.

I THOUGHT the whole point was to foster a feeling of community and to offer the ability to contribute.

I have been a vocal supporter of Annarbor.com in a sea of negativity. I have resisted the strong temptation to write about which comments have been deleted since it is not my attempt to rile anyone else up.

Humor, sarcasm and discussion between commenters needs to be allowed when appropriate. If it's not, commenters will quickly disappear and there will be no "community forum" to cultivate.

When I inquired about my comments being deleted I was told none of my comments had been removed. Perhaps they were just lost in the shuffle of operating a new website. If they in fact were, no blood no foul.

Might I recommend that when a comment is deleted the space where the comment was originally and the commenter's icon be spared with the comment being changed to something along the lines of "this comment has been removed by the moderator".

yep, while I'll admit that I allowed one of my comments to directly answer another poster (the horror!), at least two of my other comments were simple statements about what I believe about the news item, were removed without the courtesies of notification or explanation, and really weren't too far 'off topic,' (which, like 'don't further the conversation,' appears to be code for "we will remove whatever we want").

Congratulations, you're going to _very_ quickly convince only the least interesting people to stay here and contribute to your community forum. And yes, I'm still offended that your policy seems to imply that if I have a comment removed, I'm a jerk. Even if I am, it's poor form for you to say it from behind your electron curtain - even worse in a blanket statement. Casual language from moderators is okay, but not in an official policy.

I followed two links from this story (http://freefromeditors.blogspot.com/2009/06/annarborcom-meets-discuss-moderation.html) to your site when trying to do a little research on who has what to say about your moderation guidelines. Both would seem to be quite pertitent to this topic: one listing the names of those on the advisory group, the other a story from the 'content czar' in which the words "scum and villainy," are used by a member of that panel to describe what happens without aggressive moderation. Both links are broken. Your own search engine gives me (broken) links to these stories when I search for them - what's going on here? Where has this information disappeared to? And what's with the name-calling? I feel like I'm a member of the Axis of Evil.

Ggreg, those entries were on our pre-launch placeholder site. You can now find them at http://pre-launch.annarbor.com/2009/06/web-advisory-group-sees-our-choices-as-good-moderation-or-scum-and-villainy.html and http://pre-launch.annarbor.com/2009/07/your-turn-to-weigh-in-on-our-moderation-guidelines.html

I agree with genericreg's complaint about the subjectivity of the removal of posts. In the bike accident story, my initial comment about the issue of bicyclists and drivers sharing the road. Many people have stated that it was only a matter of time before a tragic event like this occurred. My post was directly relevant to the story at hand. I'm a subscriber to the print product and want this new company to succeed. I'd prefer to not be alienated by having my posts subjectively removed.

I'm with Eli, Matt Hampel and Ryan on this. The current comment policy is far to aggressive. With the exception of spam, leave the comment in situ, hidden under a "this comment has been deleted" notice. Don't actually delete it. Allow readers to view the comment, in its original location, if desired.

I've already come back to several articles to find other's comments (ones I considered totally on-topic) have disappeared without notice. Worse, several people have extended the conversation to other locations with quotes from now non-existent comments.

I'm already automatically running `diff` against the site, tracking changes. Maybe we should bundle this as a service and host it under the auspices of the library as a local media watchdog.

I was reading a story today that had four consecutive comments removed. While I think it's a good idea to let people know when you've removed a comment, that kind of display tells me that maybe you're using the red pen excessively.

I've never seen a forum where people have successfully remained "on topic" with every post. Some items just don't foment that much discussion, but there's an interesting tangent.

I'd focus, instead, on trying to eliminate the posters who are here solely to cause trouble (haven't seen any so far, but MLive's football discussion had quite a few, so I'm sure they're around).

If you find yourself in a position where you're reading every single post solely to determine whether it belongs on the forum, you're going to wind up with a fairly dull community.

And just wait until you hit high school football season. You're going to be removing posts every 22 seconds.

Why can't I edit or at the very least DELETE my OWN comments yet? This is horrible if I commit a typo or write something I later change my mind about and then can't go back and delete. This will discourage me from posting in the future unless it is fixed, and I'm sure I won't be the only one. What an online conversation killer = no way to delete, correct, or edit one's own posts.

AnnArbor.com, you have been given some good input about comments. It is obviously taken seriously by your readers, and hopefully it will be by you, too. If you wait until the rewrite of the site that you are planning for several months from now, it may be too late.

Here are some more ideas:

- Threaded comments.

- Allow editing and deleting of one's own posts. Several people have asked you for this.

- Provide a notification when others comment on the same stories I comment on.

- Implement a reader-input scoring system, and collapse comments that receive a negative score below a certain number. That way they won't take up space, but they will still be there if somebody wants to see them.

I sorta think the ability to delete or edit one's comments is a NO-BRAINER and am really surprised the blogs and comments don't have this functionality yet. I won't be posting or commenting until thhey do as I don't want my typos floating around in cybersppace without some abbilityy to fixxx them myselfs.(sic)

Earlier, I even flagged one of my own comments in frustation from my inability to delete it myself as I didn't like it anymore.

It's a joke to even imply readers have any control at all of content here on this site if they can't even remove their own posts/content.

It's like "better get this right the first try..."

I've noted the "no way to edit comments by readers" as an issue to be addressed; the link is here to our Get Satisfaction site.

http://getsatisfaction.com/annarborcom/topics/no_way_to_edit_comments_by_readers

There's an extended discussion on one of the Movable Type forums

http://forums.movabletype.org/2009/02/needed-feature-user-may-edit-hisher-comment.html

about this same feature. One variant where there is a time limit on you editing your own posts, so that you can fix a typo, but you can't go back days later and undo the whole discussion.

Thanks, it shouldn't be too difficult: Facebook, Myspace, Craigslist, friendster, blogspot, etc. all have the function where one can delete one's own comment. I suggest also checking the functionality of the SMForums...Simple Machines software for forum ...message board software. (http://www.simplemachines.org/about/features.php) to see how they do it. I go to alot interactive user-generated forums online and was quite shocked that this basic bread and butter feature wasn't an option yet here. Most forums get around the deleting & wrecking the whole thread thing by disallowing the first comment or post being deleted, but let all content thereafter be deleted by the generators.

Good luck with this. I actually want to go back and delete some of my own comments in another thread, so a speedy solution is appreciated.

Sigh. Back to removing posts without admitting to it. I wholly agree that my post was off-topic and deserved - under your guidelines - to be removed. But this thread seemed to imply you were done being secretive about it. And anyway, it was off-topic in that it pointed out how off-topic (and, perhaps... not inspiring of much constructive conversation) other posts were. Those other one-liners and mean-spirited comments remain. I just don't get it. Sorry for being the gadfly here, but it feels like the restrictions being enforced are more stylistic than content-based.

Ironically, I actually WANT some of my posts removed, but unfortunately this forum gives me no means to do so. I actually flagged them in an effort to see them removed (I changed my mind on my opinion) but they still sit there, untouched, in the Community Comment section (WCHO/budget cuts). Sigh.

Can you at least give me a link as to whom I may contact to have my comments deleted? It's been a week. This is horrible customer service.

Also, there needs to be an option to delete one's own profile/account. I don't see where that is either. Are we here forever and our comments here forever once we log on?

ShadowManager, email us at moderator@annarbor.com and include your contact info. Thanks.

Two comment posted on another story have been moved to this conversation because they deal with our moderation policy. To see the story they were originally posted on, go to:
http://www.annarbor.com/news/wisd-school-board-to-vote-on-putting-school-enhancement-millage-on-ballot/

Here is a comment posted by Macabre Sunset:
I said highest compensation, not highest pay. And asking the paper to shut down my voice because you don't like what I have to say isn't the sign of a community-minded individual. I could just as easily choose the name David Smith, or Ron Fitzpatrick, and no one would be the wiser. In fact, those of you who have lived your entire lives with the relative anonymity of a common name probably don't understand the ramifications of what you're asking.

Here is a comment posted by David Fitzpatrick:
The Ann Arbor News would not publish Letters to the Editor w/o a verifiable name (emphasis on verifiable--cannot be made up). I see no reason why Annarbor.com, the News's progeny, shouldn't have the same policy. Far from asking you to shut down your voice, I'm asking that your voice be YOUR voice, not that of some made up name. I have written Letters to the Editor to the A2 News and, apparently, my name is not as common as you suggest, because I have received hate mail in reply. It has not stopped me from exercising my right to express my opinion. Democracy demands full and open debate; the anonymity of fake names subverts that process.

I'd just like to remind Mr. Fitzpatrick that in this particular democracy, we use a secret ballot, allow fringe groups to publish false advertisements about candidates and issues under pseudonymous names ("Swift Boat Veterans for Truth,"), and allow anyone who calls you to have their phone numbers blocked from caller ID. All of our most important institutions, from banks to libraries to hospitals, have extensive privacy laws in place; I imagine this is mainly to protect the customer himself, so as not to inspire a chilling effect on our behavior and what we do with our money, choose to learn about, or feel confident that we can be healed without, for instance, being fired from our job. Anonymity is the *only* way to guarantee truly full and open debate.
With all the negativity about moderation I've put out there, this is probably a good time to thank AADC, sincerely, for taking on the huge amount of extra work anonymous posting probably means for them, in order to attempt to protect the feeling of truly free speech here.

When you click on a person's name and go to the profile page, I think it would be good to add more notes. In addition to things like, "1 hour ago / Commented on Circus returns to Ypsilanti on Friday," it would be accurate have, for certain staff members, "5 minutes ago / deleted a bunch of harmless comments from Lodi Township swans died of blunt trauma consistent with being struck by a car, DNR says."

Uhm, Mr. Fitzpatric, the Federalist Papers were written under pen names. And to get off topic, It is too bad that the concept of "free association" is not allowed on the discussion of the articles. Getting off topic allows people to discuss and use a bit of wit at the same time.

Duane,
We've been very upfront from the start that we would be aggressively moderating and removing comments. We received a strong message from the community that people want to see comment moderation. We've published the policy for everyone to see and are glad to discuss how and why we make decisions to remove comments.

Amalie - at the same time, you're getting a strong message from your actual active users about your overuse of moderation. Topics can evolve and branch in the comments section, and if one person heads off one way and others don't follow, that branch will die. If others follow, then perhaps that's where the topic should go.

One useful way to exercise your moderation powers would be to delete one of the duplicate posts on that page. I'm guessing Trek won't complain.

I have to agree with eli, trek, et al. I would rather scroll through many "comment deleted due to being offtopic" with the name info and placeholder still there. It lets me know that moderation is taking place on that thread and why.

The silent deletion on the other hand, including the random x posts were deleted, makes the conversation more jumbled, as comments refer to comments that are no longer there, and also more questionable. Silent deletion also gives the impression that you are not being transparent about things and not to be trusted.

Please be more obvious about your deletions. If people get the impression that you are overzealous due to the amount of them in some threads, then so be it. At least I can trust that you are being honest about what you are doing even if I may or may not agree.

In short I think you should change the way you delete comments first. Then we can have a more civil discussion on your actual deletion/moderation policy as it will be clear what you are actually doing.

It's called censorship, and it's illegal!!!

Uh, no, private censorship is certainly not illegal. In fact, it's excellent. It keeps threads -- and this whole site -- from devolving into a stinging hive.

I do support marking off-topic comments as such instead of removing them, though. It shows active consideration.

Dave, you're right censorship is illegal. But this isn't censorship (though it is bad business). This is private property, and the owners have the right to allow or block any speech they want, just as you and I have that right on our own private property.

A comment was removed because it contained a personal attack.

Ironic that a comment was removed from a section about removing comments.

One suggestion: remove the message, but leave the name. If one person is always out-of-line, you can stop paying attention to that person. (like the "troll" list that people in the sports section maintain)

One question: my comment was removed because it linked the sensationalism (and incorrect conclusions) of the swan story with the potential sensationalism of the child exploitation stories [which appeared in the same printed AAcom section]. Off topic? perhaps, but still relevant to a story the AAcom screwed up. Why can people mock the AAcom about running hypothetical "road-kill" beat stories, but real stories are off limit?

I think there is a doable common ground here if you are worried about the flow of discussion in comment threads.

I would recommend leaving the comments in place with the content replaced with your reasoning for deletion. Have these comments marked with a deleted or something other class and have a default css rule to hide these comments from view. Have a link near the top of the discussion to show deleted comments with a number of how many comments. I'm guessing this should be doable with some templating, css and a little javascript.

This would allow you to keep your conversations on track while being completely transparent about what is going on. They can tell which comments were deleted and why. There is also no questions that can arise when some says "my comment on this thread was deleted" as it will all be in plain view.

I can argue about whether I think offtopic or whatever policy is too much but I think this is a good first step at making things better.

Noam Chomsky wouldn't like it one bit. The problem is the discussions can get above what the average reader or deleter can comprehend. It seems to be some type of stuck in a box of context effect here. But hey, it is associated with Ann Arbor, that explains a lot.

A comment from Dave Trollson was moved here because it involves our moderation policy. Here's his comment:
It's estimated that a2dotcom censors about 80% of the comments it recieves. Is there any truth to that Tony?


My response is that everyone who registers on our site agrees to our user guidelines and we do not consider it censorship to remove the comments of people who violate our guidelines. In the less than two weeks we've been in existence, we have published some 3,000 comments on this site. We have a very small number of users, maybe five or six, who have consistently had most of their comments removed, and we would be very glad to work with those people to help them understand our guidelines and comment regularly.

Why is sarcasm deleted? Is it that staff assumes this site is read on a Macintosh while sitting at home sipping on wine and eating cheese?

If someone cannot refer to the geese committing suicide as sarcasm since many people accused and raise funds to catch the "murderer" in blatant overreaction, all those posts should be deleted as well as unsubstantiated facts... (hint: hence the sarcasm)

The double standard of deleting posts on the bike death for “assigning blame” and then doing it for some and not others on the geese article is convoluted at best.

Would it be too much to ask for a discussion board for those of us who like a litlle jovial, sarcastic banter, but are not out to be a jerk, offensive or make personal attacks on others? Sometime it is good to break things up a bit. Ustypes live in this community too. Thsat was one nice thing about some of the discussions on m-live is that you could do that and also refer to other current stories on a different thread. I understand you are trying to give the people what your poles show they want, but in some sense it becomes as pallatable as dry burnt toast. Although, I guess I should hand out some props to those of you monitoring this specific discussion board, since it allows some of that to take place and has been pretty tolerant about what people put on here. Anyhow, enjoy the weekend, I am headed up north to celebrate the arrival of Summer this weekend.

@treetowncartel,

It's a big internet, and there are lots of places online where people can hold discussions. Unfortunately it's hard to carry on a reasonable discussion of an issue someone cares about when the conversation is overrun with people who are using that space for their own in-group banter unrelated to the topic at hand or who are posting things designed solely to provoke.

There are bunches of software tools that are hard, but not too hard, to set up to run your own forum. For instance, phpBB

http://www.phpbb.com/

is one system that has tens of thousands of users on an equal number of topics, and can be hosted on your own site for a couple of bucks a month. (Then you too can learn your own special joys of what it takes to keep a conversation going).

Mr. Vielemetti, I guess I am still going through withdrawal related to the demise of annarboisoverated.com. withdrawal. It is too bad it is not still around for the advent of annarbor.com., they would have had a field day n there. I also still kind of miss the snooze. It nurtured my reading skills many moon as i sat in the living room sharing it with my dad, and it was even my first paycheck as a delivery boy. I know you all are ferreting out the product in its infancy and I really do hope you can keep an informative media going in the community.

Thanks for the information, unfortunately I pop in here now and then for a break from my work and the downtime I can find at home. So, that is your job my friend, do it and do it well.

One other thing, can you put a spelll checker on the comment box? When you are trying to fire something off real quick without proofing mistakes seem to be abundant.

treetowncartel: If you use Firefox, you can right-click (or control-click on the Mac) in any text field and select "Check spelling".

The following comment from Moose was moved from a story about the city budget to this forum because it deals with comment moderation:

aa.com seems to think that making a statement of fact (as reported in the late AANews) that a city official has left its employ and then asking that the person who hired that official to retire were personal attacks on those people. Then to remove a post calling to question an anonymous anti taxer's ridiculous statement on the article is noting but simple censorship and poor moderation. Therr have been plenty of other slams in other posts that either slipped by the moderator or were condoned by aa.com staff. Now we know that aa.com is nothing more than a tissue paper tiger even less than the old mlive and aanews.

Where is my post on moderation from yesterday? Am I being censored from commenting on the moderation thread also?!?

Any post containing profanity or a vulgarity should be removed instantly. Agree or disagree, we should be civilized and respectful.

Moose, public officials are accountable to the public and someone who believes a public official is not properly performing his or her duties is allowed to say that, and explain way. However, to identify a public official by name and merely say that person shouldn't have her job, or should be asked to retire, without any discussion of that person's performance, is taking a personal shot at someone, and our conversation guidelines don't allow that.


Ghost, we do welcome conversation about our moderation policy and this is the right place to raise those questions. Your post from yesterday has been restored. Our comment guidelines ask people to add something to the conversation and to be reasonably civil. Some commenters use sarcasm to make their point, and we give people pretty wide latitude on sarcasm, as long as they retain some level of civility and don't turn the sarcasm into a personal attack on someone else. However, we do also ask that the comment add something to the discussion. A comment that merely says the swans committed suicide is flippant and adds nothing to the discussion. If you think people overreacted, you're welcome to say that, and that contributes to the conversation.

Why did my conversation on here have to be restored exactly? I was told it belonged here, I brought it up..., and it is blocked.

Where is my comment from earlier in the griping article? Was I too critical of the absence of rules? Can I be critical at all? It would be great to develop one rule if we narrow this down. I complimented the article as I always approve of a great sarcastic piece!

If you look at the forums that have come out of some of the more 'liberal' cities, you'll find that they allow the community to moderate themselves through a flagging system.

I think the current moderation format used by aadotcom would be better suited to a city in Alabama or Mississippi...Not Ann Arbor.

^ My thoughts exactly Dave! It is unfortunate to see the site with Ann Arbor's namesake with such censorship.

So it's ok to call the people that get robbed dumb in a comment but you can't call the anonymous posters that say it the same thing?

Ryan: Our goal is to not allow any personal attacks on our site; if you see something that you think is a personal attack, please flag it or email us and let us know through moderator@annarbor.com.

Billy Mays' Ghost and davetrollson: We've heard consistently from the community that folks want us to moderate the conversation on our site, which is what we're working hard to do.

Stephanie, you're obviously also hearing other members of the community saying that they want to moderate themselves through a flagging system.

so what makes one sides oppinion more important than the other? and as a matter of fact I have NOT read one posting asking for more moderation, but have read several representing the exact opposite viewpoint.

In the intrest of transperancy, would you be willing to point out some postings that call for more moderation, and then compare that to the number of postings asking for less moderation?

I would think that a newspaper in ANN ARBOR would tend to be more supportive of people who want to speak their mind, than a small minority of people who want to controll what is said and heard.

I find it hard to believe that Ann Arbor residents asked for this sort of censorship based on a single broad guideline. Every post on this thread says the moderation is over the top, where is this community you speak of? Is there another thread somewhere?

I think what Ghost is getting at is that we ARE the community. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

There are two points AACD is sticking to blindly:
1) "We've heard from the community that they want this kind of moderation."
2) "We pulled [post] because it did not further the conversation."
Re:1: Will a staff member please address the CONSTANT repetition of the question 'where have you heard that, how did it outweigh the overwhelming reaction to moderation you're getting in actual practice, how are you quantifying?"
Re:2: If I were on your 'side' in this debate, I'd ask staff to stop using the 'further the conversation' reasoning. Clearly this is not happening. Allow me to demonstrate with a few choice quotes from a random selection of front-page stories:
"these fools picked the right home to rob. If it was mine they would be leaving in a body bag!"
"It's gonna be sad to see the Kroger with the most out-dated font go under."
"Peace out childhood grocery store!"
"As Ben Franklin said, "beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to prosper."
"Will I get $4,500 for my car? It's just a steering wheel. Everything else rusted off."
etc. etc.
Is there ANY guideline you can give us, ANY AT ALL, that will help us determine whether the random moderator that hour will judge our post to 'further the conversation?' Because it doesn't look at all like there's even a pretense of consistency on this matter. In fact, it feels a little like the more input one offers on this page, the less likely one's posts are to remain intact on the 'real' pages.

AAN.com is deleting posts that MLive never would have. While this is not obviously not a first amendment violation, the ethics involved do relate. While the ramblings of nuts, cranks and haters need to go, it appears to me that AAN is deleting reasonably polite, articulate posts that do no align with their political platform... I suggest AAN manage or replace the moderators - I will some management next week.

Shepard, I take concerns about our moderation seriously. I went back and reviewed the 150 most recent comments posted on our site. We unpublished six of them. I looked at the six comments we took down, and none of them could reasonably be described as polite or articulate. We've been working very hard to find the right level of moderation, and I would not argue that our moderation has been perfect from the start, but it's something we discuss on a daily basis and we've improved our touch. I don't think we'll ever get to the point where 100 percent of the comments are published, but 96 percent represents a pretty open conversation.

Tony, I am sure that you think you and your team are doing a good thing, saving us with your heavy handed moderating, but your not. With the exception of obscene content and vulgarities, I think you should leave up posts until they are flagged. Don't use your judgement on what furthers along a conversation. I think people would rather have 100% of the conversation rather than your select 96%...honestly, if you're spending the time reading 100 comments on a story, do you think you would care if you had to skip 4 b/c they were off topic?! "Oh my goodness, that's 12 seconds of my life I will never get back! I wish there was someone who's job it was to delete that commentors post and opinions before I had to read them!"

Tony, you seem to defend the moderation policy the most, would you please answer genericreg's questions?

The following comment from Jessica has been moved here from another thread:

Is it really necessary to remove comments at all? How is removing comments based on your opinion of what futhers a conversation useful when what you need is to gain your readers' trust? Removing any comment implies you know better than they do what is going to keep people reading your articles. I think that's the decision of the people who come here to read and post, not yours.

Billy and genericreg, there's always going to be a some subjectivity in deciding what adds to the conversation, but we've increasingly tried to be lenient on that issue, and that's resulting in fewer comments being unpublished. We're removing so few comments now that we can probably just deal with each other directly if we unpublish one of your comments and you want to know why.

Thank you Tony! I've seen a noticeable difference in the moderation now and at this time receives my stamp of approval =)
I hope the moderator that deleted (as it should have been by the way) my compliment of the noticeable difference in moderation forwarded it on. Thank you!

It kind of seems like there are a lot less comments to the articles in general this week. I don't know if that is correlated with the moderation guidelines, or the news thats fit to print. What do others think?

I want to thank you for removing my comment from one of the crime stories this morning. Since it said virtually the same thing as the comment that is currently there I will assume it was removed simply because I had the audacity to critique your previous censorship. You have made your point, I won't waste my time to comment on, let alone read, your articles in the future.

treetowncartel is right, and cantleaveA2 is as well. Comment activity is down, and it's no surprise to me. The arbitrary and deletion of comments tells people that either their own comments will be deleted or they see that other people's comments, that they just read a moment ago, have been deleted. Either way, it creates a lack of trust and interest and makes people feel it's pointless to contribute. There's no point in talking to people when some of them, even if they're the sillier ones, keep getting removed from the room, because you feel like you might get removed next if you make a mistake and say something the boss doesn't like.

The first comment on the last swan story was funny and fit in well with the story. It was deleted, then put back in, then deleted again. What's with that? On that same page there is a double-posting. It's still there, even after the moderators were told it was there. Arbitrary.

When this site launched, it had some real momentum and buy-in from those of us who were excited about it (and tried hard to forgive its horrid, glorified-blog format), and we got involved and personally invested. However, our excitement has now been dampened, and the site has regressed to what will be it's regular audience who leave fascinating, insightful comments like, "Yeah, I like that musician, too!" or "Thank you for writing this article."

The renewal mailing for the printed version came in the mail the other day, and it went right into the recycling box. If you ever decide to allow real discussion, let me know and I'll consider participating again.

I approve of strong moderation. Keep it up!

A requirement that people use their real names unless they have a good reason not to would greatly improve the atmosphere here. I'm sure AA.com knows that there is an entire subculture of people called "trolls" who do nothing but dump anonymous negative comments into blogs. The trolls are here, just as they were on MLive.com. If you want to get rid of the trolls, be firm and insist on real names.

Your competition for news is the Ann Arbor Chronicle. It also allows comments. However, the majority of its commenters use real names. The majority of AA.com's commenters use fake names.

Guess which discussions are taken more seriously?

Also, the fact that you allow fake names can create unusual results. In the parking structure article there is a comment by "jh". From its content, I am pretty sure that jh is our mayor, John Hieftje. Why should be be given anonymity?

Hey, anyone living in the lower peninsula is a troll, ya live under the bridge. Some people like to use nicknames because it shows they are a little more creative, it is called a pen name in literature. check it out on wikipedia. As for my pen name, i cannot take credit for it on my own, I garnered it off of a spray painted sign at Riverside Park circa 1986.

The Ann Arbor dotcom censors, er, moderators, seem to delete any comments that negatively reflect on article topics, even if there is no profanity or vulgarity. All of my comments about Zingermans being overpriced were removed from the article on Zingermans Roashouse, and all of the other comments on the location of the closing Krogers I left about people shoplifting from that store were removed. Apparently, the local watchdogs still can't bark.

I agree with David Cahill. Those of us using our real names take real offense at those who don't!

Also, the fact that you allow fake names can create unusual results. In the parking structure article there is a comment by "jh". From its content, I am pretty sure that jh is our mayor, John Hieftje. Why should be be given anonymity?
David Cahill

I am not John Hieftje, stop trying to guess. There's nothing wrong with pen names, if for no other reason than they require a reader to interact with the content of a comment, rather than their preconceived notions of the individual in question. Sure, they can be abused by trolls, but I don't think that's what I did in my comment on the parking structure article. I stated my opinion, one which I believe broadened the issue under discussion in a relevant fashion, linked to additional resources that supported my statement and might be of interest to others, and I did it without being offensive or calling our any individuals who posted on the article. Speculating on the identity of an online pseudonym rather than addressing the comment itself = massive fail!

So, jh, please provide some substantiation for your claim that you are not John Hieftje. For example, which views of yours on this issue do not agree with the mayor's?

jh, do not be baited by "David Cahill" (who I actually think is Sabra Briere's screen name...after all, they do hold the same views on most things). He is known on several other websites to have used this same ploy of trying to "guess" the identity of commenters and has been proven wrong every time. He likely wants you to "out" yourself to prove his point about using your real name. Don't feed the trolls.

Yes, jh, and you must also somehow prove to him that you're not John Hancock, Jesse Helms, Jimi Hendrix, John Henry, or Jack Hanna.

I knew Jimmy Hoffa was not dead.

I'm seriously getting tired of ONE person's subjectivity with removing comments. I got an email that stated because I didn't like soccer and called some fans who will fight to the death "soccer hooligans". I was told that is racially offensive. Again, as a paying customer to a product that I do really like to this point (I LOVE the Michigan Football coverage), this one person's subjectivity is really starting to weigh on me.

Wow, this is getting really frustrating. We really should be able to have legitimate views without them getting deleted.

I'm happy to see my first of now three (sorry about that) consecutive posts was at one point deleted. I'm glad that someone added the comment back, because I believe it was a legitimate gripe.

I meant to say I was glad the first one was added back, not that it was deleted in the first place. We really need the ability to edit our own posts for grammar/spelling mistakes.

I was right!!!

Perhaps it is time to consider alternatives to staff moderation. There are plenty of healthy discussions taking place on web sites where "jerks" are allowed to post to their heart's content, and others (readers, not specifically staff) are empowered to moderate them up or down, thus removing them from the average reader's screen (unless said reader chooses to read comments 'below' a certain level of moderation). I think slashdot.org has a robust and healthy system. Rather than simply flag comments, readers who are offended should be able to rate them, moving them up or down in a reader's feed.

The inability to comment on stories and have your insights (warts and all) viewed and integrated into the discussion will only drive people who are otherwise actively engaged to stop reading annarbor.com, which will only realize, for you, a drab daily thread, rather than a robust discussion, "jerks" and all.

Then, moderators will be freed up to report the news.

Huge thanks for actually moderating posts here!!!! I am repulsed by typical comments on news stories in other places.

Just had three comments pulled about racism being a possible issue in the anti-Obama speech to schools attacks. One wasn't so subtle, the second one was more to the point and diplomatic and the third was a bit more anger filled and made the point I could slander Free Press reporters with hatred and vile-filled comments but if I bring up racism I got deleted.

When you include quotes from Fox News and the Washington Times attacking the President, you don't think it's a fair response that racism might possibly be benind some of the attacks?

I'm curious about your thought process.

A comment by barks74 was moved here because it dealt with our moderation policies. Here is the comment:


Ann arbor.com deletes any material that is not suited to their "opinion". This is not community journalism. This is censorship and not right It is a shame that ann arbor does not have a online discussion board to discuss current issues!

My comment did not post on michigan football it was about the abused puppy and a former ann arbor probation officer who was fired for pending animal abuse charges. A dead horse was found in his driveway. It is big news in Jackson County! Why is there not a decent paper with editorials and opinion in ann arbor????!!!!

The story was not related to Michigan football. That has been fixed. My apologies.

You still did not print my original comment.

About 15 years ago in my small hometown, as it was becoming clear that newspapers with any hometown connections were on the way out, someone tried to fight the trend by putting out a "sunshine paper." Containing only good news and with a big cartoon of a sunrise as the masthead, the intended demographic was clearly senior citizens and those people so fragile they thought it was better to ignore, rather than know, about corruption and other challenging things.
AADC hasn't taken it quite as far, but I suggest you pick a random day and time and look at the 'front page' stories. You'll be lucky to find a single "hard-hitting" story that might cast doubt on any individual or business for their actions amongst the "yay for the U!" and "hooray for this charity," most of which - for no apparent reason - have two stories where only one should really be (often by the same writer).
This is a sunrise paper. While negative comments might be allowed, not ones that AADC feels will anger its primary demographic. I suggest heading over to annarborchronicle.com, they've just had their one year anniversary and appear to have either started out MILES ahead of AADC or learned significantly more than AADC is proving itself capable of.

The following comment has been moved here from another thread:

Let me be more specific...Mr. Rothstein- I did not break any terms, conditions or policies with MY opinion on your site. You should not have removed my post. If you are a true Ann Arborite in spirit, you would honor the importance of everyone's freedom of speech. Especially since I posted nothing that was offensive. Your act of removing my post just re-enforced my assertion of the lack of journalistic standards of your site. I wonder if David Sharpe and others from the print-side know this?"

Alan, I went back and reviewed the three comments you questioned. The first comment violated our guidelines and it was appropriate for us to remove it. I thought your second comment was fine, and I have re-published it. I'm looking into why it was removed, and I'll follow up on that with our moderation team. Your third comment was removed because it addressed our moderation, rather than the story, but my preference is that such comments be moved to this post, rather than deleted, and we're always open to a discussion here about our moderation.

It has become quite evident that the "Ann Arbor dot com" organization has decided to run censorship at its highest level.

Lets see - had a comment removed, a short one, because it referred to the FACT that Jets require a longer runway. In fact, the runway needs to be lengthened to accomodate bigger jets (which is what I said). Anyone who knows the AA Airport should also know that jets (small ones) have indeed used AA Airport as a FBO (aviation speak AA dot com, look it up). In fact, they ran LearJets (the small one) for "executive service". So, the size of jets is off limits.

The FACT that bigger jets make more noise than smaller ones, was also removed. Again, the article was about AA Airport trying to get its runway lengthened.

Oh, I know, its because you expect the Prius version of a jet to come into AA Airport and make no noise, right? Probably not in your lifetime, guys.

So once again, the ugly head of Ann Arbor political correctness has arisen. You may think you are the voice of righteousness, but I assure you, although you may be resting on a bed of shoe deodorants and scented tissues, under that bed lies the muck and mire and stench of communism, socialism and facism. You may say whatever you want, so long as it is in agreement with the LOUDEST group, not necessarily even the majority.

Political Correctness and censorship do not live in a free society.

But a few simple questions before I go - has anyone clocked the distance to Willow Run Airport (YIP) from Ann Arbor? And the reason we need a bigger airfield for what is supposed to be a GA field is, what? People with million dollar aircraft and multi-million dollar aircraft can't spring another $20 for the taxi ride?

this isn't an electronic newspaper. This is just an electronic version of a poster ridden kiosk on the diag. I don't read those any more, either.

Farly, we welcome feedback on our moderating decisions. The instance you refer to is the only time we have unpublished one of your comments, and the comment we removed was so brief that it wasn't apparent what your point was, and it didn't add to the conversation. We respect that you disagree with us on that point and we hope you'll continue commenting on the site.

Farly, we welcome feedback on our moderating decisions. The instance you refer to is the only time we have unpublished one of your comments, and the comment we removed was so brief that it wasn't apparent what your point was, and it didn't add to the conversation. We respect that you disagree with us on that point and we hope you'll continue commenting on the site.

Moderation seems to be distributed unevenly. I could accept that one of my heated (figuratively) comments was removed on the original puppy-beating story, if not for the fact that a far more LITERALLY imflammatory post remains, as of this time, on the follow-up story.

The following comment was moved here from another thread because it was about comment moderation, from Alan Benard:

LOL @ the "newspaper" that puts up unvetted and uncopyedited blog posts but shuts down fair comment about people involved in a story out of fear of...what, exactly? Libel? When you have nearly no editorial due diligence on a good percentage of your published output to start with?

The following comment was moved here from another thread, because it concerned comment moderation, from joseph:

Paul said, "It would be nice to read what 'honor code' violation caused this. I agree with you. One would think that journalistic standards would require these "reporters" to actually leave their desks and go out and try to interview someone connected with this story. To base this story solely on the words as contained in the lawsuit is disappointing and not very enlightening. Alan Benard said, "LOL @ the "newspaper" that puts up unvetted and uncopyedited blog posts but shuts down fair comment about people involved in a story out of fear of...what, exactly?" Alan, the moderators take down blogger comments all of the time. I think once this site and "newspaper" gets off the ground, that their staff may not have the time to micro-manage these forums. I have voiced warnings to their staff and management that they risk driving readers away before they can be successful. They insist that they remove very few posts.

Stefanie,

The first-half of my post addressed the story directly and I did so
by responding to another poster's comment:

Paul said, "It would be nice to read what 'honor code' violation caused this." I agree with you. One would think that journalistic standards would require these "reporters" to actually leave their desks and go out and try to interview someone connected with this story. To base this story solely on the words as contained in the lawsuit is disappointing and not very enlightening.

Stefanie, I will agree the second-half of my post I responded to another blogger about your moderation guidelines, but was this half of the post worthy of the entire post being removed?

I can't believe that you guys have that much time on your hands that you
scrutinize every single post to the degree that if 1/2 of the post is off-topic
that you would remove the entire post.

I am not sure how much longer you can continue with this process.
You are killing this paper before it gets off the ground.

Joseph, we don't edit people's comments as a general rule of thumb. You are more than welcome to repost the comment that you believed pertained to the story back in that thread and leave your thoughts about comment moderation here.

Stephanie, so you are saying that you did remove my post because part of it was off-topic.

Do you realize how ridiculous it sounds that you and/or your staff will scrutinize every single post to this degree?

Is this the best use of time of staff writers and "Community Directors"? I do mean that with all due-respect.

Bloggers take their time and their comments very seriously, and these policies WILL drive us away. Where do you think web traffic, web hits and ad revenues come from? It comes from loyal readers like me that get our on line friends to frequent a site.

If you, and your staff, really understand bloggers (like me) you would never ask us to re-post a comment. We look at each comment as an investment of our time. Your removal and asking me to re-post for another round of scrutiny is not how the blogosphere is supposed to work.

Of course, none of us wants a free-for-all on this site- but you can't take the other extreme. We want a site so that we can freely communicate about issues in our backyard. Sometimes we do this while walking a fine-line of good taste. Sometimes we cross the line. That is why 99% of bloggers use anonymous names. I think your admin needs to ask itself who provides the revenue here. Is it the returning bloggers or the occasional visitor that wants this board to resemble something at their church?

I understand that you are doing your job and you have the best intentions. But your policies are flawed and your execution is going to prevent this paper for gaining on line traction.

Instead of email exchanges, I will leave these comments on this board so that hopefully your staff and admin can read along with the others posted here. I hope that this is helpful

Stephanie, some additional food-for-thought about off-topic comments.

Bloggers enter new sites not knowing anyone and no one knows each other's "online personae". Therefore, bloggers will break-the-ice by responding to other bloggers comments. Many times this is done to test the level of debate, intellect, age, or wisdom of others in the community. Before long bloggers have their favorites they follow and invite others to grow the community.

It is important to note that during many of these exchanges that these posts WILL go off-topic. So by removing these posts you are impeding the growth of said community.

I have posted in thousands of chat boards over the years. The best blogs are the ones in which the moderators are not very visible. They let the community grow. The process at a2.com is the most intrusive as I have ever experienced.

I understand that most of you are still learning. I have sent many email to your staff and management on this topic, I still receive the same canned-email-responses from your paper and nothing changes.

A comment from EyeHeartA2 is being moved here because it discusses our moderation policy. Here is the comment:


OK. This censorship is out of control. I criticized the article and questioned the bias of your star reporter and it is GONE. Get a grip and run a paper/blog whatever and quit running a propaganda machine.

This topic is like the old GW Bush "Free Speech Zones," usually hidden in an alley about two miles away from the actual event folks were trying to speak to.

A comment posted by Top Cat on another story was moved here because it addresses our moderation policy. Here is the comment:


Chrysta, is it really your role here to inject your opinions when you are also providing the forum and serving as moderator?


The comment is directed at Chrysta Cherrie, who is our entertainment producer/copy editor, and who posted a comment. On this site, our staffers our clearly identified as such, as we do allow our staff members to comment, as long as they follow the conversation guidelines that apply to any other community member. To see Chrysta's comment the post she was commenting on, go here:
http://www.annarbor.com/news/education/to-call-out-or-not-to-call-out-that-is-the-question/

With all the comments here about the percieved over-moderation and zero instances (I'm aware of) where people have commented on how a comment should be deleted (not counting flag this post). Is it maybe time to test the waters on the other side of the moderation spectrum? We're losing valuable member of the commenting community.

Tony...boy am I hot. I'd love to have the last two comments I had deleted moved here so they could be discussed as to their "appropriateness".
I know a lot of what I can say can be condescedning, sarcastic and funny but I never post something I think to be inappropriate. It would be great to have a place to go for commenters to review deleted comments and discuss them further with staff.
I appreciate aa.com's continued interest in this important discussion.

Glad to discuss how we moderate comments. Here's the first comment you posted, which was taken down.


"Both men were at fault" Yea, just like the people who died in the twin towers should have thought about their families before they went to work at a terrorist target. Morons.


The comment itself is fine. Our only concern with it was that we ask commenters not call each other names. If you had posted exactly the same comment, but without the word "morons'' it would not have been removed.


The second comment repeated the first comment, without the "moron'' and that would have been fine, too, except that it went on to talk about our moderating. We ask that comments on on the story be about the story, and that comments about our moderating be posted here, which is what you did after we unpublished your second comment.

Bottom line: We give commenters pretty wide latitude, but we ask you not to call people names, and when you disagree with our moderation, send me an e-mail or post your objection here and we'll discuss it.

I hate to admit the one reason I'm still around here on AnnArbor.com is to monitor the continued tragedy of this situation. I certainly can't find and refer to any real information on a site that posts 36 consecutive stories about the same item of news.

Sadly, since AA.C has _always_ refused to include the information of WHERE COMMENTS HAVE BEEN DELETED FROM, it is impossible for the community to take part in this discussion (again, I point you to the fact that even if we know the subject being discussed, there are MANY posts about that item of news). Besides the general blind repetition of the posting 'guidelines' without any real explanation of their meaning, this inconsiderate exclusion of the community from the discussion on this page is further evidence for the fact that you really don't want to have a discussion here at all.

So maybe Mumbambu was indeed calling everyone morons. But it kind of read like a part of the sarcastic calling-of-twin-towers-victims-at-fault. I guess we could, I don't know, ask him and see before you delete a product he contributed to your site. Or you could continue to have little to no sense of humor or dynamic understanding of online discussion. I'm pretty sure I've seen enough to know I can't change your mind, but it's good to know others out there also continue to find your practices awfully ham-fisted.

Tony,
Many thanks for the response. Your reasoning makes sense while I continue to disagree that my first comment should have been deleted. I feel better after I saw that the third iteration of my comment was not deleted. My frustration was that I felt my comment was being censored by a moderator who was looking for an excuse to eliminate a comment that used "the twin towers".

I understand the need to get away from constant name calling and back and forth. I still think a bit more leeway would help!
Thanks again for your response, Tony!

Tony,
At least 1/3 of the comments on the last school article are attacks on other people here:
http://www.annarbor.com/news/a-plethora-of-data-related-to-the-countywide-schools-enhancement-millage/
When are you going to be consistant? I think we've had this discussion before.

Billy, I went back and reviewed the comments on the post you cite here. I did see one comment that constituted a personal attack, and that comment should have been removed at the time. Other comments included references to commenters and vehement disagreement, but I didn't see personal attacks in them. We do need to be consistent, and we're always working toward that consistency. If you see comments that you think violate our commenting guidelines, please flag them.

_STILL_ Removing comments without making note of it where it has been done. Because I guess making light of one of the subconscious reasons someone may carry a firearm on their person is just too much for the 'community.' Funny how the community didn't respond in a negative way at all, yet you still felt they were unable to handle even the faintest suggestion that men have issues with certain of their body parts. You're right. There's absolutely NO humor allowed in news (or even the discussion of it), ever. Humor does nothing to further our understanding of the world. I hope you'll let Bill Maher, Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, and George Carlin know how much they're ruining the world so we can all get back to being constipated.

It would be interesting to write an article about the moderation and provide examples of things that were removed and why and also some that were not remvoed and why. I think it would be interesting and facilitate more interesting conversation. Heck, you could even throw in one of thos nifty voting posts.

Comments like this dozy have remained for hours after I have flagged them yet my supposed "personal attacks" are deleted instantly...
"the neo cons who send their kids to private brain washing religous schools have won the 1st step in their agenda to get rid of public schools....the race to the bottom continues" - uawisok

Can someone explain why my post on "Masked gunmen rob Ann Arbor bank this morning" was deleted? Can you return a copy to me too? I'm guessing it's because it was "about our moderation and not the story itself" but I was commenting on how one of your employees -- freelance, but getting paid by you I assume -- found a violent act so amusing. So I have to comment here? This disgruntled poster graveyard? That's banishing my post, and I think that's your intention. If there's a buzzword or way to edit the post so it could still appear on the page, please let me know. Your freelancer quipped and I thought it deserved a response from your readers. Keep writers' jokes and small talk out of "Your Voice" if that's the way it's gonna be. I think I'll just cancel my home delivery subscription and print out the freelancer's comments. All the employess at the local Bank of America should get a kick out of it tomorrow, and it will make them real proud of their hometown newspaper. Hopefully, it will also make them forget they just had a gun shoved in their face and forget how they felt when they thought they'd see their family again. AA.com, "don't be that guy".

My apologies for what occurred here. We did not handle this properly. The story in question was about the robbery of a Bank of America branch.
http://www.annarbor.com/news/masked-gunman-rob-ann-arbor-bank-this-morning/


There were several comments posted on the story that were inappropriate and should have been removed, including one from David Bardallis. Here is the comment that David posted:


“Now Bank of America knows what the rest of us feel like since it's been robbing us blind with help from its buddies in Washington for the past year and change.’’


David is not a member of our staff, but he regularly writes for us, blogging on local restaurants.


You posted a response to David, and your response was removed, though it should not have been, as long as his comment still appeared on the site. Here is your response:


“David - really? Your comment on this violent crime is both hackneyed tripe and appalling. AND you freelance for AA.com? Do the editors not care that snide office chatter is available on the forums? Please display some journalistic pride by moving the writers' sophomoric humor to the Op-ed pages and their small talk ("Great article co-worker. I will try that next time I'm at Zingerman's") to Twitter. "Your Voice" -- that's a hoot!’’


David’s comment has been removed from the site, as have several other inappropriate comments. Since David’s comment is no longer on the site, we are not re-posting your comment, but I acknowledge here this was not well-handed and I offer you my apologies. We have reviewed this, and we will work harder to do a good, consistent job of moderating on all posts in the future.

Well Tony, your censorship has failed.

Here we are not even a month later and nothing has change. Comments are consistently removed that only technically violate policy.

You censor entire ideas and concepts based on something as weak handed as "insults" or "name calling." Hey, welcome to the internet, is this your first computer?

You didn't even have a rebuttal to me when confronted about this, you just ignored the email and went about your business.

And now I laugh at you because you're about to delete this post, as I'm sure you've deleted many other posts critical of the censorship here.

Remember, once you delete this comment you've just admitted how wrong you are.

Billy, we continue to remove very few comments from the site. If you post a comment and we remove it, and you don't understand why, you can raise that here or in an e-mail to me and I'll be glad to address it.

"Billy, we continue to remove very few comments from the site."

Just because you say it, doesn't make it so. I would call that a lie.

If it's not a lie, then one has to wonder how low the total number of comments has dropped.

Of course you'll remove less comments with less people commenting.

Here is the number of comments posted on our site by month, acccording to Omniture:


August -- 6,229


September -- 11,310


October -- 19,078

More comments doesn't mean the same people are posting more comments, and it doesn't mean you're removing less comments. It doesn't mean commenting has stayed vibrant in spite of your rampant censorship. It doesn't mean comment quality hasn't suffered because of your clear targeting of certain opinions and individuals. All it means is that there are more comments. There is more content, more people know about the site, and those people who are not being targeted have become comfortable having inane conversations that have little to nothing to do with the articles. Just because you're putting more fries in the bag doesn't make them healthier, tastier, or less cancerous. It's just more fries. You've once again stopped noting when you remove comments, and you've buried this page under 'news roundups' (which really belong in "about us," seriously!), so you don't have to listen to as many people complain about it. That's all. And thanks ahead of time for responding with a complete and well-thought out argument for your behavior rather than partial data that doesn't really correspond to what's being discussed.

I find it shameful that you won't actually post the number of comments removed, nor will you answer to why you've gone back on your promise to note when you do so (which also allows you to avoid pointing to this now-buried page). It sure seems like you're trying to hide something. Can you please give a reason as to why the decision was made to go back to disappearing people's comments? I also remember there being some kind of advisory board that included a few people whose opinions on the matter I respect - have you met with (any of) them again to review the 'progress' on this matter?

A comment posted by Marvin Face on another story was moved here because it addresses our moderation policy:

While I post under my real name, I absolutely do not agree that other people be requird to do so. If that happens, you will likely see the comments and traffic on this site drop dramatically. I do like the moderation and will completely understand if this comment is deleted.

@genericreg, the rate of comments being removed has stayed pretty constant over the past couple of months, at about three or four per 100. To spot check that, I just looked back over the past 200 comments, and we removed nine. We don't post a comment on the site every single time we remove a comment. Sometimes, we e-mail the commenter directly, explain why the comment was removed and let them know that by removing a word or two, they could post the comment again and it would stay up. We get constant feedback on our moderating on a very, very regular basis, but your suggestion that we bring together some of our community advisory panel members for a check-up on our moderating policies is a good one, and I'll follow up on that.

Several comments have been moved to this entry because they deal with AnnArbor.com's moderation policies. They were originally posted on this entry:

http://www.annarbor.com/news/university-of-michigan-student-arrested-after-reported-sexual-assault/

Good question, Stan. When moderation was started here, it took care of stuff like that by classifying it as "off-topic." Lately, though, the standards have collapsed into a black hole that bears an amazing resemblance to the one currently inhabited by the freep and mlive. Your post or mine (especially mine) has a much "better" chance of being deleted than those treating these allegations as if they were fact, or those talking a "quantum leap in reverse" regarding the use of non sequiturs that accuse RR of having anything to do with this. A2.com was originally seen as a noble experiment that could produce a new business model by many in the business sector of the MSM. Now, it's closer to being its failing progenitor than it is to being a new paradigm for a new era. Hopefully, the experiment raises its standards again and regains some of its nobility. And hopefully, comments that pretend to know anything other than the facts that there was an arrest and there are allegations will be deleted instead of mine or yours. As if.....

Simple question for the moderators: Why is tomhagan's post insinuating Rich Rodriguez is to blame for this alleged incident still posted? Is Michigan Football free game to make slanderous comments about?

What on earth is wrong with speaking about moderation. I do not know what you are trying to say. My point was: I am a victim of this kind of intimidation, and it is, indeed frightening. It is the Parent who was at fault her, in addition to her "mischievous". I also added, that they did not deserve to be shot with ANY type of message. I have a BS in Psychology, a BFA in Painting, and a PhD in Philosophy. I said nothing to hurt, or insult anyone. Who are you to call me a "jerk"? Name-calling is not permitted on most sites. I am deeply insulted. julie a. woods

A comment posted by Michael on another story was moved here because it addresses our moderation policy:

Thanks Stefanie! FWIW, I honestly don't know why aa.com supports comments. They seem to be mostly useless overall, and detract from your brand image in my eyes. I guess they do tend to make the site "sticky", but at what cost? I'm not referring just to this article, but to most comments I have seen here over the past few weeks. I am going to give up on comments. Just no quality, rationality, or linearity to most discussions. Although the comments seem less reactionary or psychotic than those at freep.com I just hide those comments. ;>) Also, FWIW, I would be willing to do analysis and statistical support for articles such as average home price, etc., in AA & Washtenaw county if you have access to the data. The input you folks get from Realtors is fairly limited. They are basically sales people who *always* seem to think the worst is over, and that it is a good time to buy. Real estate is a lagging indicator. Which means that 2012 may be the earlist that we see any real rebound in Michigan overall, based on the recent U of M projections of 15%+ unemployment through 2011. Much better to look at things like the same home sales prices that the Wall Street Journal and others use. "Median" prices are unduly influenced by things such as the recent $8K tax credit for first time buyers, etc. Please e-mail me if you like if you have my address here. Or post. Cheers! Good luck.

Several comments are being moved to this thread because they address our comment moderation policy. They were originally posted on this entry:
http://www.annarbor.com/news/man-28-gunned-down-outside-pittsfield-township-home/

@Edward - You're taking the right steps in moderating this type of story more closely. There are a number of factors that come into play during this type of tragedy: an open police investigation, due legal process, public safety, and the grief and trauma of the family and community. Recently, an alleged shooter's family in Washington State were suspected of using police tip lines to mislead and slow a manhunt; that potential also exists in comments section. Finding a balance between all that and your mission to report news and provide a community forum is going to be difficult and imperfect, but I applaud you for trying.
Tom Teague

"In response to reactions from the community, we have been watching more closely stories that involve fatalities, so that we do not fuel the fires of rumor and innuendo and unfounded speculation.

Nice start. Expand this policy, please.
Alan Benard

To AnnArbor.com: I think you're doing a fine job with this developing story and with the moderation of the comments.
ArthGuinness

Don't several of these comments need to be removed because they address your moderation policy? Or is it just the ones that disagree with your moderation policy that get removed? By the way, be sure to remove this comment because it addresses your moderation policy.
TripleVSix

Be sure to bury every comment about moderation of ongoing stories here in this graveyard where the discussion will not embarrass Tony or Laurel. We wouldn't want that.

I think you guys are overdoing it with moderation of the shooting comments. We are adults. We can handle it. It doesn't make sense to me that you bill yourselves as this big community news website open to public discourse on your articles, but when a tragedy strikes, it's time to batten down the hatches. Every news article and comment thread can't be sunshine and roses. Sure, inflammatory or lewd comments should be removed, but I doubt all the comments removed fit under those categories. Let us discuss an important event that occurred in our community! I know its your site and you can do what you wish, I just think it detracts from your usefulness if you can't handle honest discussion of a 'sensitive' topic.

The following comment from tdw is being moved here from another thread since it discusses our moderation guidelines:

"ricebrnr I compeletly agree wiyh your first comment.The guidelines are very vauge and broad,and it appears that what is accecpitable or not accecptable is at the disgression of who happens to be at A2 at any given time.A few hours ago I had a post deleted and sent a not-to- nice e-mail about my post being delete yet the post I was reffering to was left up.Now ,after the person who deleted my post has appearently left for the night the post I was referring to is gone.( by the way it was on this comment site)"

The following comment from Dennis P discussing our moderation policies has been moved here from another thread:

"Regarding Ms. Sherman's censoring of comments made by Mr. Halford. Obviously, I don't know what Mr. Halford wrote, but I have to agree with him that Ms. Sherman's reply is very disconcerting. Her reply describes a subjective standard for monitoring this commentary forum. There's nothing in the Terms of Service that requires comments to "further the discussion" nor did Ms. Sherman say that the comments she removed violated any Terms of Service. Perhaps she was just unclear in her choice of words, but her response implies that she will moderate comments using a vague and personal standard of what is "on topic" and "furthers the discussion". In general, commentary should not be deleted or censored unless it violates the User Agreement. Frivolous comments and jokes abound on these sites (check the sports section). The rest of us can decide how to weigh them and whether they warrant any attention or response. It's easy to press the scroll key and it's not like we're wasting paper here."

The following comments from Robert Halford are being moved here from another thread because they discuss our comment moderation guidelines:

"Mike D: yeah the comment "Warrants, I'd warrant...Warrants" is at a high level of discourse. [face palm] Hello Moderators...not trying to be a snitch but Mike D's comment was pertaining to your moderation policy and should be moved to the moderation board. Of do you only remove such posts when they disagree with your moderation policy?

Suzy, Did you see this post just below yours: "Warrants, I'd warrant...Warrants." It has been posted for 11 hours. Please explain to me how that post "furthers the comments thread for this story." My post which referred directly to the facts of the story was removed in less than three minutes. The subjective nature of this moderation is laughable...yet, I am not laughing because you and your staff are going to ruin this site before it gets off the ground.

I can understand for removing for off-topic and for speculative comments for tragic accidents, but it seems very subjective of you to decide if my comments furthered this discussions on this board. My gosh, unbelievable. I have never seen moderators run a blog site like this before. Do you really think this will create long-term success for this site?"

The following comment from Dennis P is being moved here from another thread:

"Regarding Ms. Sherman's censoring of comments made by Mr. Halford. Obviously, I don't know what Mr. Halford wrote, but I have to agree with him that Ms. Sherman's reply is very disconcerting. Her reply describes a subjective standard for monitoring this commentary forum. There's nothing in the Terms of Service that requires comments to "further the discussion" nor did Ms. Sherman say that the comments she removed violated any Terms of Service. Perhaps she was just unclear in her choice of words, but her response implies that she will moderate comments using a vague and personal standard of what is "on topic" and "furthers the discussion". In general, commentary should not be deleted or censored unless it violates the User Agreement. Frivolous comments and jokes abound on these sites (check the sports section). The rest of us can decide how to weigh them and whether they warrant any attention or response. It's easy to press the scroll key and it's not like we're wasting paper here."

Fwiw, I rarely comment now but I've never had (to my knowledge) any comments removed. Still, this seems like an amazing waste of the staff's time, monitoring this stuff. Either allow comments or don't . You guys are using subjective criteria and it varies greatly between moderators. Is this really worth the energy?

As someone who's comments are removed almost immediately after being posted, I have to say that it seems like a HUGE waste to contract a company to moderate comments 24 hours a day. But I do hope that my comments are keeping them busy.

The following comment from Dog Lover is being moved here:

"annarbor.com takes itself wayyyy to seriously. Although I agree with some of the comment guidelines, I think they're out of control overall. I have had more than half my comments removed and not one of them has been off topic or offensive. It's incredibly frustrating."

My comments have been removed because of whatever reasoning the moderator chooses...most of the time I believe that anything that the moderators disagree with is removed. I've seen posts that have in some degree violated the "standards" in my opinion but if the moderator agrees, they seem to stand as is. Really a shame to not have a discussion where all sides and opines are heard...kinda like Europe in the late 30's or Russia in the 50's...

@djm12652, we have a new Community Wall at http://www.annarbor.com/community/ which lets you start your own conversation; this may provide you with a chance to start with a topic that you are interested in.

How does the below comment that is STILL POSTED relates to article “University of Michigan professor discusses climate change conference in Copenhagen”...
"I think the comments on this post seal it for me. I propose a change in annarbor.com's TOS. In order to comment, I think one should have to register under one's given name, verified via credit card. There are two classes of commenters, those who use their real names and tend to have thoughtful, intelligent comments, and trolls with aliases, who just spout mindless babble that would embarass the "Rants and Raves" section of ann arbor craigslist. A few exceptions on either side, but forcing the use of legal names I think would keep people a lot more serious. It's hardly a "community" when 85% of posters don't even try to say anything worthwhile, or go on and on with arguments that are demonstrably false."
I got this response from Heflin:
“Please keep comments on this story to a discussion about climate change or the conference in Copenhagen. If you want to discuss our moderation guidelines please go here. Further comments about comment moderation will be taken down if they're posted here. Thank you.”
Any further discussion?!? The guidelines that have been established have demanded all moderation comments end up here because they are OFF TOPIC. Why is that comment still present while mine is deleted? NO CONSISTANCY as always.

Why was'nt kate boyds comments removed?I guess calling a group of people trolls,militia, regilious nutcase's is not a personal attack. another fine job by A2

I must agree with the previous two posts, the comment by rusty shackleford and kate boyd were both outside of thread. Neither had anything to do with the spirit of the article or the conference in Copenhagen, so HEY MODERATOR, WHAT GIVES? Pick and choose what standards are for certain people? Not fair. Either play nice, be fair and don't blatantly show favoritism. So high school....

djm billy m is it just me or does it seem that the first shot that is allowed is by left wing liberials who start with the name calling? I think A2 is typical of ann arborites " its ok to think,believe,do anything you want as long as we agree with it.If not you're stupid,ignorant.bigioted do not understand reality"it seems A2 is always happy to promote this idea

@Dr. Billy Mays Ghost, @tdw, @djm12652, the comments you are referring to were off-topic with that thread and were removed. We should have caught that earlier in the day. Thanks for pointing it out.

"...we won't tolerate jerks."

This comment violates AnnArbor.com's guidelines and should be removed.

I've noted the same thing MANY times, Paul A., but no one's ever responded to my honest attempt to be helpful by letting them know I don't appreciate the implication that if I have a comment moderated it means I'm a jerk.

You have invited me to discuss your moderation policies, but because no discussion is allowed, how can I accept your invitation? I'll just make a statement, people, don't waste your time commenting unless you agree 110% and above all, don't make waves all you bad people!!

@ypsidog: Please be advised that the proper term for us bad people is "jerks," although I personally prefer "malcontent."

A comment posted by Stan on another story was moved here because it addresses our moderation policy:

Chrysta, your own guidelines state that specific punishments should not be discussed in regards to tragic deaths. My comment that castration should be an option for a violent crime that did not lead to a death is a valid opinion and did not violate your guidelines. Others have suggested life in prison and there comment has been left up. That sounds like a pretty specific punishment to me. I know that this probably won't be left up because it addresses the moderation, but I'd ask that you either 1) Move this to the not so easy to find moderation thread or 2) re-post my original comments.

Any chance of getting my original or even second comment re-posted? Chrysta clearly has an overzealous interpretation of the posting guidelines. Again, I can clearly understand not calling for specific punishment in the case of a tragic death. The story in question does not involve a death, and furthermore there were people calling for life in prison, which would also be a specific punishment.

Well, I'm new to the site as a poster, although I had been reading since inception. Just had 2 posts in a Poll about Pets removed without any explanation, while they allowed a regular poster to make two posts complaining about the Poll itself and not contributing anything to the issue at hand. Sure seems like double standards to me. Guess they have already file my name in the 'Jerk' folder, so I'm off to another site where my "freedom of Speech" is still intact. Been real AnnArbor.com, you have my email address if you ever feel the urge to explain yourselves.

Follow-up: AnnArbor.com did contact me privately to explain my post removal, I had just not received their email prior to my last post. It is appreciated that their reasoning was explained, and I will be more careful in the future. No personal attack was intended on my part, but I am receptive to the point that it could have been construed that way. Regards.

The following comment posted by BlueInSC has been moved here from its original post on a story about Big Ten signing projections:

"AnnArbor.com aims to provide a lively community forum where readers can talk to us and talk to each other - in a neighborly way, of course. The best comments and posts are those that add more information to the story, express a different viewpoint or help create intelligent debate. We welcome constructive debate on our site, but we won't tolerate jerks. Don't be that guy - avoid comments or posts that are off topic, offensive, contain personal attacks or that don't further the conversation. We encourage everyone who registers on our site to use their real name, or at least a consistent screen name. We reserve the right to pre-moderate comments and delete or edit comments." This is crystal clear, yet referring to Rich Rodriguez as "The King" does not violate the moderation policy above. The previous posts are neither off-topic nor derogatory. Please cease the abuse of this policy for pure censorship purposes.

My comment was removed from the story http://www.annarbor.com/news/homeless-man-and-woman-accused-of-stealing-washtenaw-county-sheriffs-patrol-car/ because I questioned A2.com on their moderation policy prior to explaining actual information relating to the story, yet they allow these to remain:

"they just needed a ride.they borrowed it" -d obryan

"They were looking for a foreclosed home to occupy . Set them free ." -survivor

"did they drive it like they stole it?" -dading

"They aren't homeless any more." -David Briegel

"Hey, at least they were able to sleep in a nice jail cell." -walker101

"Hey, County-wide Zip Car Service... Why not ?" -Seasoned Cit

And these above comments contribute to the story????

I suppose calling homeless people "flotsom and jetsom" (sic) is not considered a personal attack but questioning A2.com is.

Why is it wrong for someone to presume guilt or not about a person in an article? They are not the judge nor the jury, they are only giving their own opinion? If the point is NOT running on and on why is it wrong for someone to relate a death to a political point? Say you guys have an article about a 10 yr old that shot himself with his dad's gun, it is wrong for someone to commment and say "if gun laws were stricter, maybe his life could have been saved?"
For as liberal of a town as Ann Arbor (been here over 35 yrs), this is not a good representation of freedom of speech, which most of us ANN ARBORIGHTS have been passionate about for years!

CP, as journalists, we're passionate about the First Amendment, too. Free speech is one of our most basic rights as citizens. But in our society, one of our other most basic rights is the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. As journalists, we cannot publish stories that treat a person as guilty if he or she hasn't been convicted, because it's irresponsible journalism and a violation of that person's rights. While our guidelines are pretty open, we do not allow comments that presume guilt.

Why do you continue to delete my posts that are ON TOPIC and not related to a DEATH

Ok I am beginning to get really frustrated here, my ON TOPIC comments continue to be deleted, with links telling me to come here..I come here and you guys again DELETE my posts...what gives?

Rrrrrrodney, we're trying to find the right balance on crime stories, and it's a challenge. When a person is the victim of a crime, it's the criminal who did something wrong, and at some point, it's not fair to blame the victim. I think we'd all agree that if a woman were at a bar and raped by a man who followed her outside, it wouldn't be fair for someone to post a comment saying, "Well, she shouldn't have been drinking.'' So where do you draw the line? We had a story the other day about a woman being robbed at 3 a.m., and there was a comment that essentially said, "If she hadn't been out at 3 a.m., she wouldn't have been robbed.'' We're reviewing this, and we need to give it more consideration. We also welcome more input on this question.

@Tony: In your hypothetical rape scenario, you say "I think we'd all agree that if a woman were at a bar and raped by a man who followed her outside, it wouldn't be fair for someone to post a comment saying, 'Well, she shouldn't have been drinking.'"

Actually, no, I don't think we all agree, which is why this moderation thread continues to be active. I would agree that YOU (AnnArbor.com) shouldn't say that, and I understand that comments like that could be hurtful to relatives of the alleged victim, but EVEN IDIOTS (or JERKS, to use your terminology) ARE ENTITLED TO THEIR VIEWPOINT; if the comment had instead referred to the alleged victim as a "whore" or some other derogatory term, or EXPLICITLY stated that she "deserved to be raped," I wouldn't take issue with it being deleted (although you could instead move any deleted comments to a separate thread, without a time stamp or any reference to the original article, so everyone can see what is being deleted and if certain commentators are repeat offenders). I also understand that these threads can get hijacked by the back and forth arguing about the propriety of such a statement instead of sticking to the article's original subject, and those pissing matches need to be prevented or shutdown, but that intervention can be done (or at least begun) by a post or message from a moderator to the involved parties.

Frankly, unless you are going to be just as vigorous in deleting any and all posts that only indicate support or well-wishes for the alleged victim too, you end up performing EDITORIAL OVERSIGHT of the comments INSTEAD OF merely MAINTAINING CIVILITY amongst the commentators. That is your prerogative, but it does not seem to fulfill your stated intentions "to provide a LIVELY community forum where readers can talk to us and talk TO EACH OTHER" and to allow posts that "EXPRESS A DIFFERENT VIEWPOINT." I would add my vote to the other commentators that have suggested you incorporate a "thumbs-up/thumbs-down" or some other similar voting system for the comments that would allow some self-moderation by the members of the community you're attempting to cultivate.

^^^ Thats a big 10-4 ^^^ By simply saying that a 16 yr old should not allow strangers in her car and that she created a crime of opportunity I do not feel that a comment like that falls into a grey area of censorship. I see where you are going but,this is a comments section and as long as they are tactful and not insulting to the people involved I do not feel that opinions that come from a different angle or viewpoint should be deleted, you never know..that different viewpoint may hit home with someone to prevent crimes like these that shouldn't happpen, from happening in the first place.

I am absolutely stunned that my comment was removed from the story on Ypsi-Lincoln getting suckered by the who's who people. It was on topic, it didn't insult anyone. A true WTF moment on your part. A2com has a bad apple in the bunch, no question about it. Your choice obviously, but you definitely have an idiot with a hyper-active delete key in your office.

The only reason your comment was removed was because you referred to "Ypsilanti'' rather than Lincoln, and that could confuse people into thinking the Ypsilanti School District was involved in this situation, which it wasn't. If you were to post the same comment, and refer to Lincoln, the comment would be fine.

Tony, people with an Ypsilanti address pay taxes to support the Ypsi Lincoln schools. It's no more misleading than the post office. We've been calling the high school Ypsi Lincoln for decades.

Anyway, re-read what Eli said at the beginning of this comment section. It's bleeping infuriating to have a comment removed arbitrarily. Nowhere in the guidelines does it indicate that school districts must be addressed directly, not by the post office district that contains them. In fact, there's nothing in the guidelines that even remotely refers to any standard of "misleading," according to whatever dolt happens to be reading.

It's certainly not a consistent standard. There are tons of comments in the football section that mislead people in that the person posting doesn't know much about football and has a strange view of how it works.

I thought you were going to do a better job of moderating. Try to explain why posts were removed. Think of why you have a comment section. You want the community involved, you want to give them a place to discuss the news.

Now try and imagine how you'd feel if you were in a forum and your comments were frequently removed. No explanation, no consistency. It varies from person to person and you have too many people moderating, some of whom frankly have no clue what they're doing. Makes you feel the community is run by bozos. Now, instead of having community members who are grateful to have a place to express themselves, you have members who don't feel comfortable with you. Always worried about having posts deleted, afraid to say what they really think.

I'm someone who will test the lines, obviously. I've had at least a couple of dozen posts removed, maybe a handful of those truly deserved. The rest, just an arbitrary decision like that one. I'm obviously not trolling - I only post under one name and I've tried to add to most discussions.

The point being you people are looking for reasons to remove posts rather than reasons to include people. Your guidelines are mawkish and inconsistent. That is your right and I'm free to go, but I prefer to tell you what I think. And it's that you have people moderating who don't know what they're doing. Why wouldn't you, instead of completely deleting my comment, add a mod-note at the bottom explaining that while the Lincoln district has an Ypsilanti address, you are deathly afraid people will be confused by my comment and think badly of the Ypsilanti school district instead? Even though it's spelled out in the story.

I appreciate your candor, and you're always welcome to say exactly what you think. I agree that, ideally, every time we remove a post, we want to indicate that a post was taken down and why. At times, we also send an email directly to the commenter to explain why a comment was removed, and how a slight change in the comment would allow it to be posted. The biggest challenge we have is when commenting gets very heavy. At certain times, we three or four or five comments a minute on different posts, and at that pace, it's sometimes difficult to respond to every comment. In retrospect, what I wish I had done is what you suggested. I should have left your comment up and posted a comment reminding people that the reference to Ypsilanti is because Lincoln is an Ypsilanti-area school. That would have solved the minor concern and that's how I'd handle something like that in the future.

I thought I'd come over to this thread and ask why several posts by Midtowner, which were directed at me and were clear personal attacks on myself and my credibility, were allowed to stand. These posts have been lies or misdirections wrapped in personal insults, and are in clear violation of your comment policy.

The first post, even though I had flagged it, as “offensive” was not removed for two days. It stated quite clearly that I was “being paid to spread propaganda”, and that my information was “not to be trusted”. My response was removed four times before the original personal attack by Midtowner was removed. While I my response was aggressive, I did not call Midtowner names, I did not swear. I refuted vague and misleading information posted by Midtowner, and questioned his motives. This post was removed with no editorial note. I then repeated my defense of myself, toning down my response to Midtowner, and questioning AA.com's enforcement of their comment policy. Again, I will admit this post had an aggressive tone, but did not contain personal insults or foul language. This post was removed twice with no editorial note. I then posted a totally toned done version, omitting any aggressive language (note: it's not like I was threatening the guy, I was just being real sarcastic) and at that point, you removed all of the offending posts from the thread and left the following editorial note:

A number of comments have been removed because they violated our conversation guidelines. We welcome debate and disagreement, but we discourage having the discussion taken over by commenters who are primarily going back and forth at each other. Please keep your conversation civil, and please share the conversation with others.
I have no problem with that, but you allowed someone to leave a post that was clearly directed at me and was clearly an attempt to damage and discredit me and did not remove it, even after it was flagged! Why can't I defend myself against this?

I want to say that I hate “flagging”. I have never done it until I was attacked directly on this site. On a site that does not attempt to moderate, it can get carried away easily, but the point can be hammered out sooner or later and others can weigh in if they want to further the discussion. On this site, because you remove personal attacks, flagging can become the only option. Midtowner put made statements in his post that can easily be proven false, but others were nothing but attacks on my credibility. He said I was a paid propagandist, for cry'n out loud! If you don't police that of course I'm going to respond! I will gladly debate the facts of an issue civilly, but I will rebuff that kind of personal attack with the strongest language. I don't think it's fair to penalize me for that.

Here is today's post by Midtowner, in response to a post I left several days earlier. Up until this point, the thread was what I thought an interesting conversation on the Ypsilanti Budget.

"get another clue andy. please. my father was the dpw director in ludington for 12 years. the dpw budget doesn't come from property taxes. it comes from state gas taxes. it can't be spent on police or fire. it has to be spent on dpw. i agree with you that we should cut council's pay. maybe even eliminate it all together, but other than that you have no idea about what you're talking about."

Again, I have flagged this post, and left the following response:

"Midtowner, you are wrong again. The DPW budget comes from the general fund and can be used anywhere else in the budget. There is specific state money for roads/trunk lines. Please stop following me around aa.com and insulting me every time I post, especilay if you have no facts to back up what you are saying."

I guess I should have probably left out the “you are wrong” part, but here again, he makes a statement that can be easily disproved, wrapped in “get a clue, andy” and “you have no idea what you are talking about”. I'll gladly debate the point on the DPW budget, but doesn't the framing of the statement put it in violation of comment policy?

I understand that trying to moderate a public forum like this is not easy. But you have to leave an editorial note, otherwise you are bound to exasperate the situation, and you don't give the chance for a response in what you deem as a more appropriate manner. And if you remove a comment that is clearly written in response to an personal attack, you really need to make sure to go back and look at the original comment again, and leave that clear editorial note explaining the action you take. Or we can come over here and have this discussion over and over again. Thanks for your time.

Here's a new twist to moderation, from February 6, 2010, around noon, @ http://www.annarbor.com/news/ann-arbor-firefighters-jobs-back-on-the-chopping-block/index.php#comment-60688

"A comment was removed because of excessive length. We welcome discussion, but please keep your comments to a reasonable length."

More guidance please.

Tony, while I appreciate your response, I don't think you guys are doing a good job here. I know it must be tough for those of you who think of yourselves as journalists to be reduced to bloggers. But there's such an arrogance in the way comments are deleted, whether they violate the guidelines or just disagree with one staffer's point of view. It makes all of you look like hacks. The Ann Arbor News was once an award-winning newspaper. This is just a blog.

And when I point out that whining that the police made an error in a press release and that justifies really screwing up a story about a girl in very real and immediate danger? My comment chastising the excuse-mongering of your staffer was immediately deleted. You guys might be getting a good hit count, but you are trashing your reputations in the process. The newspaper industry is dying because people like you just don't understand journalism.

@Andy, we were slow to take down the comments you refer to, and we learned from that. We try to always leave a note when we have removed a comment, but we’ve reached the point where there are times when we are receiving comments at a pace of three or four or five comments a minutes, and it’s not always possible to leave a note regarding every individual comment. We do understand the importance of explaining our moderation and will redouble our efforts to communicate well with people on the site.


@Paul, we don’t have any specific length limit, but comments of more than 350 words begin to push the limit of what’s a reasonable length for a comment. The comment we removed was almost 1,500 words. We appreciate that the person who posted it has come back and posted a number of comments since then, and we’re glad to have him/her commenting on this issue.


@Macabre, we do listen to what you’re saying, and we do take it seriously. We hear concerns from people who think we’re being way too aggressive in our moderation, and we hear from people who think we are way too lax, and that what we’ve created is a cesspool of nasty commenting that has no value. Somewhere between those two viewpoints is the right balance between having a worthwhile conversation and stifling conversation, and we will continue to learn from our users and work toward that right balance.

Tony, if you really want to 'always leave a note when removing a comment,' what would be so difficult or time-consuming about having 5 (or 3 or 20) form rejection notes that your censors can simply copy and paste into the space. They still have the option of writing a more detailed and guiding response when the situation demands it. I think if staff doesn't have the time to hit ctrl-v, that might explain why it seems to many that no rhyme or reason is used when moderating - no time to think! Just delete!

On a side note, it's taken me this long to realize that you don't have to click through 8 pages of 'about us' to get to this post. Thank you for giving it its own link.

@Tony, re: your answer to Andy: Isn't there a way to automate the entire moderation process that would make it easier for the moderators, while ideally also do the following: 1) notify the poster of the removal, 2) provide a copy of the removed post, 3) give a brief explanation of the reasoning behind the removal, 4) give contact information for the moderator (or some other 'appeals' process) if poster needs further clarification, and 6) insert a "A comment has been removed for violating our commentary guidelines" post along with a link to this page.

By “slow to take down the comments” and “we've learned from that” I'm assuming you mean “we'll continue to have what a appears to be an utterly random process for moderation” because one of the posts I directly referred to above is still up, and you have totally ignored the main thrust of my question.

I would really like to know why you were so fast to pull my posts, which I don't believe violated your written policy, but took days to pull Midtowner's post(s) which used insulting language directed at me and were clearly against your policy. My posts were longer so they were more obvious? I post more so I'm watched more? What? Two of my posts, which were removed, spent two paragraphs questioning why my previous post was removed and not the original offending post. You removed that one twice. I know the part questioning enforcement of the comment policy was off topic, but 75% of the post gave facts defending myself and my position. It took a third (also removed) comment before someone finally went back and removed the original, offending post, even though I flagged it at the outset. For that matter, who looks at flagged posts? The original post by Midtowner was a clear personal attack and that would be obvious to anyone who read it; reading my response to it would make it more obvious. So that leads me to ask who is doing the reading, and are they paying attention?

When staff does leave editorial notes they tend to fall into two categories, either off topic or containing personal attacks. I got a “hogging the topic” post once. All of this is usually wrapped in some form of “keeping the discussion relevant”, but in my case, my post was filled with verifiable fact. Doesn't removing such posts in fact hinder the discussion? In my opinion, flagging and removal should be reserved for name calling and misinformation, but here again, I flagged post that were full of both, and you did not remove them. With this kind of track record, how can we help but question your moderation practices and explanations of it?

I frankly don't care how hard it is to moderate this site; poor AnnArbor.com, having such a hard time stepping on the first amendment. Wait, stop, I know, this is a private enterprise so you can print or remove what you choose; but your actions are damaging your reputation as members of the Third Estate. Perhaps if your staff wasn't so busy making sure all the commentators were playing nice, there would be time for some more in depth coverage of the news. Or, I might suggest, no comment section at all is preferable to you deeming who has something relevant to say. Those policies seem to be working out just fine for most major news sites. If you must moderate (an for the record, no one asked you to) transparency, fairness, and openness are the only way to go, no matter how much extra work you wind up with. After all folks, you did this to yourselves. If you are going to moderate, especially if you are not going to really pay attention to the thread (it certainly appears that way in my case) then you will never be free of questions regarding the choices you make. You will only make it worse by not including a least the most basic editorial note. You need to step up your game, ladies and gentlemen, the public grows impatient.

Sigh. Where are Woody and his machine when you need them?