To comment or not to comment? That is the question. News outlets, bloggers, content marketers and publishers of all sizes have been trying to answer that question for the last several years, causing many of them to suspend or disable comments and to use other channels to engage with readers.

Huffington Post stops anonymous comments

“Trolls are getting more and more aggressive and uglier, and I just came from London where there are rape and death threats,” said publisher Ariana Huffington following a speech at a Hubspot conference in Boston.In September 2013, Huffington Post stopped anonymous comments. Though the site has 40 moderators and an advanced algorithm to review comments, it isn’t enough to field 25,000 comments per hour or to keep public discourse civil. To post a comment, readers must log in via Facebook where real names and email addresses are required.

“I feel that freedom of expression is given to people who stand up for what they say and [are] not hiding behind anonymity. We need to evolve a platform to meet the needs of the grown-up Internet,” Huffington said.

“Comments can be bad for science”

That’s what Suzanne LaBarre, online content director for Popular Science, said in September 2013 when the magazine turned off comments. According to LaBarre, comments can shape public opinion, skewing science research and reporting.

LaBarre explained the decision to nix comments in this September 24, 2013 post:

“It wasn’t a decision we made lightly. As the news arm of a 141-year-old science and technology magazine, we are as committed to fostering lively, intellectual debate as we are to spreading the word of science far and wide. The problem is when trolls and spambots overwhelm the former, diminishing our ability to do the latter,” LaBarre said.

“That is not to suggest that we are the only website in the world that attracts vexing commenters. Far from it. Nor is it to suggest that all, or even close to all, of our commenters are shrill, boorish specimens of the lower Internet phyla. We have many delightful, thought-provoking commenters, but even a fractious minority wields enough power to skew a reader’s perception of a story.”

The response from readers was mixed. Some were understanding, while others suggested ways to keep the comments.

The first of many

Huffington Post and Popular Science may have been the first media outlets to alter their commenting policies, but they weren’t the last. Since then, a number of organizations made changes, including the Chicago Sun-Times.

In April 2014, Craig M. Newman, Managing Editor, said the Sun-Times was killing off comments until it could fix the “morass of negativity, racism and hate speech.” Newman said the change was temporary, so the newspaper could develop a new commenting system that would allow for free discussion and encourage quality commentary.

“We are not doing away with comments. But we do want to take some time and work on the qualitative aspect of how they are handled and how we can foster a productive discussion rather than an embarrassing mishmash of fringe ranting and ill-informed, shrill bomb-throwing,” Newman explained.

When Subscription Insider reviewed the website, we did not see comments on the articles we read. We’ve reached out to the Sun-Times for an update, but have not received a response yet.

Other organizations to turn off all comments include Pacific Standard, Re/code, Reuters, Las Vegas Review-Journal, The Verge and The Daily Dot. Other outlets have turned comments off selectively. CNN, for example, allows comments on certain stories.

“(Comments) are selectively activated on stories that editors feel have the potential for high-quality debate – and when writers and editors can actively participate in and moderate those conversations. Editors and moderators now regularly host discussions on CNN’s Facebook and Twitter accounts,” wrote Doug Gross for CNN in November 2014.

Following an uncivil race debate surrounding Ferguson, Missouri last fall, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch suspended comments temporarily on editorial pages, columns and letters, in the name of civility. Instead of allowing comments on those pages, the paper encouraged readers to send emails or letters to the editor, to post to social media and to participate in new weekly live chats about various issues related to Ferguson.

The Editorial Board of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch explained its decision:

“To be clear: It’s not that we don’t want to hear from those who disagree with us. Quite the contrary. Every day we publish letters from people criticizing our editorials, and we engage in discussions on Twitter and Facebook about the things we write. We believe those venues offer a safer, more civil place to talk about the racial injustice that dominates the Ferguson discussion. Let’s give civility a try.”

Austin Powell and Nicholas White, co-founders of the Daily Dot which put comments on indefinite hiatus in July, said their ultimate goal is engagement, but it needs to be done differently.

“In the wake of Gamergate, Celebgate, and the Reddit Meltdown of 2015, both publishers and social networks are grappling with the same fundamental issue: how to foster engagement and dialogue without inadvertently feeding the trolls in the process. The general consensus is that we need to detoxify the Web-to make it a cleaner, nicer, safer, and more inclusive place to live and work,” they said.

Creative solution

After experiencing similar issues with trolls and aggressive and inappropriate comments, Tablet Magazine, an online magazine covering Jewish news, ideas and culture, took an entirely different approach. In a February 9, 2015 post, editor-in-chief Alana Newhouse announced that readers would be charged for comments.

• Daily rate: $2
• Monthly rate: $18
• Yearly rate: $180

She explains that comments pose challenges to civilized and constructive discussion. Rather than turning off comments altogether, Tablet asked readers to pay a nominal fee, not to make money but to create a richer conversation and a higher standard of engagement. Readers not willing to pay the fee can still engage with Tablet via social media and by email.

“We hope these efforts will help us create a more pleasant and cultivated environment for all of our readers, and, as always, we thank you for your support,” Newhouse said.

The upside

Comments are not all bad. In fact, there is an upside. The results of a study by the Associated Press Media Editors (APME) showed that newspaper managers and editors “strongly support online comments about their daily content,” they aren’t necessarily satisfied with the quality and tone of the comments, said Gary Graham of The Spokesman-Review.

Of the 101 respondents, 71% said it was unlikely their news outlets would ban online comments. Another 11% said their organizations would never ban comments. In terms of the value of comments, 55% said they place a moderate amount of value, while 14% said they place a great deal of value on comments.

In an October 2013 article “The Psychology of Online Comments” in The New Yorker, writer Maria Konnikova said that removing comments affects the reading experience, removing the readers’ desire to engage more deeply with a topic or to share it with others.

“In a phenomenon known as shared reality, our experience of something is affected by whether or not we will share it socially. Take away comments entirely, and you take away some of that shared reality, which is why we often want to share or comment in the first place. We want to believe that others will read and react to our ideas,” said Konnikova.

Lisa Zimmerman noted other pros to commenting in her article “How to Choose a Commenting Platform for News Sites” for the American Press Institute.

• Comments provide readers with a voice.
• Comment sections are a place for readers to provide new information.
• Commenting drives traffic to media websites.

It’s not all or nothing

Last November when Reuters ended user comments on news stories, it did so because the discussions had moved to other outlets. Dan Colarusso, executive editor of Reuters digital, explained the shift in its thinking:Allowing comments does not have to be an all or nothing proposition for media outlets. As Huffington Post, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and other organizations have shown, social media provides another opportunity for publishers, writers and editors to engage with their audiences.

“During the past few years, much has changed about how readers interact with news. They find coverage in diverse places and in new ways. They watch video, use graphics and calculators and relate to content far differently than in the past. Considering these dynamics, Reuters.com is ending user comments on news stories. Much of the well-informed and articulate discussion around news, as well as criticism or praise for stories, has moved to social media and online forums,” said Colarusso.

“Those communities offer vibrant conversation and, importantly, are self-policed by participants to keep in the fringes those who would abuse the privilege of commenting,” he said.

According to Kristen Hare at Poynter, Re/code turned off the comments for a similar reason. Poynter credits this quote to Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg, Re/code co-founders.

“We thought about the decision long and hard, since we do value reader opinion. But we concluded that, as social media has continued its robust growth, the bulk of discussion of our stories is increasingly taking place there, making onsite comments less and less used and less and less useful.”

How publishers can handle comments

As a subscription company, the decision to allow or disable comments may not be entirely your decision. Regardless, there are ways to engage your readers productively. Here are a few tips we’ve gleaned from the publishers that have changed their commenting policies effectively:

1. Be transparent. If you choose to turn off comments, or change your policy, let your readers know and why. They may not like it, but they will respect your openness.
2. Keep them updated. If you temporarily turn off your comments, let readers know when they can expect to see them turned back on – or update them if your timetable has changed. The Sun-Times said temporarily, but it has been 16 months and we haven’t seen an update (or can’t find one).
3. Hire a moderator or automate commenting. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. What your subscription company needs will be vastly different than what another needs. Your budgets and staff will also differ. Determine your policy and then research what options you have. Look at the publishers we’ve mentioned above to see how each has handled comments.
4. Engage your readers. Whether it is through a robust commenting platform, or if you go social media only, engage with your readers. Let them know you’re listening.
5. Show gratitude. In Yael Grauer’s column “Should Writers Respond to Comments on Their Articles?” tech columnist and ethics guru Monica Guzman encourages others to respond only to thoughtful comments and to respond with gratitude.
6. Learn from your readers. Some readers may have insight or tips to share that could be helpful in improving your content.
7. Learn from your data. Publishers, bloggers, content marketers and others need to understand and measure the impact of commenting on their site, including inbound, organic, referred and direct traffic to see how it changes (or would change) if they turned comments off. Traffic is part of the equation for any publisher on how to manage and value commenting for their business.