Joining together a community and interacting face-to-face
Posted: 11.28.2011 at 8:46 AM
I've been in media for a long time. I've worked with companies who moderate websites so closely they have to approve each comment before it goes live and I've worked at places where the moderation is so difficult, they let everything pass through without any filters.

I am incredibly excited about a change for connectmidmissouri.com that I believe will find a happy middle between the two extremes. It will allow our fans to interact (sort of!) face-to-face.

It's no secret I'm a fan of Facebook. I've had a personal account since 2005. I have several non-business pages I moderate, a personal business page I keep up-to-date and the KRCG pages I run. I think Facebook has done a great job of bringing communities together. The KRCG page has become a place where people can discuss not only stories, but topics of local interest. We've also seen it blossom into a place where people feel comfortable asking a question.

Our website, however, was not one of those places. Comments on our website were often hurtful. And it wasn't only to a victim's family, but to a person suspected of a crime. By allowing anonymous commenting, we gave the community a place to convict people before they had even appeared in court the first time. I'm not saying that Facebook commenting on our site is going to necessarily change that, but I do believe it will give a sense of respect to the people in our community when they know who they are talking to.

Quite honestly, in the past week, I've received what almost seemed like propaganda from some of our former commenters. I say former because many of them made it clear they wouldn't be returning to our site. I'm sad about that. I think they are missing out on one of the better places to get news in our area. I stand behind our product and our reporters every day.

The comments they were making about us opening our users to hackers, viruses and personal security risks were just untrue. This is a verification tool, and I am more than happy to help people up their privacy settings if they are concerned about such items. Just email me!

This change also gives us a unique opportunity to truly interact with our viewers. It will allow our anchors and reporters to chime in on conversations with additional information about a story, or allow us to find answers to questions asked by our viewers. It also allows us to thank a person directly who catches any errors in our stories. We do appreciate the support Mid-Missouri has given us, and I believe that support will grow with this change.

I think this change is good for our website community and good for our community as a whole. Change can be hard. I don't like change more than anyone else, but this one is good for everyone.

Do you like the new Facebook comments? Are you concerned about anything specific in the change? Sound off below!

Related Links
Letter from KRCG's president about the change
Why are we changing to Facebook authentication for commenting?
FAQ: Commenting via Facebook
Introducing Facebook commenting