Sentinel.com blog

Just had a look at the Disqus privacy policy. I guess I’ll have to find someplace else to comment on local current events.

Just go back to the old system.

Sentinel, you are going to lose a lot of hits, doing this.

Tom Moore (Sentinel online editor),

As you know, you banned me from Topix even though I am one of the very few commenters who actually signs my real first & last name to EVERY online comment I make (as you requested).

Furthermore, as you know, I never use obscenities, slurs of any kind, threats, spam, and I’ve never requested that anyone else’s comment be removed, even though my adversaries directed all of the above vitriol (and more) against me, as you know.

Before you outright banned me, my comments were even removed when I was participating in discussions that weren’t even controversial — your newsroom (or its “freelancers”) was clearly not acting in good faith. The real reason I was banned from Topix is simply that I oppose the open-borders agenda the Sentinel no-so-subtly promotes.

In view of that, I am asking you to end your banning of my perfectly valid comments. Mild sarcasm (especially when provoked by anonymous trolls) is not a valid reason to censor anyone’s opinion.

Respectfully,
Pat Kittle

PS: To Don Miller’s credit, he (in his blog) has never censored any of my comments, even my highly critical ones.

Nice move! Disqus is more full-featured and connected than Topix, a welcome improvement to those of us who use social media for more than commenting on local news. But what I’m really hopeful about is that this new system will increase the percentage of thoughtful, respectful, reasoned, responsible, and articulate comments and greatly reduce the percentage of anonymous, vitriolic, frequently off-topic, and often hateful comments that tend to predominate the old Topix forums.

–James

I haven’t made many posts over the years. My posts usually were about getting people to really think with a wider view than the too often boresighted look. This unnecessary change will probably preclude any more input from me. I cannot see any benefit in adding another layer to wade through. Sincerely, Howard

no instructions on getting “in’ this new wierd forum format?-wierd

I fail to see how having to sign into any kind of social networking account to make a comment will stem the flow of snark, sarcasm, and judgmentalism that’s become the hallmark of most commenting sites. It’s not too hard to be anonymous if one wants to be, and I can’t see how having an “identity” of any kind will create a more harmonious atmosphere.

This unnecessary move actually creates a hurdle for those posting (not everyone has a yahoo account or wants one, or is part of the social networking world or wants to be), and will discourage conversation and debate, in my opinion. I certainly won’t be posting my comments any longer.

I applaud the paper the new system is much better. Topix went way too far with the lack of registration and moderation. Their forums have gotten worse and worse. Libel and defamation are not protected speech and the attacks on children and racism always amazed me. Topix has a rapidly declining reputation. The new system still allows people to voice their views. With speech comes responsibility. I applaud the paper.

I took a look at the Disqus privacy policy myself. I didn’t notice anything terribly objectionable offhand although, as in most privacy policies, it’s hard to tell exactly what they mean much less what the website is actually doing with your information. I would be interested to know what your specific objection(s) are with Disqus. I am glad that Facebook is just an option rather than being the only way as it is with the San Jose Mercury now. Since both are owned by MediaNews Group I am still wondering if the Sentinel will require registration via Facebook in the future. That is when I would go elsewhere.

I have a couple of concerns. One, is it not possible to do a merge from the Topix comments into the Disqus database so that all previous Sentinel comments are available? I saw that the Discus system can do that although it wasn’t clear if Topix fit into that category. I understand that those old comments have been merged into the Forum. This still makes for a disjointed experience as most people reading the Sentinel online and commenting do not want to have to log into the forum. Secondly, what is the point of the login link within the masthead? Is this superfluous now? Finally, when a particular article is listed on two successive days it not only gets two different webpage ids on your site but that generates two different thread ids within Discus. This means that for the same article there will be two separate sets of comments. Can you fix this?

We like Disqus over Facebook, mostly because we feel like people should have options for how they sign in. We understand Facebook is the most used social network by far and has the most currently registered users, but complaints that you have to sign up for that service to comment on Sentinel articles seem justified. nnWe do have fairly significant issues with making Disqus work properly with Internet Explorer, given our content management system and we’re working to get those worked out. nnIt’s not clear whether Facebook comments are a possibility company-wide, but I wouldn’t rule it out. Still, we’d like to make Disqus work and we’re committed to requiring some form of registration for commenters.

All good points. Topix doesn’t provide an export, as far as I know. Those threads still exist, but there’s no link from our articles. Still lots of quality discussion of Santa Cruz issues on those threads.nnThe login in the masthead will help you sign up for text alerts, e-mail headlines, those kinds of things. We’ll have more mobile products down the road and there’s still company discussion of a some form of pay wall which would require a log-in. In time, we plan to integrate a single log-in for circulation, e-edition, commenting, mobile alerts, etc., but we’ve got a lot work (and not a ton of technical help) to customize the whole experience.nnThe double posts cause a lot of head-scratching for commenters. But it has to do with the way the site changes overnight. We often post news in the evening when the story is completed, but those stories are overwritten on the site when the next day’s stories go up. The awkward solution is to re-post the final, edited version at night’s end, but we often have nearly the same content and identical headlines that split up the conversation. nnThe online guys argue that we should post our breaking news in shorter, earlier versions during the day, leave the final edited version to be posted early the next morning. Of course there would be exceptions and occasions where we want that final version published in the evening, then manually updated to change the date and display properly. But we like that the news desk wants their stories posted in the evening.nnThanks for the questions and the feedback, aldestrawk! – Tom Moore

Tom, There is a new problem with making comments using Firefox. When posting a new comment, after 5 lines I cannot see what I am typing. The comment box does not scroll. This is not true for making a reply to an existing comment. It is also not a problem when I am using IE 8. I tried using safe mode (i.e. disables all extensions) for Firefox but that did not help. I am using Firefox 3.6.13. This possible may not be a problem with previous versions but I am not going to test that.

Disqus down again?? Seems to be very unreliable compared with the Topix system. Seems like it is down about every other time I come to the Sentinel website. nnAnd….I really dont see any difference in the ‘quality’ of the comments compared to before…. the change was supposedly made to cut down on negative, inflammatory, racial, etc etc comments…..but same old comments it seems.

Thanks for the note. This is the first we’ve heard of issues with Firefox. We’ve got a unique content management system and it isn’t always friendly to Disqus, especially with IE users. Tweaks on Disqus’ end gave us trouble just before Christmas, we hope to have it worked out soon. Thanks again for the note and the details. – Tom Moore