5-3-09: A world without spam
By: Andrew Bruner
Issue date: 5/1/09 Section: Editor's blog
One of the pros of the Internet for media outlets is that it has brought more opportunities to interact with readers, viewers and listeners.
This editor's blog is an attempt at interaction. The simple step of putting editor e-mails at the top of stories in The DePauw is an attempt at interaction. Allowing readers to comment on our stories online is an attempt at interaction.
The other side of the story is that all these opportunities for audience members to speak their minds create more avenues for irresponsibility.
The DePauw gets very few unprintable letters to the editor. Even when people are angry, they generally express their thoughts in a responsible way. I can think of only one letter we've refused to run this year because it was potentially libelous toward someone - an entire fraternity, in fact.
Online comments to thedepauw.com - which are anonymous - have a greater tendency to get out of hand, but not overwhelmingly so. Comments that seem to come from members of the DePauw community are generally OK.
So why do I bring up irresponsibility? Because one of the weirder incidents during my time as editor involved improper use of the online comment option. The frequency of spam led me to change the settings so that comments are not posted until the editor approves them, rather than being posted automatically.
You see, editor@thedepauw.com gets a notification every time a new comment is posted on our Web site. It used to be that I would read the notification and only remove a comment if it was objectionable; otherwise, it would stay posted.
It was easy to tell that thedepauw.com was getting many spam comments, but I didn't think this was a problem at first. Many comments saying the same things were posted on multiple stories. Something like, 'I thank you for an opportunity to share a portion of myself with future generations,' was one of the weirder ones we kept getting. I always let those comments stand, figuring it wasn't hurting anything.
This editor's blog is an attempt at interaction. The simple step of putting editor e-mails at the top of stories in The DePauw is an attempt at interaction. Allowing readers to comment on our stories online is an attempt at interaction.
The other side of the story is that all these opportunities for audience members to speak their minds create more avenues for irresponsibility.
The DePauw gets very few unprintable letters to the editor. Even when people are angry, they generally express their thoughts in a responsible way. I can think of only one letter we've refused to run this year because it was potentially libelous toward someone - an entire fraternity, in fact.
Online comments to thedepauw.com - which are anonymous - have a greater tendency to get out of hand, but not overwhelmingly so. Comments that seem to come from members of the DePauw community are generally OK.
So why do I bring up irresponsibility? Because one of the weirder incidents during my time as editor involved improper use of the online comment option. The frequency of spam led me to change the settings so that comments are not posted until the editor approves them, rather than being posted automatically.
You see, editor@thedepauw.com gets a notification every time a new comment is posted on our Web site. It used to be that I would read the notification and only remove a comment if it was objectionable; otherwise, it would stay posted.
It was easy to tell that thedepauw.com was getting many spam comments, but I didn't think this was a problem at first. Many comments saying the same things were posted on multiple stories. Something like, 'I thank you for an opportunity to share a portion of myself with future generations,' was one of the weirder ones we kept getting. I always let those comments stand, figuring it wasn't hurting anything.
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