Story comments show their potential

Story comments have come under fire by many readers who hate the anonymity and the rawness that often mark these forums.

The News Sentinel has stuck with the concept and tried to raise the level of discourse, however, because we believe there is real potential in such open community dialog.

That potential was illustrated in a couple of recent stories.

In one, the person blamed for causing a collision with an emergency vehicle used the comments to present his side of the story. Agree or disagree with him, the article was more complete with his point of view added.

In another, Bill Lyons, senior director of policy and communications for City Hall, used the comments to clarify how an energy conservation program would work.

Lyons later sent me a note saying:

"I know you take a lot of heat on your comments. But it might be worth your checking out how we have used the comments to clarify things, much as we did with Knology. By the way, I never want to use this device to criticize an article because the purpose of the article in not necessarily to go into the detail that people want. I have tended to do this on blogs, especially Knoxviews. Obviously we have to recognize the changing nature of communications and utilize it to better inform folks. Anyway, consider this a demonstration of some of the positive things about a comments section."

Great to hear. I think our story comments are growing more valuable all the time, and I'm glad to have examples to cite.


Comments

...again, kudos to the KNS for keeping the communication lines open...

We did'nt get our paper to day. I tried to call but they were to busy with other call, so I tried to get celebrity cipher on line also want the other puzzles but couldnt get them. I think you should make these available to your costumers when they dont get their paper.

Thank you

Phyllis

The comment portions of this website won't even scratch the surface of their potential as long as personal attacks are allowed to be as prevalent as they are here.

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