Disqus - Latest Comments for idmoore

Re: How teenagers really consume media

idmoore — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 11:14:31 -0000

Nice counter to it all Adam.

Concerning just how quickly people forget such basics to herald a short report as gospel, but then there's a lot of panic/fear within business about the rise of Social Media and how to deal with it. This panic means that when a succinct answer comes along, then people will jump on it and ignore previous experience to make things easier.

The sweeping statements sold it to business. It's almost as though you could hear the collective sigh of relief from some business, that at least teenagers weren't on Twitter where they didn't know how to reach them.

- Ian

Re: Looking to expand the conversation

idmoore — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 05:03:46 -0000

All sounds very sensible to me.

I think registration is a small step for someone to take in order to post their opinions and for the problems solved/benefits gained it's definitely worth adding.

Whatever measures are taken, you'll never be able to remove spam and provide a worthwhile service. Your suggestion of community moderation makes a lot of sense. The simple "Report" functionality you see on most blog comments now would effectively allow for the community to moderate itself and help massively reduce your admin time.

I'd definitely look into using an already built commenting service from the start, such as you have on here (DISQUS) to make use of functionality, save on development time (a quick look at DISQUS makes it look very easy to add) and encourage people to make use of it beyond the Mercury site and tie into other (often local) blogs/content nicely.

Wise move to go to the community before making the changes, as whilst you may know the answer now, by involving readers in decisions you'll definitely help encourage a greater feeling of shared ownership of the site. Good luck with the changes!

- Ian

Re: Moralisation and Social Media Etiquette

idmoore — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 12:51:54 -0000

Couple of interesting points made in the article, few comments on it all.

- Whether it's right or wrong for us to apply morals/rules, what we're seeing is all very human and the result of each of the channels being so open.
- Noise. Is absolutely critical to all of this. A lot of those comfortable with Social Media are becoming much more efficient at blocking out noise, but with such volume of information it seems people only take in what they want to and that correlates to their way of thinking. Social Media has pulled a lot of us all together, but it's created communities whose members don't move between all that much. I consider a lot of what we see on Facebook now simply a case of people bored or scared of missing out on something, used to spending time on the Internet now with access to friends at their fingertips who'll happily "waste" time clicking around/on applications.

Things are changing rapidly, I guess (and hey it's easy to say too) that the few who think they know what they're doing now will look back in a year or two and wonder what we were wasting our time on. Much like we look at people using Facebook to become a fan off something.

Best option for now, not moralise but try to understand/document why people use the channels like they do. Talk to people about how the use Facebook/MySpace and why they don't use Twitter. Tell people some of the benefits of what's out there but don't be surprised if 99% of people would rather become a fan of something than blog about what's important to them.

- Ian

Re: You are the Editor ...

idmoore — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:26:46 -0000

Really thought provoking article Keith. But unfortunately one I think you'll struggle to find a satisfactory answer to.

My instant reaction follows that of the others comments, that the death of a local man in an accident shouldn't be reported if the family have expressed a wish for it to remain out of local press. Being an accident, it's only of morbid interest for the majority.

However, outside of his close family, this man will have been in contact with a number of people who perhaps will look out for a report in the Mercury and feel it strange to see no mention or perhaps find out by reading it in the paper. And as pointed out, details of the death are already available online and in other press. It's only that you've contacted the family that you've been asked to not print the story.

I could go backward and forward all night on this, but instead I'll try to wrap it up with an answer...

I feel a very simple/brief statement on the death with condolences sent from the paper, along with a request that they're left in peace to grieve, is (whilst against the family's wishes of no reporting) the best option here.

It comes down to what role the Mercury should fulfil in the community. Just how much of local life it should report on and how much it listens to the public (and the importance it gives to majority/minority opinion) when making decisions on what/how to report.

- Ian