Comments: Red Rose:Real, White Rose:Raw
Tue, February 22, 2011 Occasionally when I’m scrolling through my Twitter feed, I’ll follow a link to YDR.com, the online version of the York Daily Record, to read-up on local news. When I’m finished reading the published article, it’s tough to avoid taking in the extras that are posted below in the “comments” section. That’s where the gloves come off in York.
It seems that a story covering puppies and kittens that were saved from a burning building in York City can turn into a city crime issue (or worse) in three comments or less. I take particular offense to that because along with my wife and two kids, I live in the City of York and some of our most enjoyable moments together come during our walks to family events downtown.
So to determine if this is a York issue or if there seems to be a general correlation between puppies, kittens and city crime, I decided to turn to the Red Rose City’s leading online news source, LancasterOnline.com. There I found something stunning; a news source that holds their commenters accountable for their posts by associating a valid email address and contact information with each participant. Commenters’ identities are never shared, but LancasterOnline’s commenting Statement of Policy indicates that they encourage opinions from all points of view, they insist on civil exchanges and that anyone violating their policy risks losing the privilege of posting. Among other logical wording in the policy it is written that “We believe that reader comments strengthen our news website and the larger Lancaster County community.”
So what is YDR.com’s commenting policy? Here is a link to the terms of their third-party forum: http://www.topix.net/topix/terms. If you don’t have time to check it out, then I’ll sum it up for you. It basically says that YDR.com doesn’t care enough about their community or their readers to have a hand in monitoring the content within their website.
The point of this post is to commend LancasterOnline.com for their diligence in protecting the integrity of their work and making their community stronger via civil and accountable online discussion. My challenge to YDR.com is to finally step up to the level of their Lancaster County competition and monitor the quality of their content.
-A.N.