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July 4, 2008 at 07:14:15 Permalink Promoted to Headline (H2) on 7/4/08: Please Comment:: A Conversation about Raising the Quality of OpEdNews Diary Entry by Rob Kall (about the author) |
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This started out as a conversation among senior level editors at OEN and I believe it would be good to open the conversation to all members.
On this anniversary of the birth of democracy, I hope you'll take this opportunity to participate in discussing the future of this democratic forum. :::::::: Here's the Email I sent to a list of some editors and writers, which I've decided to share: I am adding some editors and some of our most valued writers to this conversation that has been going on among OEN's senior and managing editors. The conversation started because of a diary posted by Rober "Pappy" Raitz that was loaded with obscene, offensive language, which, he has told me in an email, he wrote to challenge OEN. It brought a strong response and demand that it be removed and that he be banned. That has been done. This raised a larger conversation about the direction OEN is going, in terms of quality of our content and also about the presence and appearance of misogyny on its pages. I encourage those of you who I've just added to the conversation to review the previous messages below mine. Please add your comments.
OEN is blessed to have many extraordinary writers. Some post think pieces. Some post hard researched reporting. We want to maintain a climate of quality and excellence here that supports them, their efforts and that reflects well upon them.
At the same time, we want to maintain a wide open forum for the sharing and exploration of ideas and opinions.
Yesterday I banned, after consultation with senior editorial management, a longtime member who posted a diary loaded with obscenities, with the title, "Oh Fuck" and with a subtitle that was worse. The writer acknowledged to me personally that he intentionally posted it to provoke a response.
This posting set off the conversation about where OEN is heading. Does it encourage and allow trash talk and angry, mean-spirited diatribes as diaries or comments, or does it seek to raise the level of the conversation. Our recent demographic analysis of our members shows us that 94% have some college or more. Take a look
Education Lmtd HSGrad SomeColl CollGrad AdvDeg(s) Total Education (194)-2%
(481)-5%
(2212)-24%
(3177)-34%
(3294)-35%
9358 Total: 100% from 9358 members
Actually, we have over 15,200 members, but 9358 answered this demographic question. If you haven't answered YOUR demographic questions, I encourage you to log in, click on your PROFILE tab and fill in your demographic info.
My point is, we can discuss at intelligent, educated levels. We don't have to drop into childish, angry places.
I started writing a response to the senior editorial staff, then added a few dozen more editors and our most prolific writers, and then I realized that this conversation deserves to be archived and shared by all.
I wrote last week about many of us being "Awakeners" and this discussion is all about being awake, when it comes to our intention, mission, vision, goals, and process here. I've written before about how I believe that doing things from the bottom up has led to the greatest success for OEN. I do expect some tough criticism here but also hope it will lead to getting feelings, complaints, visions, suggestions and observations out in the open-- things that have needed to be said.
So, please, use the comments to describe your thoughts on the future of OEN, on our plans to raise the quality, and your ideas on plans for changing the look and feel of the site. I expect that some of you won't like the changes. I don't even do well with changes in hair style, in my family. But change is what we need. A few weeks ago, I realized that I, myself, was not checking the news we have here, which is truly a superb compilation of what's happening, because the format is not as friendl as some other sites. This was a disconcerting realization to face and the final straw that forced me to face the facts that we have to have better ways to present our content. So I went ahead and started researching how other sites display their content-- NY Times, WaPo, Huffpo, Guardian, WS Journal, Dailykos, Raw Story, Commondreams, drudgereport. I'm still working on ideas for format and welcome and encourage your suggestions.
While I was looking at design models, I also decided that when we re-design the layout, it would be a good time to implement the content rating system many writers have asked for and which our programmer, Vidya, and I have been wanting to implement for a few years. So we're doing these two big steps this summer, as well as adding relationships, which will allow readers to identify favorite writers and commenters, so they can get notifications when they post new content.
There's a lot to discuss in this diary, but it all comes back to raising the quality of the content and the experience of using OEN.
I believe the issue we are facing is, in many ways, about anger and how it is expressed. There are some very angry members, more men, I think, who use the comments and sometimes diaries, to just dump raw anger, often in the meanest and angriest way. I don't think this is good for the site. There are also newbies-- one shot wonders-- who come in to post on articles and then leave. And then there are the weakly written articles that are accepted by our editorial team. We need to figure out how to do a better job of raising our quality and our standards-- for articles, diaries and comments. Below, I've described some details of our plans for the next month, on how to add ratings to the site. I've posted a few editor newsletters and member newsletters asking for feedback, and have hardly received any at all. I hope you'll take a look, within the context of this conversation and tell me if these plans make sense, if you'll use them, if you think they will help and what other ideas and suggestions you have.
The following started out as a reply to the existing thread of discussion.
I really appreciate you taking stands on this. Jan, I think you know that I DO listen and change policy based on your feedback, though it may seem at a glacial pace.
We've begun planning a major revision of the look and operation of the site, which will end up being more like the Huffington post, with less content on the front page, with diaries below the fold. Besides the Home page, there will be primary pages for News, Politics, Media, Activism & Causes, Life/Arts Science, Business, Technology, Press Releases, Polls, Events.
Further down the road, members will be able to build their own custom front pages, specifying primary page categories, directory levels, tags and locales to be included, along with info on their legislators..
Josh Mitteldorf and I have been having conversations, for a year, on developing what we've called "OpEdNews Journal" a strictly moderated page that comprises the best of the best of OEN. Best articles each day will go on that page, as judged by other writers and readers. This will take some programming, so I've been looking for some foundation support to develop it. But the ranking sy stem our programmer has begun to work on will also fit very nicely into developing this model. We'll be asking readers to rate articles on:
overall recommend * * * * *
writing/style * * * * *
New information * * * * *
importance * * * * *
Kindness * * * * *
Meanness/Civility * * * * *
Humor * * * * *
research/sources * * * * *
context/balance * * * * *
accuracy/fairness * * * * *
trust/accuracy * * * * *
I've been looking at newstrust, which bills itself as a social networking site that vets the news.
I encourage you to go to the site http://www.newstrust.net/ and click on REVIEW IT
for one of the articles on the page. That will pop up a box. Try filling it in. THis takes some time, but they've thought this through. We are ready to do something like this. Actually, before I saw it, I'd drawn up a plan for both a content rating system and new pages. Filling in a full newstrust review takes some time. I wonder if they rank articles partly on the number of reivews that are completed.
They use the following criteria:
I believe that putting such a system into effect will encourage to consider their postings a bit more, before they dump a load of anger or meanness. Also, we will be able to use the ratings to identify and document the most unpleasant, uncivil members, so we can deal with them.
This system will also help our editors to evaluate articles. They should probably be the first to use the rankings on new content that's been submitted, at least a short version of it.
I expect that we'll have much of the rating system in place within 2-6 weeks. I realize this is tech. But it will enable our members and our editors to more systematically bring their participation into the process of raising the quality of the content of the site.
That still leaves diaries unmoderated. We have to come up with a way to deal with the fact that since diaries are unmoderated some people are going to create diaries that are just unacceptable. Thoughts on how to dissuade people from posting these and what to do about them are invited.
Rob Kall is executive editor, publisher and site architect of OpEdNews.com, Host of the Rob Kall Bottom Up Radio Show (WNJC 1360 AM), President of Futurehealth, Inc, (more...)
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
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