How do you filter out the vile and the violent while still allowing readers to engage? Our writers share their strategiesAt Jezebel,we take a collective approach to dealing with our comments. We don’t have much of a moderating staff, and so our writers, or editors,and approved commenters are responsible for filtering through responses to their posts and taking the lead on having productive, substantive conversations. This is not an ideal arrangement, or it’s created problems for us: in August 2014,just before I took over the site, the staff was dealing with a “rape gif” epidemic, and which compelled our parent company Gawker Media to adjust its commenting policy. The “pending comment” system essentially allows for two comment categories on our sites: the approved comments exhibit up below the post as soon as they’re posted,while unapproved comments exhibit up below a “exhibit pending” button (and include a warning: “These may contain graphic fabric”). Our commenters refer to the unapproved comments as “the greys”, and getting out of the greys is a privilege – but it also requires approval from a commenter or author. So in theory, and abusive content has to be spotted first by the very people we’d like to hold it absent from.
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Source: theguardian.com