A cooling off period in Bloomington, Ill.

Okay, this is the wrong way to build a civil community on your newspaper’s Web site. Just before the new year, the staff at the Pentagraph in Bloomington, Ill., decided that the comments on its stories were too uncivil, so the paper took its ball and went home:

Reader comments on Pantagraph.com often are informative, sparking serious dialogue on an issue of local or national interest. At other times, they are offensive and devoid of civility, the worst of which include personal attacks and/or assertions that have nothing to do with the story.

In recent weeks, we have seen too much of the latter on some local stories. Far too much. So, effective immediately and through the New Year’s holiday weekend, no comments will be allowed on new local content posted on Pantagraph.com.

This “cooling off” period is meant as a strong reminder to our online readers: that the reason comments are allowed in the first place is to foster a “spirit of community involvement and conversation.”

Comically, the paper added this postscript to its message some time later:

P.S. — Thank you for your comments on this decision. No more comments are being accepted on this matter as of 3:30 p.m. Dec. 31.

Makes me wonder what the comments were like on this particular article before they shut them off.

Anyway, this is not the way to improve the civility of your online community. Yes, these vitriolic, abusive commenters were violating the paper’s terms of service agreement or online behavior pact. And while you can legally hold these people accountable for behaving by the terms of that agreement, you can’t reasonably expect people to abide by the terms of an agreement they likely agreed to without reading it.

No, you can’t flash a page of legalese in front of a user and expect the community to moderate itself. A strong, respectful community needs moderators who care about the community. Most newspaper sites’ comments are fire-and-forget. That is, they are an feature tacked on because somebody thought that Web sites are supposed to have comments.

Rather than cutting off comments and punish those petulant children for their misbehavior, why not make the reporters at the paper take ownership of the comments on their articles. The reporters, who already have an investment in the story, can moderate the comments, participate in the discussion and help keep things civil without resorting to putting your readers in “time out.”

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