We describe four different archetypes for moderating communities … Read More
Marginalized Voices in Comment Spaces
What we learned from people whose voices were not represented in most comment sections … Read More
Help Us Broaden The Conversation
Announcing our latest research collaboration, an investigation into underserved communities of color … Read More
What Women Want in a Community
To increase the diversity of your community, you need to know the social rewards and cues that work for many women … Read More
12,000 people have something to say
We’ve just released a study of thousands of commenters, conducted with the Engaging News Project at the University of Texas-Austin … Read More
The Real Name Fallacy
Many say that horrible comments would vanish if people were forced to use their real names. Thirty years of research suggests otherwise. … Read More
What Do Frequent Commenters Want?
A detailed look at the habits and needs of 15 people who spend a lot of time in the comments … Read More
User-Submitted Malware: A Safety Guide For Journalists
When you ask people to send you images and documents, you are creating a potential risk for your newsroom … Read More
How To Use Forms With Your Audience
If you don’t ask in the right way, you can alienate the readers with whom you’re trying to connect … Read More
New Community Tools: Hearken
An exciting tool that increases engagement and connections between newsrooms and the public … Read More
Can Design Make the Comments Nicer?
What does signing in to comments tell us about comment spaces? Caroline Sinders takes a look … Read More
How Can Newsrooms Not Be Creepy?
If journalists want readers to share personal information, they have to make them feel safe … Read More
Three new users
We’ve added some new users to our personas list … Read More
New Community Tools : Groundsource
GroundSource increases audience engagement through the simplest of tech platforms … Read More
Artificial Moderation: A Reading List
Current academic research in artificial moderation … Read More
How To Argue Successfully Online
If we can’t agree on basic reality or facts, how can we discuss what’s right and wrong? … Read More
Where The Audience Is At
There are better ways to handle your comments, says The Engaging News Project’s Dr. Talia Stroud … Read More
Meet Our Users
We’ve created a fictional group of personas to help us build for real user needs. How can we improve them? … Read More
Creating Community Culture
How to build a space that helps people build relationships with each other … Read More
Alternative News Editors Offer Alternatives to Commenting
What can Taylor Swift and the Super Bowl teach us about audience? … Read More
Advice for the Accidental Community Manager
Librarian, internet folk hero and former Metafilter moderator Jessamyn West explains how to run a successful community. … Read More
New Community Tools: Civil Comments
Second in a series about new community tools. … Read More
Raising Women’s Voices
The absence of women’s voices is a problem for democracy, and for news organizations’ bottom lines.
… Read More
New Community Tools: Polis
The first in a series about innovative approaches to online discussion. … Read More
The Math Behind the Metrics
Measuring trust is no simple matter. It requires a lot of careful thought – and some math. … Read More
Internet Comments and The Law
Are sites ever legally responsible for what’s posted by the community? Here’s what can and can’t get you in trouble. … Read More
Who Comments on the Commenters?
Agence France-Presse has written an interesting piece about comments on news sites. Here’s what its commenters said to us. … Read More
How Can Our Trust Tool Help You?
We want to hear from you. Tell us how you might use our first product. … Read More
On The Same Page?
Why the discussions around comments and community need to focus on access and diversity. … Read More
The Results of Our Survey of Marginalized Voices
The voices of women of color and gender nonbinary people of color are often missing from the comments. We surveyed more than 350 people to find out why – and what we can do about it. … Read More