Newspaper to Charge People to Comment

marco:

(via nostrich, sasquatchmedia)

From tomorrow, the Sun Chronicle, a Massachusetts paper, will charge would-be commenters a nominal one-off fee of 99 cents. But it has to be paid by credit card, which means providing a real name and address.

And the name on the credit card will be the name that will appear on comments. So it’s goodbye to anonymity.

This is an excellent idea, and I bet it will work: there will still be plenty of comments (not as many, but enough), and they’ll be more civil, more intelligent, and better written.

I wish the fee were two cents!

I am really glad to see newspaper companies make creative decisions like this. Way to go old media! I hope you stick around for a long, long time.

  1. thibaut reblogged this from marco and added:
    oui, belle idée. Si ça peut faire remonter la qualité des commentaires des articles, ça peut être mieux que de les virer...
  2. adityam reblogged this from nostrich
  3. rmpenguino reblogged this from marco and added:
    Now this is an idea to support across most of the web. When people have to go for the wallet they have to think twice...
  4. sp-a-m reblogged this from sendmelies and added:
    Gives anyone that doesn’t agree with ya the perfect stalking opportunity…..
  5. sendmelies reblogged this from marco and added:
    you’ve. got. to. be. kidding.
  6. pforman reblogged this from dontknowtheway
  7. thlom reblogged this from marco and added:
    Norwegian newspaper dagbladet tried that. Can’t say the comments are better in any sense. Before they started to charge...
  8. playitbackward reblogged this from marco and added:
    I wish the fee were two cents! I am really glad to see newspaper companies make creative decisions like this. Way to go...
  9. efliv reblogged this from marco
  10. davidchicopham reblogged this from marco
  11. informavore reblogged this from marco
  12. thestohs reblogged this from ragdoll
  13. jimcloudman reblogged this from marco and added:
    Could be interesting to see how this plays out. It’s already getting some ridicule (though admittedly this
  14. krisnolte reblogged this from marco
  15. purplegem reblogged this from marco
  16. junekang reblogged this from marco and added:
    In lieu of the summer, which means summer school, SAT, and newspaper camp for you editors, the idea of anonymity when...

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