Comments on: the Washington Post talks to bloggers

By: chrisafer

chrisafer — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 22:10:40 +0000

It seems I left before all the good stuff happened. Three hours was a long time, though.

By: kris

kris — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 15:25:04 +0000

My major concern coming out of last night’s meeting is that there won’t be adequate screening of sites up front (a full-time responsibility for anyone, as I’m sure we can attest) and the blogroll will become crammed, overwhelming and basically useless. I have seen it happen with multiple organizations and it ruins an otherwise well-intentioned endeavor.

By: tom

tom — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 05:46:27 +0000

I think you’re right about this when it comes to links. But they’re doing more than that — on the front page of the directory they’ll be featuring excerpts from recent posts. That’s what was in the mock-up, anyway.

By: Ray

Ray — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 05:43:11 +0000

At the risk of a stretched analogy, I liken the linking of blogs to the publishing of letters to the editor. You acknowledge a person and some of that person’s information.
If one were to look up a WaPo letter writer in the phone book, call that person, and end up berated with profanities, that was an exchange based on the decision to seek further contact (or in the case of blogs, to click through).
I’m sure their lawyers can figure out how to say all this in a coherent way that would pass muster in any court and be as amenably OK-able as any Terms and Conditions.

By: tom

tom — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 05:17:48 +0000

They acknowledged that issue, but didn’t really explain how they were going to deal with it. They said “we want to automate this as much as possible” (paraphrasing, of course). So I don’t know — I would imagine that they’ll filter out bad words, but I’m not sure what they can do about libelous content and obscene photos unless they’ve got a human editor checking everything.

By: makenzie

makenzie — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 03:33:32 +0000

Here’s what I don’t get — how are they going to deal w/ “not for public consumption” blog entries? i.e., bad words, racy pictures, super-inflamed opinions? I just don’t see how the freedom of expression allowed with blogs on all fronts jives with a public newspaper — and its editoral restrictions. Was that discussed at all?