Deck16

I thought this was a fitting follow-up to yesterday’s post.

We saw yesterday how inviting public comment was a dangerous game. Vitriolic, hateful comments seem to be all too common.

I want to consider the flip-side. Is there ever a good reason to encourage comments (other than the selfish desire to drive traffic)? I would say yes. There’s worth in hearing public opinion. And it’s a good to encourage public debate over important issues.

As per the joke, the BBC does, at times, seem over-enthusiastic for public opinion. Maybe a little too transparently desperate to not get a trickle of responses. But overall I think they do a good job of it.

World Have Your Say is an excellent example of this. It’s an open forum for people to call it and discuss the particular topic for the day. It attracts just as many crazies as Yahoo7 and YouTube. The difference is the moderation. The crazies are forced to talk normally. If they step out of line — and believe me they do try — the polite-but-strict moderators bring them back on-topic. If that fails they just turn to another guest and never go back to the troublemaker.

This creates a welcoming atmosphere for non-crazies, who in turn become the majority of callers to the show. Perfect!

Now, I know none of this is exactly surprising. I mainly wanted to mention it to show there are two sides to public comments.