Comment Control

It's still raining here, but I got to see the sun briefly during my morning run. It was quite exciting.

New responsibility at IHT: creating discussions. I created this one about the U.S. response to Iran's missile test launch. We have to create a discussion in order to allow readers to comment on a story. The majority of stories do not have discussions, and thus do not allow comments. We also have to go through each comment, and approve it before it appears on the site.

Coming from the blogging world, this is strange to me. We allow comments on every post, and they're automatically published (though we do have to occasionally unpublish a comment if it's offensive). Comments allow readers to interact with the story and each other (and are also a great driver for web traffic). At the end of the day, journalism is all about sharing information and creating a community through the creation of common knowledge. Online news sites should embrace reader comments. But I'm a blogger... what do I know?

I know that the comments were hilarious on this post we did on Above The Law. A reader sent us to a North Carolina law firm's website, which has serious and fun bios for all of its attorneys. I did some photoshopping to combine the images (see left) and added some commentary, but the images really spoke for themselves. What a fun firm.

Though the comments on that post are mainly humorous/fun ones, there are some ATL posts where the comments contain really interesting debates and raise serious questions about the law and the legal industry. Comments are important for more than just building community.

Food victory of the day: I went to a grocery story in IFC mall and found mochi, one of my favorite foods in the world. It's a Japanese snack made of glutinous rice pounded into paste with a sweet red bean filling. So good.