This morning I interviewed Kerry Lauerman, of Salon’s Letters and Open Salon, as part of our industry research.
Salon’s Letter to the Editor comment structure stands out in a crowd. Their system, adopted in October 2005, is an innovative approach to a trusted and familiar model. Letters to the Editor are as integral to the history of newspapers as obituaries and wedding announcements.
Salon
Their model is simple: user’s must go through a quick registration and then can write a headline and post their letter. Editors highlight the best letters. Readers can choose to read only those marked by editors, or can see through every letter submitted.
The letters to the editor structure is one that Stuart and I have considered in our design process, one that we may decide to pursue in the coming weeks. One concern I had before speaking to Mr. Lauerman was that the barrier to entry would be too high. The phrase “letters to the editor” implies a more intelligent, thoughtful reply, as opposed to “comment” which can suggest a snap judgment. It sounds like a great idea – promoting intelligence over outbursts, but to meet the goal of increased community engagement every effort should be made to encourage comments, not discourage them, right?
An example letter
In the world of page views, tallies of registered users and counting clicks, it seems like the focus online is on getting a volume of comments, rather than striving for intelligent discourse. We worry about having too high a barrier of entry to commenting, but maybe that is not a productive concern.
Lauerman said he doesn’t care if people are turned off from commenting by their letters system.
“We never worry. If anything we worry it isn’t high enough of a barrier,” Lauerman said. “Our system is targeted at someone who wants to write something thoughtful, because that’s what we’re looking for.”
Lauerman wondered if anyone truly benefits from commenting systems where users can spout off without restraint.
“You are not building anything useful if people are just using it as a place to pop off anonymously,” he said.
Former Salon editor, Scott Rosenberg, in a letter dated Jan. 30, 2006, said they believe that signed letters reflect a more considered thinking.
“We know that some of you might be thinking, ‘Gee, when future potential employers are Googling my name, do I really want them to see this rant?’” he wrote. “Maybe that’s simply good motivation to write something that you’ll be proud of. If you think you won’t want to stand by your letter years from now, you might reconsider whether you want to post it at all.”
I like that Salon has the attitude that they want to receive quality letters, or none at all. Just because we want to get more people interacting online does not mean we have to set the bar so low that anyone can jump in. News organizations can still maintain their sense of intelligence and worth. Perhaps if more news organizations took this message to heart we would have more intelligent discourse and less cover stories featuring Britney Spears and Angelina Jolie.
