The Problem with the Comments to New York Times Articles

In "Readers with plenty to say," the New York Times highlights readers' issues with the way the Times opens up (or not) articles for comments, including:

• Too few articles, editorials and Op-Ed articles are open to comments.
  
• Comments are shut off too quickly, especially for West Coast readers.
• Comments are often not published in the order they were submitted.
  

The Times uses staffers to moderate the online comments because unsupervised forums devolved into off-topic and abusive comments.

It's interesting to note that the way comments are handled depend on the section in which the article appears. Bloggers monitor their own comments, with some spending as much as 20 percent of their time monitoring comments.

If you ever considered posting a comment to the Times, check out the article, available here.