The Glenwood Springs Post Independent launches a new online commenting platform at 5 a.m. Thursday. The new system offers a multitude of features aimed at increasing reader engagement by giving users the ability to follow news topics or reporters and the option to receive alerts when readers weigh in on an article.
Readers also will notice a change in access to commenting. You no longer need a Facebook account to post a comment under an article. Now, people can interact with our news stories using their email account or any of their social media profiles, including Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
This new platform should make the commenting experience more user-friendly, but equally as important, is the promise it holds to create a more constructive space for public dialogue.
Moderating comments requires time and resources, and that’s where our new commenting platform can help. Viafoura, our platform provider, uses artificial intelligence to assist with moderation, which means, over time, the system will begin learning our guidelines and moderation behavior, making the process of sorting through comments more automated and giving moderators more time to highlight the best conversations rather than refereeing the worst.
Our new commenting platform also allows us to enforce bans of varying lengths and automatically informs individuals as to why their commenting behavior violated our standards and required a ban.
It is our goal to use this new platform as a tool to make online conversations on postindependent.com more civil.
With more advanced moderation tools, we hope to cultivate quality dialogue that adheres to the three main tenets of our commenting policy: start a dialogue, stay on topic and be civil.
We hope you’ll give it a try and let us know what you think. And to help readers better understand the new system of commenting, we’ve created a FAQ document that can be found here.
If you have questions, don’t hesitate to contact Post Independent Editor Peter Baumann at pbaumann@postindependent.com or at 970-384-9114.