The New York Times will move to a more automated comments system that rewards good commenters with fewer checks to go through before their comments are published, the media giant announced Friday.
“We will be much less dependent on moderation,” Bassey Etim, editor who oversees commenting, told public editor Margaret Sullivan.
Within a few months, Etim said the Times will move to a system in which readers with a “history of a lot of good comments that have been approved” will have their comments go through more quickly.
The biggest stories of the day will still have a human moderating comments, including breaking news stories. “There will be more shades of gray,” Etim added, adding that “everybody will be a certain level of verified.”
At present, the Times has approved 478 verified commenters who get their comments posted right away without going through any Times editors first. They are selected “algorithmically based on the breadth and quality of the comments they have submitted over time,” the Times said in 2014.
Many readers have pushed back on the Times for the verified system, which leads to that verified elite dominating the message boards on newly posted stories until other non-verified readers can weigh in.
The new system should create more of an even playing field.