The News-Sentinel needs to just do away with the comment feature...

[bird jam]

A couple of recent stories with comments immediately/pre-emptively disabled for very different reasons:

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2012/de...-drug-charges/

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2013/ja...riage-license/

I don't know why I find this so interesting, but I do.

And apparently after almost six years of allowing comments, the KNS has decided that the car-jacking case is too "troublesome" too:

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2013/ja...l-heard-today/

This is a little surprising. Is it a sign of a philosophical change at the newspaper or is the guy assigned to police the comments sick today?

[Rocky Hillian]

The kns made mention of being more involved in allowing or not comments a few months ago. What that amounts to is no comments on articles about gay rights, carjacking case and granju case. That's about it.

[bird jam]

The kns made mention of being more involved in allowing or not comments a few months ago. What that amounts to is no comments on articles about gay rights, carjacking case and granju case. That's about it.

Ah, I did not see that. Interesting. Were any reasons given other than "we're tired and don't want to do this anymore"?

[Michael]

Ah, I did not see that. Interesting. Were any reasons given other than "we're tired and don't want to do this anymore"?

It was prompted by the Ownby story.
~m.

[bird jam]

It was prompted by the Ownby story.
~m.

Ah, I remember that blog. I thought he was referring to something else. I'm pretty sure there were comments under car-jacking stories a lot more recently than that.

[zoomfactor]

One thing I would like implimented is a standard policy concerning comments being disabled. Honestly I would rather comments never being disabled but not having that, and not likely to have that, I think it would be nice to have a written policy dictating which types of stories are free to comment and which are "we ain't gonna even"

Slowly but surely, whether or not comments are allowed for any given story is being dictated by a combination of power/influence (McElroy's kid's DUI, Timmy's divorce, Thomas Sowell), balanced by compassion for vulnerable story subjects (e.g., any public school program targeted at minority children's success, any Empty Stocking Fund story). Everyone else is thrown to the wolves. It is really at the point that the whole thing should go away.

[bird jam]

Slowly but surely, whether or not comments are allowed for any given story is being dictated by a combination of power/influence (McElroy's kid's DUI, Timmy's divorce, Thomas Sowell), balanced by compassion for vulnerable story subjects (e.g., any public school program targeted at minority children's success, any Empty Stocking Fund story). Everyone else is thrown to the wolves. It is really at the point that the whole thing should go away.

As this thread shows, I thought we were at that point in October of 2007.

[Rocky Hillian]

A male celebrity (at least he was) marries the love of his life after 38 years together. KNS doesn't allow comments.

[bird jam]

A male celebrity (at least he was) marries the love of his life after 38 years together. KNS doesn't allow comments.

Maybe it was to protect us all from the inevitable lame, homophobic Gomer Pyle jokes.

[Knoxious]

They said Cunty. And the headline ain't bad either:

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2013/fe...to-lay-status/