I for one appreciate that at least at this level there are people at the CBC who are listening to us!  Although you may not be able to save the cassical programming at the CBC for us, you’ve at least changed the way the blog works, /and/ you’ve let us know up front of those changes.

Thanks for all your hard work!

(I’m still broken hearted about the loss of classical music on CBC Radio 2)

I really don’t see how a 200 comments limit could be a technical issue. Comments are paginated. Per page comments are limited to 5. Perhaps it could be raised to 10 to reduce the number of page links. But since each comment set is pulled in via AJAX, there really is no performance issue.

–Alan

I don’t know for sure who at CBC is or isn’t keeping tabs on it, but it was a pretty big deal that in the first few days after the new commenting functionality was launched on the news stories, this was the story that generated the most comments.

I do know, though, that that audience relations weekly report is seen by people in charge, and Audience Relations compiles comments it receives only through the form. (I presume, because then an email address is attached to it and they get a more accurate read on how many "real" people are responding?)

I have to say that I’m disappointed that although "Readers can now post comments at the end of every news story. In addition, every reader posting comments will get a personal profile page that displays all of the comments he or she has posted on our site." no one at CBC is actually reading the comments, nor paying any attention to what gets said here.

What’s the point of having ‘Social Media’ and a blog in particular if no one’s going to be bothered to pay attention to it?

Time limits on posts etc is a cop out to keep people from having a say… but, if no one’s reading it, it really doesn’t matter, does it?

@jeremy: It’s a great idea and there are a number of boards  like that out there already.

@matt: Yeah, my wording could have been better. I do wish there were more resources available for moderating the blog, but there just isn’t and that ain’t up to me. So after dozens and dozens of people post essentially the same comment, I think readers have a good sense of the mood of public opinion. Besides, if you want your comments to count and actually be read by those in senior management, you need to post your thoughts at http://www.cbc.ca/contact/

Your comments then get to Audience Relations. Every week, Audience Relations compiles a summary of feedback it has received and distributes that to senior managers.

It is THAT weekly report that the bosses look at. I’d venture a guess than half of them have only visited the blog a handful of times.

Audience Relations doesn’t take blog comments into account in this report, so posting on the CBC blog won’t have the effect for which you’re aiming.

"UPDATE: At 200+ comments, I think we’ve gotten a fair sampling of public opinion here, so comments are now closed."

‘I think we’ve got a fair sampling’ – if your comments are meant to simply be a sampling, then say so.  Say up front that the Canadian public can only act as a polling-sample to what the CBC actually wants to do regardless.

It’s this determination by the Corporation of what Canadians want that frankly makes me continuously want to find my news, entertainment, and any other relevant Canadian information via other sources.  I for one really wished to make a comment about the upcoming changes at Radio 2 and now have no means to do so on this website.

If you want comments, and decide to do something contentious, have the resources to actually MANAGE the feedback rather than simply being lazy and cutting off comments because of ‘VEEEEEEERY long web pages’.  Get some code to manage the comments, and the pages.  Easy enough done.

Thanks for responding.  You know though, you could break the posts into groups of 100 or so, giving folks the ability to surf through the comments without breaking browsers.   Just a thought.  I know that there are people who are not happy that the comments have been closed.

Actually the problem is more technical than social. 200 comments makes a veeeeery long web pages and starts to break some people’s browsers.

Of course, assuming that those of us who use Social Media are your new target group and are therefore  not interested in such things as classical music is probably more of a mistake than not having a blog at all.

I really like being able to track all the comments a user has posted. It adds a bit of accountability. For example, I can see that this guy: http://membercentre.cbc.ca/ViewMember.aspx?u=8037425 is consistently anti-Islamic. If only I could block his comments from showing up on my screen, now that would be a great feature.

Everything is  pre-moderated at the moment for objectionable content, but not for bias in one direction or another. I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, but if it does happen, that in itself is news (cf. the Facebook wishes thing from a while back).

(As an aside, is anyone else having trouble logging in to the sso service to post comments?)

Comments are not being edited in any way. They are, however, being screened to make sure they comply with the Submission Policy (human readable version coming soon which is linked directly below the ‘post’ button.

Unfortunately, due to volume, we can’t reply to every rejected comment. However, if you think a comment has been unfairly rejected, please contact us and we will investigate.

One of the most commented-upon articles the day after it launched was actually about changes to Radio 2, so that’s not the case, no. If you take a look at that thread you’ll see that every coherently-made point makes it through, no matter how negative. Hopefully that addresses other commenters’ worries about the system being swamped with "me too"s and "first post"s.

The point about clearly defining moderation criteria is a good one though, that should definitely be looked at.