We tried different approaches in our research into e-consultation.
The most successful site was http://wheel.e-consultation.org/, where we
got hundreds of stories of what it is like to be an active citizen in
Ireland today. The only inappropriate comments were link spam: caught by
Akismet. There was a time where every day I had to go through checking
the entries for the false positives and negatives every day. On that
site we didn't even require registration requiring a working e-mail
address. We accepted entries through web forms, e-mail, text messages
and voicemail messages.
On a number of other sites, we found registration + spam filters did the
job. On a wiki site (http://www.e-consultation.org/guide/) we had to
remove editing rights from newly signed up users, as most were link
spammers. So people need to be pre-approved before they can edit that
site - an unfortunate barrier to sharing knowledge.
An example of where post-moderation works is www.sluggerotoole.com. As
the topic is Northern Ireland politics, you can expect a lot of vicious
argument - but Mick Fealty and his colleagues only occasionally have to
remove personal or libellous comments. What is left is still pretty
robust, but so are the letters pages of the Belfast Telegraph.
--
Dr. David R. Newman, Queen's University Management
School, Belfast BT7 1NN, Northern Ireland (UK)
Tel. +44 28 9097 3643 FAX: +44 28 9097 5156
mailto:[log in to unmask]
http://www.qub.ac.uk/mgt/
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