User:MSulka/sandbox

Comments section draft
Bold indicates the material was from the original article

The comments section is a feature of Web content in which the publishers invite the audience to comment on the published content. There are two types of comment sections, gated and non-gated. Gated comments sections require users to give the website some information before they can post a comment. Most social media websites are gated as users have to log in and post under a username that identifies them. The New York Times is an example of a news website with gated comments. Non-gated comment sections don’t require users to provide information before posting. If a comment section is moderated it is typically done in one of the following three ways: post- moderation, pre-moderation, or through a flagging system. Comments that are post-moderated are checked after they’ve been posted. Pre-moderated comments are checked before they are allowed to be posted. Comments that are moderated with a flagging system can be marked or ‘flagged’ by other users for official website moderators to look at.

On news websites
The history of comment sections on news articles started in 1998 with The Rocky Mountain News, they were one of the first newspapers to add online same page comments. While today comment sections are common, at first newspapers were hesitant to add them. In the late 2000’s Comments sections were rapidly added to news sites, between 2007 and 2008 there was a 42% growth in the number of top circulating news sites with comments sections. In 2008 75% of the top 100 most circulated newspapers had comments sections. In 2010 The American Journalism Review stated that news sites should not have anonymous comments sections. Following that statement Reuters, ESPN, The Huffington Post, Popular Science, Sporting News, and USA Today either made comments gated or removed them.

Non-gated comments have had some controversy. On one hand, because there is no barrier to entry they allow more people post. This can lead to a discussion with more viewpoints covered. On the other hand it’s thought that the anonymity that comes from not providing any information can lead to uncivil behavior. Incivility in terms of comments sections refers to verbal aggression in the comments. The Illinois and New York State senates both considered bills to limit non-gated comment sections. The Illinois bill would have incentivized websites to gate their comments requiring users to provide their real name, a home address and a confirmed IP address. The New York Bill would have made websites remove anonymous commenting.

The following list contains examples of some news websites that have disabled comments:
 * 1) Vice Media closed its comment section in 2016.[2] On closing, they noted "we had to ban countless commenters over the years for threatening our writers and subjects, doxxing private citizens, and engaging in hate speech against pretty much every group imaginable."[2]
 * 2) NPR closed its comment section in 2016.[3] One of the stated reasons for this was that "commenters were behaving inappropriately and harassing other commenters".[3]
 * 3) IMDB closed its comment section in 2017.[4] On closing, one journalist noted that the comments section on that website was "notoriously known for hosting some of the most pointless and hateful commentary around".

Comments section plan
Here I will plan my contribution to the Comments Section Article.
 * 1) I'll start by fixing minor grammar errors.
 * 2) Then I'll look at the purpose behind the quotes on the article and decide if they are really necessary as there are a lot of quotes.
 * 3) I will then try to decide how the article should be sectioned and if the sections are large I will pick one or two to focus on.
 * 4) Preliminary sources:
 * 5) About influence of anonymous comment sections on news articles Persuasion From Below?
 * 6) This one's about how news article content influences comment section participation Discussions in the Comments Sections
 * 7) This article is about civility in New York Times articles. I'm not sure it can be used because the research is specifically on the New York Times
 * 8) Here's an article about flagging comments as bystander behavior
 * 9) I want to find something about the different types of comment sections. For example comment sections that rank things by time posted verses comment sections that pot popular comments at the top.

Potential articles

 * 1) Advertising Inventory This article seems like a good choice as it needs expansion. My concern is finding non-biased sources. In a brief search the majority of information that came up was from advertising companies. However I'm sure more information could be found with more in-depth searching.
 * 2) Comments Section This Article also needs expansion. I could add examples of comment section formats and important things that have happened on comments sections. Here an issue would be finding information from a third party source and not using my direct observations of comment sections. I did find a lot of articles discussing wether or not certain cites should have comment sections. I could also add to the article by laying out the issues and benefits of comment sections.
 * 3) Cause Célèbre The main issue with this article is in the second paragraph where it claims that many politicians will use a Cause Célèbre to get media coverage without a source. I'm hesitant to do this article as I'm not sure there is much to add outside of credible information about politicians using popular causes.

Article evaluation
The Al Jazeera Media Network article explains how the network formed and what they currently do. The article does a good job remaining neutral. I check one source that was cited for providing information about the founding of Al Jazeera Media Network. The source was credible and the Wikipedia article was't quoting or paraphrasing. Additionally, the article omitted the more debatable information about Al Jazeera's being shocking and influential, instead maintaining focus on the facts. That being said, if other sources say that Al Jazeera was influential in the media landscape then an "influence" section would be a worthwhile improvement. Two more issues are in the section about lawsuits with AT&T. The article claims Al Jazeera tried to sue AT&T in 2003 but has no source for that claim, this claim should be cited or removed. There is a source for the claim about a lawsuit in 2013 but this source could be better. The citation leads to a Dealine Hollywood article that contains a link to the official statement about the lawsuit. I think it would be more credible to directly source the official statement and leave out the Deadline Hollywood article as the only information cited comes form the statement. Lastly, the talk page contains an interesting post about the network being owned by Qatar. It seems a user investigated claims that Al Jazeera is owned by Qatar but didn't find any substantial evidence.