E-Media Tidbits

Nick Denton on Thursday revealed that his Gawker network of blogs is going to allow people to tag their comments so that related ones can be automatically sorted and appear together.

Let's say you want to say something about Vogue magazine editor Anna Wintour. You simply write it, tag it with a little hashtag and her name (#AnnaWintour) and voila, everything you and everyone else writes with that tag goes onto the Anna Wintour page on the site, with all the text and photos the Web site's editors have posted about her, as well.

Denton says he doesn't know what will happen with the new system and that he expects "anarchy." But he did tell Nieman Labs' Zach Seward that he kind of hopes it becomes a dark Facebook, where "your friends and your enemies fight over" what's written your "wall." It presumably would be the same for companies, brand names, and, really, any category of stuff.

But even with the new public tagging, Denton's editors are maintaining some control through the tiered commenting system we wrote about earlier, in which a select few get to decide whose comments are elevated to top status, and therefore viewed by all who come to those pages. Other comments are left in the background and require another click to be seen.

As usual, Denton is being an evil genius. He's brilliant in the way he leads his properties to thread the needle between editorial control and crowd participation. He's also appealing to our base nature, begging us to have at each other, all on his blogs, so he gets the traffic, engagement and loyalty.

He notes that even as the blogs' home pages become more professionally produced, he wants the Gawker audience to continue to add its wisdom. He welcomes the tension that creates between users and editors, and notes that some Gawker staff rose from being commenters to their current paid positions. He acknowledges, too, that it's a difficult jugging act for editors to balance their "love-hate relationship" with commenters but praises readers for supplying "the site with some of its best wit and tips."

Denton and his executives in early years said their model was originally the classic editorial one -- editors covering news and gossip, and posting about it, and the site making money from ads. But since introducing comments four years ago, they've constantly worked to improve the system, maintaining their editorial oversight while trying to bring evermore participants into the fold. And, as no mere side effect, generating more pageviews, links and interest that keep audience growing and advertisers interested.

Similar systems can work for any news site, especially journalistic ones. Imagine if tips (tagged #tips) are seen by all, if a local politician or school board member has a page where folks say things about them. Yes, this can be uncomfortable and make staff and observers squeamish. But it also gives news organizations a way to further the conversation and participation among their communities and their editors.

Those in a local community with a stake in the publication they're contributing to will likely be able to tag and sift comments to create a different tone, keeping the most avid and appropriate users invested in the site and looking out for it, and ultimately making sure there are levels of editorial control that will keep management, advertisers and partners more comfortable than in an unmoderated free-for-all.

Scoff at Gawker's journalism, if you must. It's never pleasant to be the butt of one if its attacks. But let's learn from its use of the technology and melding of editorial control with the principles of community journalism.