UPDATED: Jan 22, 2025
We strive for Cambridge Day to be the trusted news source for Cambridge, with news that addresses the interests of the community in a timely, accurate and objective manner. We fully recognize there are different views on any issue of consequence, and there is obvious value in lively engagement from readers; that’s a sign of a healthy and robust community.
As stated in a previous post, we consider that some comments on Cambridge Day articles have not supported a civil discourse. We want to avoid and eliminate the insults, flame wars, and personal insults we’ve seen in the paper recently, and so we asked for your help and advice.
Most of you, though not everyone, believe we should continue to include comments. While some organizations have discontinued them, we share the view that comments can be valuable to provide a forum for public discussion, that is assuming the discourse can be civil and productive.
On anonymity, there were mixed opinions. Many share the concern that anonymity can fuel the kind of vitriol we see on too many social media sites, but others feel anonymity should be allowed as a form of protection against harassment and intimidation by people seen as having power and influence. We have decided to allow individuals to remain anonymous, but all commenters will be asked to confirm their identity with an authentic email address that won’t be published.
To elaborate on why we decided to keep anonymous comments on the website. This is not a simple issue, and we are trying to reflect the concerns of readers and best practices of media sites in general. Some have eliminated comments entirely; some allow comments on some articles but not others (e.g., New York Times); some allow comments on all articles (e.g., Washington Post). Both of those publications allow anonymous comments.
The comment section presents a forum for readers to engage, give feedback on articles, and add information or insights that may have been missed by the writer. These posts sometimes lead to ideas for new articles. To be sure, sometimes the comments include posts that violate our new guidelines, which we intend to enforce. There have been instances of community members using information gathered on the Cambridge Day website to contact individuals they disagree with outside of the website, and in some cases researching and calling out home addresses and places of employment – behavior that can be experienced as harassment or intimidation. We want our readers and commenters to feel safe on the site and not feel that their personal identifiable information could be used to intimidate or harm them in any way. Anonymity helps shield people from such behavior, but it also can be used to act irresponsibly, and we’ll use moderation to address this. We have not observed a discernible difference in civility between those that use their real name and those who use anonymous names; the spectrum of civility applies to both categories.
Further, we also ask individuals to refrain from calling others on the site “liars” or calling out “lies”. Lying implies knowing one’s intent; please use the term “false information” or “incorrect” or similar language that does not presume intent to mislead. That’s the kind of content we are hoping to avoid. It’s acceptable to point out something you believe to be untrue and make a correction citing a relevant source.
We will solicit the help of thoughtful volunteer moderators who will ensure that comments meet our guidelines. We hope it won’t be necessary to suspend anyone from the comments on Cambridge Day, but on behalf of the community, we will remove inappropriate comments and ask offenders to refrain from posting.
Guidelines:
- Be respectful and civil; encourage constructive dialogue free from insults, personal attacks, harassment or hate speech.
- Stay on topic and keep comments to 1,000 characters (approx 250 words)or less. If you have more to say, consider writing a letter to the editor. Don’t post more than three comments on any topic and use second or third comments for clarification and not repetition.
- Share only information you are confident is accurate and avoid unverified claims. Link to sources you believe are accurate and consistent with the guidelines.
- Respect the privacy of fellow commenters, journalists and public figures, and not harass fellow commenters offline based on the dialogue online or any other information obtained from the Cambridge Day website.
Please report comments that you believe violate our guidelines to comments@cambridgeday.com
Thank you for being part of our community and helping us create a space for healthy and respectful dialogue. If you have further thoughts – or would be open to serving as a volunteer moderator – please email us at comments@cambridgeday.com
Our policy is a work in progress and will continue to evolve as we see how it is playing out. We are grateful for your help along the way!
A stronger
Please consider making a financial contribution to maintain, expand and improve Cambridge Day.
We are now a 501(c)3 nonprofit and all donations are tax deductible.
Please consider a recurring contribution.
Honestly this all seems like the previous approach to comments with a ‘please be nice, we’re all trying to get along’ for good measure.
civil discourse on the internet in 2025. A resolution worth working towards.
This is very disappointing, as there has been so much harassment, intimidation, and name calling by anonymous commenters. Anonymity is exactly what enables so many to be far nastier than than would be if they were forced to put their names to their words.
We’ll see if the new(?) moderators will actually enforce civil discourse, or if these are just nice words
Big mistake. Anonymity breeds bad behavior.
While I think these guidelines are a good step, I am not confident that they will be applied evenly.
I’m already seeing comments that should’ve never been approved.
I appreciate that CD is thinking about this issue, but I’m skeptical that this approach will work.
Like Peter and Doug, I believe anonymity breeds incivility and sunlight is the best disinfectant. We wouldn’t allow it at a public meeting and we wouldn’t allow it for letters to the editor.
There may be exceptions, e.g. for someone who’s undocumented or has a restraining order out, but otherwise, make your comment with the courage of your convictions and stop hiding behind pseudonyms.
Using a recent reference point, is repeatedly calling people you disagree with “liars” and saying they’re posting “in bad faith” grounds for removal? It’s certainly insulting and uncivil, but what would a volunteer moderator say and would their own opinion on the issue being discussed color their approach? How could it not…
By far the worst behavior on here has been by people using their full legal names, glad you haven’t chosen to support them in their efforts to silence their critics.
Maybe the best thing would be to ask posters to choose between using their real names or posting anonymously – no pseudonyms.
Hi all, please see our updated language above, we understand folks wanted more of an explanation on how the board landed where we did on anonymous comments as we experiment with trying to make it work.
I think these are a balanced approach to commentary, if they are effectively moderated.
This seems like a reasonable approach.
On other forums, I do find extended-form conversations can be helpful (e.g. many words, back-and-forth, and similar), and I wouldn’t mind seeing that here eventually.
It is a different interface, generally with threaded comments (with subcomments hidden to until you expand them). Voting / sorting by votes also works well many places, but I suspect not here, as on polarizing topics (like zoning), it would be a popularity, rather than a quality, contest.
I appreciate the efforts at civility. Unfortunately, I am one of those who gets intimidated easily. But I’m hoping that my posts stick to the point at hand. One thing that has not been included is that some of the more aggressive posters have three different synonyms making comments look like a cast of thousands. I don’t find this fair, especially when the poster seems to gang up against another one three times with three different names. Can you please look into this? thank you.
I missed the deadline for voting on this issue. I favor eliminating the comments section. All comments sections bring out the worst in people (ad hominem attacks, pontificating, etc.). As a result, they end up being a self-selected group of aggressive gadflies. I don’t see how that contributes to anything, let alone civil discourse.