Getting some answers on The Mag commenting policy | OneFootball

I’d noticed a lot of comments recently by people unhappy about certain aspects of the way The Mag commenting section is administered.

In particular – regarding bans, both real and illusory, and the strict editorial policy against insulting language aimed at, amongst other things, rival teams and their fans.

Of the complaints that I’ve noticed, a large number are about people being told they’ve been banned by The Mag but then finding that, in fact, they haven’t. This has happened to me a few times.

However, there are also complaints from people who HAVE been banned and feel that the reason given has been either trivial or the result of some sort of “woke” agenda that has no place on a football forum. The culprits in this drama are seen as Disqus and the Editorial staff of The Mag, principally the editor, of course.

After an especially heavy bout of complaints made by various posters a few days ago, I decided to contact the editor for some clarification on these issues. I felt as though some of the comments and questions were quite interesting, some were ill-informed and one or two were plain daft (a typical cross section of The Mag comments section, you might say!).

However, as questions asked in the comments section simply don’t seem to get answered – or at least they very rarely do – I thought the best thing to do was to email the editor and ask the questions directly.

I was pleased to find that the editor was very open to discussion and when I suggested that I write an article on the subject he was immediately in favour and offered to give me all the information he felt able to in response to my questions.

The first thing I learned, was that the reason questions in the comments section don’t tend to be answered, is because those running The Mag don’t routinely, if ever, read them. They’re too busy doing things like researching and writing articles and running the business. Almost exclusively, the only comments they tend to see are those that banned word filters stop going up, or less frequently, comments that get ‘flagged’ by other posters. In each case, those running The Mag receiving an automated email, prompting them to have a look at the comment, then up to them whether leaving the comment as it is, deleting it, changing the comment so it is allowed, plus of course also the possibility of banning the person if deemed appropriate.

Disqus is a platform which is “bolted on” to the website – simply providing a service which is paid for and it is largely up to The Mag how it is used. Having said that, Disqus have guidelines for websites with an expectation that they will be respected and that the behaviour of those using the commenting system on the Mag will be monitored and transgressions dealt with appropriately.

The key mechanism is the Disqus dictionary of banned words which automatically prevents their use and puts the post in question into moderation. This can be annoying as certain words have more than one meaning so innocent comments can be flagged as inappropriate – no saying “they have a “chink” in their armour” or “Eric ten “Fags”” for example – and a neatly thought out argument can go straight into moderation then disappear into the ether. However, although it can be frustrating I think we all know what the key banned words are by now.

Being “flagged” by Disqus means an email alert is sent to The Mag and the staff there will look at the post to see why. If the comment is an innocent example like the ones quoted above or something equally innocuous they will just alter the wording and pass it. If not, a decision has to be made and the poster in question may well find they’ve been banned. As the editor put it himself,

“This is usually how we end up banning people, as those who are bullies and/or being abusive to others etc, will invariably also use one or more banned words… We DO NOT want to ban anyone, why would we? We want as many people as possible to visit The Mag and enjoy it, especially when they then become regulars who contribute articles and/or comments, become really part of the site. So it is only when we feel we have no alternative, that we ban anybody. If we believe they are going to damage The Mag, especially in terms of the vast majority of other fans finding their behaviour a turn off, in our opinion.”

It’s a time-consuming job to respond to these alerts and the more there are the more time is lost. Although it is amusing to see the mental gymnastics some people go to to invent new ways of expressing banned words using emojis and alternative keyboard characters this can cause great stress and frustration for the staff as Disqus adds more and more forms to its dictionary and the alerts continue.

So what would get you banned? The editor of any media outlet has to be very careful of the law and ensure nothing they approve by publishing under their banner is patently untrue and could result in legal action. So any comment that could be considered libellous, or in breach of laws relating to minority rights would have to be dealt with quickly and emphatically.

It’s more than a legal question, though. The editor of any publication will have a set of values that underpin their work and represent their editorial ethos. In his response to my questions, the editor outlined his view regarding people expressing their opinion. He was very adamant that…

“All we ask is that people stay within certain general respectful guidelines (not racist, misogynistic, homophobic and so on) and that when it comes to the comments section in particular, respect those who write the articles and others who comment. So you are free to disagree with and criticise what somebody else writes but not to be abusive or make attacks on the character of others. At the bottom of each page on the site, people can find the ‘Comment Policy’ that explains this further.”

At the beginning of the article I mentioned “illusory” bans. This was reference to the very annoying occurrence of being told you’ve been “banned by the Mag”, being unable to log on to comment only to find later that, in fact, you had not been banned by the Mag at all. This has happened to me a few times. The editor was very clear on this. It is absolutely a “glitch” within the Disqus system which suddenly started after a system update some time ago. It rights itself usually, in my experience anyway, fairly quickly.

So far Disqus have not been able to cause / fix the cause of the problem but it will no doubt happen eventually. Meanwhile, this is what the editor told me you should do if you are informed that you have been banned and indeed what posters receive when they do get in touch with The Mag, saying they have been ‘banned’…

“If people find they are banned, their first move should be to clear the history / cookies on their device as per the instructions below. Try that a second time if it doesn’t work initially, then after a couple of goes, if still no joy, please email contribute@themag.co.uk and explain the system is saying you are banned. We can then check and tell you if you are indeed banned by ourselves, or if it is just the Disqus glitch. If it is the glitch then we understand it will right itself in time and unban you but worth in the meantime continuing to clear your history. There is nothing we can do ourselves to unban you, if it is the glitch that has caused your issue.”

‘Disqus has reported that since their last software update some users are having problems, this is probably due to an issue with cookies / cache.

Below are links (if needed) which explain how to clear your cookies.

In one of his comments the editor mentioned, “the vast majority of other fans finding their behaviour a turn off” which made me wonder how many fans he was talking about. As an avid (addicted according to Mrs Lass!) devotee of the Mag comments section I’ve sort of assumed that that is what the Mag is – that we posters ARE The Mag. I was surprised at the figures he quoted,

“There are tens of thousands of Newcastle United fans who visit The Mag each day. Of those, less than one per cent will leave comments.

As to those who read the comments on any particular article, our guesstimate is usually between 10 per cent and 20 per cent, at an extreme maybe 25 per cent.”

By those estimates, we are in fact, a small shoal of fish in a very large pond!

So, is the comments section necessary for the continued success of the Mag?

As an expat who generally shuns other expats like the plague (too complicated to go into here) the Mag comments section is how I get my craic with the lads. It would be an absolutely horrifying prospect for me to think it could be surplus to requirements. I asked the editor if this would ever be a realistic prospect and was relieved by his response which is fairly long but, I feel, very important to consider,

“The comments section is one of numerous important things that contribute to the success of The Mag.

However, it is an add on to the site, it is not THE MAG. We love it that a lot of people enjoy contributing to the comments section and that others simply enjoy reading the comments. However, it is not essential. A lot of sites now don’t have commenting sections and that is almost always usually down to the fact that they no longer want to deal with people misbehaving. It just becomes not worth the time and bother. We don’t have any plans to bin the comments section but that could change in the future. In the past there have been times when we questioned whether it is worth our time and the stress, when certain people are intent on causing us problems, repeatedly breaking the commenting rules. This is especially frustrating when these are people who also claim that they really like and value The Mag site and/or especially the commenting section.”

This is the heart of the matter to me.

What is the Mag to us?

To me, it’s a lifeline, as I said above, to the lads’ culture of my homeland. A way of chatting, swapping views, having a bit of banter and learning what’s going on in the “Land of Milk and Honey”. In the early days (and especially on the Chronicle site – more of that below – before I migrated to The Mag at the suggestion of my old virtual mucker Michael Maximus Moose) I was as much intent on tripping people up, having a go and basically being a wum as I was on having a conversation about the football.

Gradually, though, I have, hopefully – along with the vast majority of posters on here – largely left that sort of stuff behind. I find nowadays that most interchanges involve things like interesting dissections of the games, the transfer prospects, team selection and tactics, finances, technical issues like VAR, assorted conspiracy theories and, of course, the “sad” demise of our Wearside neighbours!

There’s a far lower incidence now of bickering, bullying and sheer, bloody-minded wind-ups and I, for one, appreciate that. The articles have, in my opinion, improved immeasurably in quality – putting much that can be read in the Chronicle to shame. OK, there is some repetition that agitates some people (Mag bingo, anybody?) but imagine having to turn out say 10, 12 or 15 different articles a day seven days a week? My message to anyone being critical of the style or perceived political slant of The Mag articles is, “help the editor out – write your own article and send it in”. Don’t forget to adhere to the rules, though.

The Editor also happy to give an overview on the 4,000+ articles that go up on The Mag each year:

“Think of it a bit like the TV (or Radio) station that you watch (or listen to) the most, the idea isn’t that you have to like or indeed read every single article on The Mag.

The likes of Paul Merson, Richard Keys, Michael Owen and whoever else, their quotes are invariably simply used to spark debate, in terms of the article then saying this is what they have said but this is the true reality and why they are wrong and so on. However, the big thing is, if you see ‘Paul Merson says…’, then why read it if you don’t want to read anything that Paul Merson says, or even worse, why go on to that article just so you can comment that you don’t want to read things like this?!! Any fan of Ricky Gervais who has heard his brilliant ‘Guitar Lessons’ observation, will know where I am coming from…”

My final point (or points, to be more accurate) brings us back, as promised, to my days using the Chronicle site.

First of all, regarding unacceptable comments being flagged. The editor of any organisation cannot personally monitor everything. As I said earlier, one of the things I was surprised to learn was that the editor of The Mag and his staff do not actively read through the comments section. They rely on Disqus to flag up unacceptable comments but that only relates to the use of banned words. Relentlessly negative comments, subtle or well expressed overt bullying will be missed so the staff also rely on the site being self-policed. We can flag up unacceptable behaviour as well.

“The Mag comments section needs to be self policing because I/we don’t have time to look at all the comments. We NEED regulars to help us when somebody is out of order and creating problems for us. Most times comments are flagged it isn’t because the ‘flagger’ has been insulted / abused. We rely on a very small number of people who do help us by flagging comments like this, which we wouldn’t be aware of.

Getting a comment flagged doesn’t automatically do anybody any harm …

This takes me back to the legendary Michael Caine, a regular on the Chronicle site. He became the victim of someone calling himself Paddy McFlagerty who developed the underhand tactic of flagging every comment that Michael made so it would disappear as soon as he made it. The site was so big that flags weren’t monitored as they are on The Mag and would automatically be deleted after a set period of time. The editor assured me though that this couldn’t happen on The Mag because all flagged comments ARE looked at individually,

“As for somebody flagging loads of comments for no good reason, that for sure gets that person (who is doing the flagging) banned.”

Finally (“Phew!”, I hear you say), also in relation to those Chronicle days, back to a couple of the original comments that made me think about writing this article. I didn’t copy them at the time but it was along the lines of “Do we need Disqus” and “Maybe we need to find an independent site”.

My answer to that is, “Be careful what you wish for!”. The Chronicle ditched Disqus when it became part of the Mirror Group and had to adopt their commenting format. From having Disqus where conversations are sequential and conducted in real time it suddenly became a waiting game where you had no idea if anyone was adding a comment or replying to you. It became, as I always put it, a “conversational desert” overnight and the vast majority of regular posters migrated elsewhere.

As for an “independent site”? Well, I’m not sure what that is, to be honest, but if it looks and operates anything like RTG with its incomprehensible level of continuity and bile-ridden and grossly insulting missives then I’ll wave anyone bye bye as they sail off in search of such a thing. To leave the last word to the editor,

“If people don’t like what we offer then that is fine by us, The Mag simply isn’t for them. Maybe they need to find somewhere else for their NUFC fix online. We do of course want as many fans as possible visiting The Mag and especially if they want to write articles and/or leave comments. However, you can’t please all of the people all of the time. If any individual is unhappy with how we do things on The Mag, we are not going to change because they want us to, we balance that against the tens of thousands of other Newcastle United fans who visit The Mag every day because we are getting things right in their eyes, at least up to a certain point.”

(ED: My/our thanks to Wor Lass for his excellent attempts here at delving into the issues regarding The Mag commenting platform. Also, as he reports, nobody at The Mag reads all of the comments, indeed hardly any of them. When there can be 1,000+ comments on a single post, such as the confirmed team articles before matches, it just isn’t possible, even if we wanted to. So if you do have anything to tell us, especially constructive criticism, maybe suggestions on how The Mag can be improved, including the commenting section, then please email contribute@themag.co.uk and what you send will be read and on most occasions, replied to.)