Martha’s Vineyard Times publisher Peter Oberfest announced this week that The Times online comments would no longer be restricted to registered Facebook users. The Times will now allow readers to log in and comment using a variety of portals and rely on Disqus to moderate the discussion.
“Back in May of 2014 The Martha’s Vineyard Times changed its online comment system to require logging in under a real name and thus promote more respectful dialog,” Mr. Oberfest said. “We chose to rely on Facebook’s system because it was extremely common among publishers, it has a huge base of folks already registered and it was easy to use. It has turned out, however, that Facebook has its own system requirements and deficits for us and for some of you, and we have given it up.”
“We have returned to an updated and improved Disqus system to structure our comment feature. Apart from the loss of prior comments when the changeover occurred last week we expect little or no impact on readers after their initial log in. As our May 14, 2014 announcement said, ‘we’ll continue to watch and listen,’ and we hope this small system change will help simplify commenting and expand the conversation.”
