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Mark Potts runs through the details of Philly.com's reborn commenting system, which takes a good-enough approach to the complex problem of encouraging conversation in a world where an unfortunate percentage of us are idiots. As I've said previously, pseudonymity is a reasonable Middle Way.

I've been down the Real Names path. It's not a bad one. But my next-door neighbor in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, was one of several hundred Tom Johnsons in the area, and my next-door neighbor in Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota, was one of several hundred Richard Johnsons. Sometimes handles can be more precise.

Robert Putnam's theories about the formation of social capital are foundational to much of what I've been focusing on for the last several years, especially the 2005 launch of BlufftonToday.com. Blogging for the Readership Institute at Northwestern University, Rich Gordon describes troubling new findings in Putnam's latest research, and declares:

Putnam's research ought to be a clarion call for citizens, journalists and media companies in cities, towns and neighborhoods across the United States. "Bowling Alone" made clear that declines in social capital were harming both communities and their local media. The new research reinforces the need, especially in our most diverse communities, to build new ways for people to connect with one another. It seems clear that journalists and media organizations have a role to play in the process - and that online community-building may be at least part of the solution.

Hear hear!

MediaNews is adding comments to its newspaper articles, but they're outsourced to Topix.net, which is not only providing technology but community management. Howard Owens and Topix CEO Chris Tolles are in a bit of a dustup over Owens' criticism of the deal (see comments below the journalism.co.uk post), while Steve Outing comes down somewhere in the middle.

I'm in Howard's camp on this one. This is not the same as outsourcing obituary guestbooks to Legacy.com (which I think actually makes sense). This is core.

It's not enough to "alert the publisher to problems or user comments that require personal attention," as my friend Steve Outing suggests.

This is a great opportunity to listen to the community that's being thrown away. You can't grow to understand what people care about, what's on their minds, behaving like an absentee landlord.

Some of it might be unpleasant. That's where you might just find the most value.

Earlier tonight I was reading to my family from an autobiography my dad has been writing. He was for many years a reporter and editor in the troubled city of East St. Louis, Illinois.

When he was named editor of the afternoon paper, the black weekly headlined its story "White Racist Named Journal Editor," ignorant of the role he had played in at the University of Missouri, where he was elected vice president of the student body on a desegregation platform.

Troubled by the racial tensions in the city, he called a series of meetings in black neighborhoods. There he required the attendance of all the key editors and required them to sit, silently, not defending themselves, and listen. He recalls: "It was an unbelievable psychological experience" as misunderstandings surfaced and community members began standing up to defend the paper. Issues surfaced that became key parts of the newspaper's editorial platform.

We don't listen enough. Voicemail systems and security guards separate our newsrooms from the real world. Beat reporters talk to beat sources, who have an agenda, and rarely to civilians. Normal life rarely shows up in the news report.

The Internet gives us a powerful opportunity to reconnect with communities of real people. Handing that opportunity to Topix, regardless of how well Topix might perform, squanders a treasure.

Writing for OJR.com, Robert Niles argues: “There's no need for professional reporters to fear user-generated content. Someone needs to lead the Web's content communities, and journalists make the ideal candidates.”

While I agree wholeheartedly that newspaper journalists should engage as leaders in the community conversation, I think it would be a mistake to overlook the shortcomings and handicaps we inherit from our past.

So here’s a counterpoint to Niles’ essay.

It doesn’t start with your source list

One of the reasons newspaper readership has been declining for decades is that the news values and news definitions of print journalism are out of sync with society.

It’s hard to see this from the inside, but the beat structures, source lists and organizational priorities of the average daily newspaper reflect a mid-20th-century worldview. Sources, journalists and audience are neatly organized and carefully segregated. Institutions and processes are the stars. Just look at political coverage: organizational strategy and horse-race poll reportage eclipses any discussion of issues that people care about.

A healthy Web community leverages the passions of individuals and activists and chaotic self-organizers, and that’s a completely different world than you’re going to find reflected in your source list.

You can go through institutions (clubs and organizations, for example) to find your “seed corn” community leaders, but they're often not the people running those organizations. You’re going to have to get out of the office and in front of a lot of people, explaining your goals and your mission, and asking for their help. Prepare to be surprised by the ones who step up.

Journalists don’t know how to ask questions

It seems counterintuitive to say that a reporter isn’t good at asking questions, but you have to consider the context.

Print reporters ask questions all the time: quietly, one-to-one, in the corner, but rarely in the spotlight. Sometimes you have to ask dumb questions to get smart answers.

When it comes to writing, the reporter shifts gears. The goal becomes : Tell the right story. Most newspaper writing has an authoritative voice, and to many people it seems authoritarian. This is a great irritation to many people in print and can be a genuine offense online.

There’s a real cultural chasm here that you shouldn’t underestimate. Some reporters will take to the online conversation like ducks to water, and some will need a lot of coaching. From the editor? The most painful transitions can be those of an editor, whose entire DNA is focused on avoidance of error, a distrust of sources, and in many cases a “command and control” approach to the workplace.

Journalists don’t know how to promote

TV is shameless about promotion (to the degree that it takes up 20 percent of some newscasts) but print journalists suck at promotion. The kind of promotion a participative website needs is promotion that sells, not promotion that merely tells. In a business where “pandering” and “sensationalism” are high insults, promotion just doesn’t come naturally.

This is a place where some coaching from the marketing department can help ... if you have a marketing department. Most newspapers do not have a marketing department, and most reporters don’t know the difference between a marketing department and ad sales.

Be afraid, but do it anyway

You’re going to make mistakes. You’re going to struggle. People will post items that are wrong, mean-spirited or intentionally misleading. Politicians will astroturf and spammers will make your life hell. You’re going to have a day when you wonder whether any of it is worth the effort.

But if you persist, if you humble yourself and stay focused on building, leadership and (most importantly) learning from the community, you have an opportunity to reconnect with real people’s lives. You’ll discover issues that have become lost and you’ll begin the long, slow process of rebuilding the machinery of your reporting. You may even have an epiphany and declare that everything you’ve been doing for a decade has been all wrong. It won’t be painless. It will be worth it.

Jump in.

MyClaySun.com launched today in Clay County, Florida, just west of Jacksonville. The blogs-for-all website is coupled with a four-day newspaper, around 30,000 distribution. The website has a couple of nits here and there that the tech team is still chasing down, but the community interaction seems to be off to a good start.

It's public now: We're launching another "daily" hyperlocal product, this one in a western suburb of Jacksonville, Fla., called MyClay Sun. It will have a four-day print publication schedule, "daily on the Web," with a participative community website. Some elements will be very similar to Bluffton Today, but there also will be some significant differences. Launch date is the middle of next month.

Here's a New Year's resolution every news site should make: Throw the bums out! There is no reason to allow a small number of bullies to corrupt a community discussion forum. If your message boards, story comments, or blogspace has turned into the kind of place where decent people can't have a decent discussion, bring the hammer down ... on behalf of the rest of your users.

Yahoo News GM Neil Budde has shut down Yahoo's news message boards -- temporarily. In a note of explanation, he said:

"Yahoo! News is working on new ways for readers to comment on the news and participate in a discussion around it. While we work on our new community features, the message boards that were linked from individual news articles have been taken offline.

"As they were set up, the Yahoo! News message boards allowed a small number of vocal users to dominate the discussion. In addition, related discussions from similar news articles were not easily linked.

"Over the next few months, we plan to offer new discussion forums based on topics in the news and incorporating the latest features to foster a better discussion for all of our readers."

Now obviously there's no reason to have a gap of potentially several months between old and new systems ... except to perform a bit of social surgery. This is not a technical matter; it's a maneuver to drive out the scum so the new boards can have a fresh start. Presumably the new boards will have reputation management and filtering tools; Neil has been talking about that for a long time.

Because of its global scale, Yahoo's challenge is much, much more difficult than the interaction management issues faced by most local news sites. In a more intimate context, there's really no need to engineer complicated software tools to implement reputation management; peer pressure is, after all, a normal human process that works just fine in smaller settings. The more common problem I see on local news sites is simple abandonment of leadership responsibility on the part of the sponsoring news organization.

Set goals. Communicate those goals and ask for help. Follow through with both leadership and management.

An online community needs an explicit social contract. I'll repeat the "new covenant" draft that Loren Omoto, Frasier Van Asch, Dan Gillmor, Christine Montgomery and I drew up at a Poynter workshop almost two years ago:

Dear [reader]

We promise, with your help
To listen to what you have to say.
To help you have a voice.
To give you tools so you can control our relationship.
To be open about how we gather and produce the news.
To deliver news on any platform you want it.
To respect your time.
To be relentlessly useful.
To be relentlessly creative.
To be a good citizen and help you be a better one.
To facilitate your efforts to find relevant news and information. Even when we can't provide it, we'll help you find it.
To never abuse your personal information.
To help nurture community discussion.
To be a catalyst for social agendas.
To be constructively involved in shaping the public dialogue.
To revisit these promises and to keep evolving.
Love, [We, the media]

That's just a start. It needs a second component: A call to leadership on the part of community members. When we launched BlufftonToday.com, we took a cue from the Poynter manifesto and used these words:

"With your help, we will provide a friendly, safe, easy to use place on the Web ....
This is a place where you take the lead in telling your own story. .... In return, we ask that you meet this character challenge: be a good citizen and exhibit community leadership qualities. It's a simple and golden rule. Act as you would like your neighbors to act."

With your help.

If your message boards are rotten, shut them down and start over with a sense of purpose. You can't do it without the help of your community. And the community needs you to be a leader. Step up and do the job.