WFAA.com will integrate Facebook Commenting on its news stories beginning on January 18, 2012.
WHAT IS THE CHANGE?
Starting on January 18, 2012, anyone with a Facebook account can comment on eligible news stories on WFAA.com without having to separately register as a member of the WFAA.com website. This eliminates an extra step to participating in the discussion of the news for many of our website visitors. This replaces our previous commenting system, which required registration and then the creation of an alias/username. Comments will continue to be monitored and moderated based on our Terms of Use.
WHY IS THE CHANGE BEING MADE?
Many news websites, including the Los Angeles Times and the 41 Business Journal newspapers nationwide, have switched to using Facebook Comments in an effort to address complaints about bad commenting behavior resulting from the previous policy of permitting anonymous comments on stories. Based on their positive experiences, and in response to encouragement from our own users to end anonymous commenting, we have decided to make this change. Some WFAA.com users have also complained about the delay in seeing their comments posted to articles, which this change eliminates.
WHAT ARE THE COMMENTING RULES?
Our Terms of Service (TOS) for commenting on news stories remain the same. We welcome diverse opinions and vigorous discussion. We also want the virtual community of commenting to reflect the same kind of mutual respect we all desire in our real communities. With that in mind, our three ground-rules for commenting continue to be: No personal attacks, no foul language, and no off-topic posts. Those comments may be flagged and removed, and repeated violators may lose the privilege of commenting on WFAA.com news stories.
More on our Terms of Service at: http://www.wfaa.com/terms-and-conditions/terms-of-use
WHY DO I HAVE TO BE ON FACEBOOK TO COMMENT?
Visitors to WFAA.com can continue to read stories and watch videos without any kind of sign-in requirement. However, visitors who want to add content onto any website, whether it is uploading a video to YouTube or commenting on a video or story, are always required to register in some way by the host site. Many more people are registered members of Facebook than WFAA.com so shifting our comment registration from our own site to Facebook offers the commenting privilege to more users while removing an extra registration step. However, a user does NOT have to have a Facebook account to comment. Users can also log in using an AOL, YAHOO, or HOTMAIL account.
