Times homepage goes interactive
I could be mistaken, but I think today’s slide show at the top of the New York Times homepage is the first time interactive content has appeared right at the top of the page. Equally notable is the invitation to comment right below the slideshow, since one of the user generated comments has been selected as the caption for the slideshow.
Currently nytimes.com only allows readers to comment on op-eds, not news stories. If an informed reader such as myself wants to discuss a news story, we have to go off and find some blog. This doesn’t make sense. The New York Times should want their website to be a forum for public discourse, and I think today’s homepage is a step in that direction.
If the New York Times does allow for more commenting, they should probably have some form of comment moderation a al digg and slashdot. As of right now the website has received over 500 comments on the bridge collapse in Minneapolis, but I doubt most readers made it past the first ten. Comments that receive a higher rating, or more replies, should be pushed to the top.