A Norwegian Website Is Making Readers Pass a Quiz Before Commenting (niemanlab.org)

Joseph Lichterman, writing for Nieman Lab: Two weeks ago, NRKbeta, the tech vertical of the Norwegian public broadcaster NRK, published an explainer about a proposed new digital surveillance law in the country. Digital security is a controversial topic, and the conversation around security issues can become heated. But the conversation in the comments of the article was respectful and productive: Commenters shared links to books and other research, asked clarifying questions, and offered constructive feedback. The team at NRKbeta attributes the civil tenor of its comments to a feature it introduced last month. On some stories, potential commenters are now required to answer three basic multiple-choice questions about the article before they're allowed to post a comment. The goal is to ensure that the commenters have actually read the story before they discuss it.

Comments

I like it

[TFlan91]

"The goal is to ensure that the commenters have actually read the story before they discuss it"

A+ idea.

+1 insightful

Too many RTFA's...

Awesome!

[Gravis Zero]

This sounds like a surefire way to get only the best trolls! ;)

Re:Isn't this like

[courteaudotbiz]

Absolutely not. There are 1000s of reason to vote for a candidate or another. Answering questions about something you've read is just like a form of captcha that requires a minimal intellectual effort that can discourage the most lazy trolls.

OTOH, political literacy can be VERY subjective and emotional. Literacy for one can look like propaganda for the other.

Re:Isn't this like

[damn_registrars]

..requiring a literacy test to vote?

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume you are not trolling with that one, and share just a couple ways how these are not similar.

• Commenting on a website is not even somewhat similar to voting in terms of impact
• A website - even one run by a government - has the right to restrict what others post on it by any metric they wish. In our country you have no right to go post whatever you want on whitehouse.gov or any other government website.

good start

[Anonymous Coward]

now if we could make the "journalists" pass a quiz before writing an article on something they know nothing about.... even better.

qualifying can be good

[swell]

It's nice that people have to qualify for some things. Doctors, for instance, and police. Drivers tests help, but maybe should be more strict. More controversial is that parents should be tested before having children (are some parents unprepared physically, emotionally, financially?).

Qualifying before comments sounds interesting. Unfortunately many sites require commenters to register with an outside data gatherers before you can comment.

Re:qualifying can be good

[Anonymous Coward]

if only there was a quiz on the constitution before you could take an oath of office for public service in the united states.

Narrative Pushing Will Ruin It

[Kunedog]

It's not a terrible idea in theory. But if it catches on, then almost immediately news sites will start using it to filter out thoughtcrime (i.e. wrong opinions instead of wrong facts).

Every article on immigration will require you to agree on the unqualified benefits of mass immigration (and a gauntlet of other talking points), or an article will require you to say you believe in the wage gap, for example.

Re:Did you RTFA?

[XxtraLarGe]

Did you read the article before posting that?

This is Slashdot. A lot of the members don't even read the summary before commenting...