How Should Online News Sites Moderate User Generated Content?

After presenting my topic in class earlier today, I have decided that I will change my topic, mainly because my first attempt was entirely too broad a subject. So I've brought it down a notch, with some help from Jill. She mentioned that I look into online moderation on news sites. I thought at first this topic might be difficult to do because I might have trouble finding info on it. But, to my surprise, there were a number of sites that I found on the subject after a single Google search. 

So, to refine my proposed topic from earlier this morning, I have chosen to look into how online news sites moderate their user generated content, specifically the comments readers or viewers can leave after a story or video. 

After a quick look at some of the sites, I recognized three main choices for moderation: 

1.) The first is pre-production moderation, which entails that the hosting site, in this case a news site, allows the comment to appear after reviewing it and deciding that it is both relevant to the conversation and useful to other posters.

2.) The second is post-production moderation. This form of moderation means that the comment is posted immediately to the comment section. It is then reviewed later on by the site advisers for relevance and usefulness.

3.) Last is peer-based moderation. Comments are posted to the comments section immediately, and they are never reviewed by the site's administrators. Instead, users define whether the information given in the post is relevant and useful. If the comment is found to be useless (such as spam) there are mechanisms in place such as ratings and “flags” where users can decide whether the site administrators should review a post. 

This is very preliminary, but I think that it is very important. The fact that news sites allow comments means nothing if the majority of the comments are spam or the site only allows comments that agree with the site's administrators.