Audience engagement is vital to keeping any community news site alive and well, and comments on stories are an immediate way to collect the reactions from your readers and meet them on issues they care about. These platforms can create strategy roadblocks for some news organizations for a number of reasons. Lisa Zimmerman, the first summer fellow at the American Press Institute, has identified five major considerations for choosing a commenting platform -- including being in the dark about where to begin, issues of anonymity and authenticity, and how to divide resources.

Zimmerman's post on commenting platforms, and which might be appropriate for your site and situation, thoughtfully explores commenting platforms from many different angles. Local and independent news providers are already well-versed in the engagement dialogue, and understand the distinction between a static "audience" of visitors on their sites and a living community. Communities have engaged members -- people who take action by sharing stories, providing tips, or offering content. Comment sections on stories can support this activated audience, inviting them by leaving the door open on their stories.

Zimmerman identifies four types of commenting platforms:

• Traditional
• Structured comments
• Annotated comments
• Stand-alone discussion platforms with user-generated threads. 

Disqus, used by ProPublica and many other news/community sites, is a free third-party tool designed with communities in mind. It's the second most popular platform for comments after Facebook. (A notable bonus to Disqus: you own your comments and data, which is the complete opposite of Facebook).

Gawker uses a stand-alone platform to allow users to curate and pilot conversations in ways that suit them. Gawker commenters can reply, dismiss, follow, like, and share as editors.

Resource management is another matter smaller sites should consider when exploring their strategy for comments. A standalone system akin to Gawker's can be expensive to build; a strategy encompassing an elaborate comment system can also be time-consuming. Zimmerman suggests if you have limited resources, spend more time than money.