Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin are studying how some news sites are handling reader comments. They’d like to hear your thoughts on how Civil Beat does it.

We’re interested in this, too, especially since we switched from Facebook comments to Civil Comments a few months ago.

The survey is being conducted by the Engaging News Project in conjunction with with The Coral Project, a collaboration between The Washington Post, The New York Times and the Mozilla Foundation, funded by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

You can click here to take the survey and we’ll also post a link right above the comments section on our stories. It will be on our Morning Beat newsletter for a few days, too.

The UT researchers will compile the results and send us a report, which we will be sharing with all of you. We’ll also become a part of their national research on other news organizations throughout the country so we can see the thoughts and trends from beyond Hawaii.

Please take 10 minutes and take the survey. It will really help us understand what readers want and expect in a comments section. That’s important to us here at Civil Beat and our efforts to provide a forum for broad discussion on issues that are important to Hawaii.

You can start by commenting on this column and telling us what you think is working or not working about Civil Comments and suggestions for improving it. Or email me directly at patti@www.civilbeat.org.