We’ve been grappling with the issue of registration on the site. After a particularly frustrating few weeks at the beginning of the summer handling some aggressive troll activity, we began requiring registration in order to post comments on the site. We’ve had mixed feelings about that decision from the beginning. Is the increased civility worth the foregone informational exchange and sense of community? Last week we solicited reader feedback on the topic and the majority of readers who commented were in favor of keeping it. Of course, this isn’t too surprising given that you had to register in order to comment! Anyway, we are very sensitive to readers who had their online identities appropriated and to those who prefer the greater accountability that comes with the consistent use of recurring handles. However, on balance, we don’t think it’s worth it.

We were interviewed last week by a local paper and were asked what the most positive surprise had been for us since starting the blog. As we were giving our answer–the incredible diversity of the readership and the frankness of the discussions on such issues as race and class–we realized that this is precisely what we had sacrificed in starting to require registration. Brownstoner.com would not be the site it is without its core group of readers and commenters, most of whom readily signed up for the registration process and continued to post regularly. However, the lack of interplay with less frequent contributors changed the energy of the site in recent weeks. To any of you who have been following the reviews of the new book called The Long Tail, this should not be a surprise.

We hope that those who have registered already will continue to sign in and use their regular handles; what will naturally happen, we think, is that those comments from people who are logged in will carry greater weight in the dialogue and that anonymous comments of a dubious nature will be taken less seriously. Plus, anyone who’s logged in cannot have his/her handle “stolen”. It’s rare that we’re away from the site for more than an hour during the day, so if you see a comment from a troll, rather than giving him the satisfaction of responding, just ignore it: We’ll be deleting it soon.

We hope everyone can respect this decision and try to do everything possible to create a courteous and constructive atmosphere on the site.

Respect,

Brownstoner