Taking the Pulse on Anonymous Commenting
We’ve been getting more and more requests from readers to eliminate anonymous commenting. (The topic has also been on the front-burner because of a certain article this week.) There are clearly major flaws with a system that allows commenting without accountability, but doing away with it carries its own set of drawbacks in the form…
We’ve been getting more and more requests from readers to eliminate anonymous commenting. (The topic has also been on the front-burner because of a certain article this week.) There are clearly major flaws with a system that allows commenting without accountability, but doing away with it carries its own set of drawbacks in the form of diminished information flow, opinion and overall energy on the site. We’re curious to know how the community feels about the issue so please take a moment to fill out this survey and chime in below.
Thanks,
Mr. B
p.s. Just to clarify, just because you register, and comment under, a username, does not mean that your true identity is on display for the world to see. It means we can easily block a disruptive commenter, or contact him/her by email about bad behavior. It also means that other readers can begin to associate comments over time with a particular online identity, theoretically improving the ability to carry on discussions.
I would never register on the site–partially because I am at work and partially because it annoys me. If eliminate anonymous posting it will be a boring chat between the handful of diehards.
Things were much better when anonymous commenters were allowed to personalize their names. Having 800 “guest” comments is annoying, but when we could make up our own tags it was much easier to follow the discussions.
Yes. Get rid of anonymous posting. This site is informative, but I often find myself logging off in disgust after seeing yet another non-informative racist/sexist/homophobic/gloating eighty-comment rant. Your site is not encouraging helpful discourse.
the reason people don’t want to register is because they shill their own posts with impunity. it’s superlame in any case. so forcing users to register means fewer comments? bring it on. i long for the day i can read a post about affordable housing in east new york and not have to read “1001 reasons park slope is better than your neighborhood.”
if you’re worried about registering on a work computer, LOG OUT when you’re done. if you can’t figure out how to do this, please ask your grandchildren for help. sheesh.
what i would really love is a commenting system that posted IP addresses with each comment. THAT would be interesting!
In my opinion, requiring registration now would be equivalent to victory for the troll. We should fight this jerk, not surrender.
10:48 writes “The comments on this blog are often snarky, inflammatory, contentious, self righteous, and frankly not worth reading, at least not for informational benefit.” and is a perfect example of not worth reading!!!!
Sign in or not doesn’t really matter, its not going to boost their IQs as posters!!
That said, there have been a few good ideas here:
1. Limit the length of a comment
2. Disallowinging more than X user names per IP address
“I would prefer to have everyone logged in. In general, it leads to a more civilized debate, when comments can be attached to a name.”
I have buy a new computer monitor! I spayed coffee over this one!
LMMFAO!
Yeah Riight!
The What
Someday this war is gonna end…
I agree with Benno. It seems that the vast majority of posters are not signed in, and I would hate to see a loss of that input. Well, at least most of the input.
I have no trouble with the aggressive posters either. They can be rather easily defended against and people are certainly entitled to their opinions, however daft they may be. 😉
Brownstoner tried requiring registration in the past and commenting subsequently slowed to a trickle. In the end, it boiled down to 7-8 commenters talking to each other. After three weeks of this, brownstoner reinstated anonymous commenting and traffic promptly increased to previous levels.
Besides, whether commenting as a guest or a registered name, 99.9% of posters remain anonymous. I don’t think that having a name helps the dialogue flow any easier – either way, you typically have to re-read the content of a previous post in order to comprehend the debate at hand.
10:48 hits the nail on the head. My sentiments exactly.