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 do not think you should eliminate guest comments.
First off, many of the most inane and idiotic posts made on this site are made by registered users.
Second, there’s nothing to stop someone from registering under different usernames. (You might think you could prevent this by tracking IP addresses or something similar; but then, if this were effective you could simply ban troublemakers outright. Mark my words, eliminate guest commenters and you will not be able to stop those same commenters from registering under different usernames.
Third, the last time you required registration, the overall quality of the site suffered. Most of us felt like we were sitting in someone else’s living room.
Need I go on?
I think as with any message board, there will be a small but vocal minority who will make up the bulk of the discussion but that doesn’t necessarily discourage everyone else from chiming in. I tend to post as guest just because I’m too lazy to sign in. I do like the idea of disallowing more than 2-3 user names per IP address (allowing for the fact that more than one person in a household may participate in the conversation.)
Mr Brownstoner:
After reading your blog for about a year, and as a new resident of Clinton Hill, I have one comment about your comments: they perfectly echo your own writing.
The comments on this blog are often snarky, inflammatory, contentious, self righteous, and frankly not worth reading, at least not for informational benefit. They accurately mirror your own complaining, doubtful tone, in particular when you write about housing prices and quality of houses. Your readers post acerbic comments because your posts are often exactly that: sour.
If you’re looking to change the tone on this website, you might remove anonymous posts, but you also might modify your own tone. I’m sure if you do both you’ll find the decorum increases dramatically.
You tried once and it failed. Don’t do it again. Most of the people clamoring for logins are just people that aren’t comfortable on the internet to begin with.
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.
As long as the outrageously long comment posts (you know, the ones that have been popping up lately composed of repeatedly supercopied stuff from other articles or posts) are blocked, I don’t care whether people sign in as “guest” or with a login.
Perhaps simply imposing a reasonable size limit on posts would do the trick?
I do not wish to register with this blog. If commenting is blocked for guests I will not comment.
I find some of the least useful comments are posted by the some of the registered users.
If can please fix my log-in for The What. When I try to log-in I get the error message
Can’t call method “id” on an undefined value at /home/sites/bstoner.wpengine.com/web/mte/plugins/Profile/profile.pl line 1231.
If you can fix this I will have no problems logging in
The What
Someday this war is gonna end..
If you want to build a true community and if you want to cut down on the crap that’s posted, be rid of the guest commentor (which is the way I comment). This is a well read site and I think serious users will sign up