Moving Forward
If you’re a troll or a spammer, you better try to get your last licks in now, because by Monday, the guest commenting function will be a thing of the past on Brownstoner. If you haven’t signed up for a user account yet, please try to do so in the next couple of days. (If…
If you’re a troll or a spammer, you better try to get your last licks in now, because by Monday, the guest commenting function will be a thing of the past on Brownstoner. If you haven’t signed up for a user account yet, please try to do so in the next couple of days. (If you don’t receive your verification email within a couple of minutes, just email us and we’ll verify you by hand.) If you already have a user account and voted for the elimination of guest commenting, please put your money where your mouth is and make an effort to get involved in discussions. Another to remember is that you are still anonymous when you comment with a username: Just pick a silly name like Cobble Hill Guy and stick with it; no other readers will be able to see your email address or know who you really are. Our hope and expectation is that the improved quality of the threads—along with our ability to boot anyone who steps out of bounds—will more than make up for any decline in the quantity of comments.
We know that there are a lot of long-time readers out there who’ve gradually been moving to the sidelines of the discussions as they’ve grown nastier and more inane, and hopefully they will take this as an opportunity to re-engage and take the sense of community back to its roots where we can have meaningful, useful discussions about real estate, architecture and the many issues that confront the borough and its neighborhoods as the inevitable wheels of change continue to turn.
There are going to be a number of new features coming to the site in the next few months, the use of which will also be enhanced by having a user account. The first of these, launching next week, involves a group effort at building a comprehensive restaurant guide for the borough. (Having a username is particularly useful because other readers can come to trust, or distrust, you opinions about restaurants.) Other features down the pipe include map-based mobile access of the Brownstoner archives, neighborhood emails and some new service-oriented improvements in the architect and contractor spaces.
hi
Thank you for the change.
Well, it’s worth a try.
11.14 – you are correct, all the honesty will drop out of the discussion. It’ll all be prosaic and bland from now on.
At least I’ll actually get some work done instead of commenting.
Cause for liquid celebration Biff!!!
Blogging 102 (Intermediate Level Bloggonomics):
Making people register to comment reduces the number of commenters in the long term.
In the short term, it’s easier for the blog owner to sort through all of the comments.
In the long term, it makes it harder to attract new blood to the site and maintain a robust comment section. Inevitably, some older commenters will fade away. New people may not be as inclined (IE too lazy) to register to comment at a site that progressively slower comment volume. Vicious cycle yadda yadda yadda and you have less discussion in the long run.
I haven’t followed the comments here too much (I tend to read through Google Reader), but are guest comments put into a moderator approval roster? Keeping guest commenting open but having a fast-track for registered users seems like a decent option (though maybe it’s been tried).
-Dreadnt
Monoliths at the yahoo dot com.
Apologies to all but I had to resurrect Bold Type Guest for this very special occasion
DIBS
OK, it’s worth a try.
You really have no clue how to run a blog if the only way you can figure out how to block spammers and trolls is with logins. Find yourself some technical help.