To Register or Not to Register
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…
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
“The site seems less like a country club now and more like a town meeting”
That is the silliest thing I have ever heard. How did registration preclude anyone from commenting?
Yes, registration is discriminatory – it descriminates against people who are too f***ing stupid to figure out how to use it!!! Yes, registration requires an e-mail account. But e-mail accounts are FREE, folks, and you don’t have to create one that uses your name AT ALL. There’s no need to be paranoid. Make something up, like everyone does. What’s so hard about this?
For those who are paranoid, your computer’s IP address can be tracked whether or not your register. And for those of you too poor to have access to a computer, how the hell are you gaining access to the site now? You need, ummm, a computer!
Do you think my name is really Ed? Do you think my e-mail address links to any relevant personal information to me at all?
No. Duh. I’m as anonymous as all of you. But at least I’m not some idiot troll pretending to be 18 different people at the same time, and having conversations with himself. I’m always Ed.
So what does registration do? It makes you jump through an extra hoop to comment, and commitment-phobes are turned off by this. I get it.
This site hasn’t transformed from a country club to a town meeting. It’s transformed from a rountable debate to somewhat of a shouting match across a noisy, crowded subway train. It’s hard to distinguish the topical comments from the extraneous noise.
I am actually sort of grateful to the troll. The site seems less like a country club now and more like a town meeting 🙂
That clinches it. I’m changing my vote:
NO REGISTRATION!!
On either the day Mr. B instituted registration or the day immediately after, this post appeared on the Across The Park blog:
There is a trimphant freakin\’ troll out there somewhere tonight. Whew! Oh yeah! Uh huh! That\’s what I\’m talkin\’ about!!!
Posted by: Ralph | July 11, 2006 at 11:16 PM
I will bet you the farm that this was our troll.
Registration = Victory for the Troll
But most of the troll and anonymous postings are bulls*** anyway!
probably because a large majority of posters were the troll. And his posts certainly don’t contribute anything to the dialogue.
FYI, surprisingly, the traffic didn’t drop when we added registration, so you can rest assured that it’s not about advertising dollars. It’s about the energy level and breadth of input. Regardless of the fact that it’s relatively easy to log in, the fact remains that the large majority of commenters were not signing in and therefore not contributing to the dialogue and we think the site was less interesting for it. Hopefully tomorrow we can move on from this debate and discuss the topics at hand.
Case in point- look what he’s doing to Bx2Bklyn on his fake blog, brownstonertroll.
Translation of Anon :-)\’s post:
This IS all about beating the troll!