twdsc.us: twdsc.us: @davewiner. "A friend is launching a site that says: "Only contributors can log in because we don't care what anonymous Internet commenters think." :-)"
anonymous
· 6 months ago
I never listen to anyone who doesn't comment with their real name.
if i don't want to hear what strangers think, then i publish my post to just my contacts or my larger network. if i publish something publicly, then by definition it's a post for public consumption and public comment.
i think if people only want to hear from people they already know, then they should only post privately. why entice us with a post we can't respond to? what's the point in that?
one of the things i love about multiply.com is that i can have both a public and private persona in the same location. so my friends can see all my content but the public only sees what i choose to share with them.
as far as being anonymous -- if they're a stranger do i really care what name they use? what i'm more interested in is what you have to say.
SoItsComeToThis
· 6 months ago
For the most part, I do care what anonymous people think. Generally, most feedback I've received has been very constructive, appreciative, and helpful to me. Occasionally, I've gotten the "you suck" comments that I just want to delete and never see again. But I leave them up and try to learn from it.
But if you deny a demographic (those who want to be anon but still contribute), I feel, you'll never have a good forum because:
1. You might not have enough members to have a fluid converstaion. 2. Your conversations might end up one-sided because you might only attract a specific use base.
djuggler
· 6 months ago
First, anonymity on the Internet is an illusion for most people. The common Internet user is not skilled enough to be anonymous.
I enjoy comments from people who identify themselves as well as people who choose to be anonymous. Granted, I do give more weight, more value, to a commenter who identifies themselves over an anonymous commenter.
What about people behind monikers? I use djuggler because no one can spell McCaughan. djuggler and Doug McCaughan are synonymous but a nickname can be used for anonymity as well.
False accounts. Creating a temporary email address to create a "non-anonymous" account is fairly easy. A motivated anonymous commenter will get around the system. Is the overhead of policing worth it? Locks keep honest people honest. So is his "contributors" anyone that can create an account with valid credentials or are contributors person connects being allowed accounts? Two different scenarios.
dave
· 6 months ago
My friend is only giving accounts to people she knows. Not many people will have accounts on the system, and the public won't see their comments, if there even is a way to leave comments. It's a new way of thinking that I like. I like new approaches, that's how new stuff happens. :-)
barefootmeg
· 6 months ago
this sounds a lot like a multiply account that's kept private.
what i like about using multiply rather than having your own system and only giving accounts to people you know is that on multiply it can be a reciprocal relationship. if i'm a member of YOUR site, then i'm only there for you. but if we're contacts of each other and i have a site and you have a site, then you can keep your's completely private (where only your approved friends can see or comment on your posts) but i still have the ability to go either way with my posts (public or private) but there's the added advantage that i know our relationship is a two way street. i'm not just visiting your website to feel your ego. we're visiting each other's websites to build a relationship. granted, you don't have to be on the same system for this to happen, but i find that when you're on different systems, there tends to be more of a lopsided relationship (mostly because it's easier to forget about the other person's site when it's not connected into your own feed system).
djuggler
· 6 months ago
That is an interesting concept. Isn't that a bit similar to Facebook's roots?
Tara
· 6 months ago
About 99% of the time*, I sign my online comments. As a former online community manager, I was adamant that our members have a single, static identity (even if it was an alias of their legal identity). The problems I saw stemmed from members using multiple accounts to post unpopular (and occasionally TOS-violating) comments to keep their original identities "clean." If you're going to say it, you have to stand behind it with your primary account.
[*My caveat is that ever since my relatives discovered the Internet, every once in a while I'll comment on a discussion somewhere to commiserate about family antics and the like. My ounce-of-prevention advice: Never, ever friend your mother-in-law on facebook.]
tommorris
· 6 months ago
Sometimes the anonymous people are right and the established names are wrong. If anonymous person says 2 + 2 = 4 and non-anonymous person says otherwise, non-anonymous person is wrong.
The difficulty is coming up with a way so that the anonymous people can correct the non-anonymous people on the facts, while preventing them from posting viagra ads, pornographic pictures of goats and "Which Harry Potter owl are you?" quizzes. Stupidfilter.org is a step in the right direction.
dave
· 6 months ago
Of course. That would be the one time I would agree that anonymous contributors are good. Then I wonder why they have to be anonymous, but I don't really care. But that isn't usually what's going on. They're usually anonymous because they want to attack someone personally and don't want to be around to be attacked back. It's a cowardly thing. And obviously they don't have a lot of confidence in their opinions, or they would be willing to defend them, personally.
barefootmeg
· 6 months ago
they could just be anonymous because they're lazy. or not motivated enough to type out their info. every time they reply to something. i could sign all my comments as "meg" but there are only jillions of meg's in the world. i might as well be anonymous in that case. but if i provide a link to my website, that gives some context to me that helps to describe which meg i am. but typing out my website every time i make a comment takes awhile. i don't mind doing it, but i know many of my friends wouldn't bother to take the time. it's just not worth it to them.
tommorris
· 6 months ago
Anonymity does have value. There's a reason why academic peer review processes ensure that the reviewers don't know who the author is (until after the review, of course), nor the author know the identity of the reviewers (though that is journal-dependent). Slashdot do this for meta-moderation: you see the comment, but you don't see who rated it. You then have to say whether the moderation was fair.
Anonymity cuts away ego and, if carefully managed, lets the substance shine through. Careful management though.
Back when 'social media' was 'social software', people discussed this kind of thing with a lot more realism and a lot less marketing bullshit.
achernow
· 6 months ago
Anonymous commenting has it's advantages, and disadvantages. It allows people to at least be able to comment on a given subject, whatever it is, in a way that may, or may not, mask who they are. I can think of a few uses for it, industry trades for one, as I've been on the wrong end of a boss before over commenting on an industry site. Another is when you're in a discussion where it doesn't really matter if you're known or not. But it does have it's disadvantages, too, as I've said. For starters, you may, or may not, have an IP to go with the comment, in case of a sladerous/libelous or otherwise threatening comment. It's an open invitation for flame was. And it can lead to a SPAM problem on the threads.
Even if you chose to have anonymous commenting enabled, you should still do a few things.
1. Make people fill in a name and e-mail. This way you can have a record of who is commenting should something go wrong. 2. Hold the comment in a queue until the person verifies the e-mail address is valid. This will help prevent spammers, for one, and provide an extra layer that someone would have to go through to post something, therefore, hopefully cutting down on the flame wars. It also provides for a mechanism that if the outgoing e-mail is rejected, so is the comment. 3. Have a good commenting policy, and enforce it. If you see a flame war starting, shut down the thread and delete the comments. Part of the problem with some of these sites that allow people to be anonymous, is that they don't watch the comments, and therefore allow things to get way to far out of hand at times.
On my site, I do as you do, and run Disqus. Now, I'm by far from a high traffic blog, so I'm in no way a comparison to yours, but it's cut down a lot on things like spam comments that I had been getting. As to your friend, why doesn't she just force people to register to comment? Or use something like Disqus? And enable "all comments have to be approved." It's far from a perfect system, but it's better than turning comments off all together.
-Adam
@pammybean
· 6 months ago
In the 3-D world, this would be like opening the floor to your fellow Moose lodge members, rather than soliciting letters from the general public. Both systems have their merits, as long as you hold the resulting dialogue in its proper context.
djmmuir
· 6 months ago
I like responsible comments and I tend to see more of those from identified sources. The anonymous ones are often (as Dave points out) "attack" oriented or (as SoItsComeToThis points out) lacking in depth (the "you suck" comments being bad for both reasons). I like the approach of having all contributors identified. I can't do that yet because I have nowhere near critical mass on my site -- but I also have low enough traffic that I can personally moderate comments still.
martin_english
· 6 months ago
I came into here with a frim opinion (A combination of "Its the internet, its about sharing:" and "get over your ego woman"), but exposure to the comments here have given me a totally different perspective. So , thanks to everyone (including your friend, Dave)
I run two very low volume blogs and I probably won't change my current practice, but I will certainly be less judgemental about people who operate their comment policies differently to me.
PS This comment stream is exactly why I like reading comments, even if I can't respond like I just have :)
All Comments
i think if people only want to hear from people they already know, then they should only post privately. why entice us with a post we can't respond to? what's the point in that?
one of the things i love about multiply.com is that i can have both a public and private persona in the same location. so my friends can see all my content but the public only sees what i choose to share with them.
as far as being anonymous -- if they're a stranger do i really care what name they use? what i'm more interested in is what you have to say.
But if you deny a demographic (those who want to be anon but still contribute), I feel, you'll never have a good forum because:
1. You might not have enough members to have a fluid converstaion.
2. Your conversations might end up one-sided because you might only attract a specific use base.
I enjoy comments from people who identify themselves as well as people who choose to be anonymous. Granted, I do give more weight, more value, to a commenter who identifies themselves over an anonymous commenter.
What about people behind monikers? I use djuggler because no one can spell McCaughan. djuggler and Doug McCaughan are synonymous but a nickname can be used for anonymity as well.
False accounts. Creating a temporary email address to create a "non-anonymous" account is fairly easy. A motivated anonymous commenter will get around the system. Is the overhead of policing worth it? Locks keep honest people honest. So is his "contributors" anyone that can create an account with valid credentials or are contributors person connects being allowed accounts? Two different scenarios.
have accounts on the system, and the public won't see their comments, if
there even is a way to leave comments. It's a new way of thinking that I
like. I like new approaches, that's how new stuff happens. :-)
what i like about using multiply rather than having your own system and only giving accounts to people you know is that on multiply it can be a reciprocal relationship. if i'm a member of YOUR site, then i'm only there for you. but if we're contacts of each other and i have a site and you have a site, then you can keep your's completely private (where only your approved friends can see or comment on your posts) but i still have the ability to go either way with my posts (public or private) but there's the added advantage that i know our relationship is a two way street. i'm not just visiting your website to feel your ego. we're visiting each other's websites to build a relationship. granted, you don't have to be on the same system for this to happen, but i find that when you're on different systems, there tends to be more of a lopsided relationship (mostly because it's easier to forget about the other person's site when it's not connected into your own feed system).
[*My caveat is that ever since my relatives discovered the Internet, every once in a while I'll comment on a discussion somewhere to commiserate about family antics and the like. My ounce-of-prevention advice: Never, ever friend your mother-in-law on facebook.]
The difficulty is coming up with a way so that the anonymous people can correct the non-anonymous people on the facts, while preventing them from posting viagra ads, pornographic pictures of goats and "Which Harry Potter owl are you?" quizzes. Stupidfilter.org is a step in the right direction.
Anonymity cuts away ego and, if carefully managed, lets the substance shine through. Careful management though.
Back when 'social media' was 'social software', people discussed this kind of thing with a lot more realism and a lot less marketing bullshit.
Even if you chose to have anonymous commenting enabled, you should still do a few things.
1. Make people fill in a name and e-mail. This way you can have a record of who is commenting should something go wrong.
2. Hold the comment in a queue until the person verifies the e-mail address is valid. This will help prevent spammers, for one, and provide an extra layer that someone would have to go through to post something, therefore, hopefully cutting down on the flame wars. It also provides for a mechanism that if the outgoing e-mail is rejected, so is the comment.
3. Have a good commenting policy, and enforce it. If you see a flame war starting, shut down the thread and delete the comments. Part of the problem with some of these sites that allow people to be anonymous, is that they don't watch the comments, and therefore allow things to get way to far out of hand at times.
On my site, I do as you do, and run Disqus. Now, I'm by far from a high traffic blog, so I'm in no way a comparison to yours, but it's cut down a lot on things like spam comments that I had been getting. As to your friend, why doesn't she just force people to register to comment? Or use something like Disqus? And enable "all comments have to be approved." It's far from a perfect system, but it's better than turning comments off all together.
-Adam
I run two very low volume blogs and I probably won't change my current practice, but I will certainly be less judgemental about people who operate their comment policies differently to me.
PS This comment stream is exactly why I like reading comments, even if I can't respond like I just have :)