Slashdot Mirror
News Sites Getting to Know You
The Online Journalism Review has a story about more and more news sites requiring registration. Has assorted facts and figures, including how much sites' traffic dropped when registration was required. Even though a fair percentage of people just make up the data they are asked to provide, I'd guess that as a statistical measure it's probably pretty accurate - many people would tell the truth without caring that they're being tracked.
As a general matter, Slashdot's policy on linking to registration-required websites goes something like this:
The New York Times is okay, because they've got a lot of high-quality stories and they were essentially grandfathered in;
Other registration-required sites are not okay, and we won't post stories linking to them.
Kind of a shame, because the LA Times has some good content too, and we've posted lot of links to them in the past, before they went registration-required. Oh well.
Surely everyone uses variants of the cyberpunk login (Which sadly no longer works on WSJ online like it did for so many years -- but I'm sure one of the variants still does)? Or slashdot/slashdot? I mean, I have entire fake personalities I use for just these occasions. Link away! most /.ers know better than to give email addresses that are used for anything but spamcatchers.
Traffic dropping is a no-brainer: registration requires a bit more than click-and-drool, so that rules AOLers out, but I'd wager only a small percentage of the total drop is due to people concerned about privacy.
Which is a shame, but such is life.
Feed inaccurate data to the collectors, and have fun.
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
They wouldn't care about your name, but your age and location would be pretty important for them. Age, for example, would help them decide whether to run ads for Stridex or for Geritol. Same idea with location, though probably to a lesser extent.
My view is that if you want to view their content, you should play by their rules. If you don't want to play, then look for that news article somewhere else. Too many people are still spoiled by the free for all days of the Internet...
"People that quote themselves in their signatures bother me" - athakur999
"The New York Times on the Web has required registration since the site launched in January 1996. The Times has topped 10 million active registered users."
....6 million came from Slashdot articles and 2 million came from people that re-registered after blasting their stored passwords in Internet Explorer.
It was earlier today that michael said "Another anonymous person (how hard is it to give yourself a handle? sheesh)...", and now he's complaining about having to register at another news site. Bah!
i've never read the NY times, although i have seen a daily publication (which isn't necessarily the norm in Canada) and it is HUGE. /. has posted a more than the average number of articles that were taken from the NYT.
/. and bothers to read the articles won't bow to the registration info, so what is the point of censuring other sites?
I have also noticed that over the last month or two
The problem that i see with the statement that they accept posts from NYT but not from other news sources that require reg is that the registration is seen as an issue for everyone but NYT.
So why should the New York Times receive any favouritism in this respect??
You said it yourself, anyone who knows what these statistics can be used for will use fake information. I would say that anyone who reads
It simply looks to me to be a bias towards NYT, and as far as i've seen over the last month or so, the number of NYT articles posted points to this reality...
IAN
But their may be better ways to go about collecting customer data. Creating an optional registration format would significantly cut down on bad data. Even if Michael believes "many people would tell the truth without caring that they're being tracked" I know plenty of people that fill out bogus information for required registration sites. If registration is optional you also get the added bonus of directly tracking those users who are willing to put forth an effort for your site. A valuable commodity. On the other hand, it may not be fiscally viable to cater to users who aren't willing to put forth any effort for your site.
A steaming cup of soykaf would be real wiz right now.
Take that, blindy-blind-lotsly! *kicks-sand-in-blind-guys-face*
Incidentally, Slashdot do this too. My blind friend got me to sign up for him because he uses Lynx normally, and his windows screen-reader software couldn't handle the image.
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
Actually, they get a lot of mostly-accurate data. I've participated in the development of more than a a few sites that had some form of registration - either for community sites or for sites where you get extra stuff if you provide a bit of personal info. The amount of legit info you get is much greater than the number of "booger@nose.net" addresses that show up.
Fact is, most people are one, or some of:
On the plus side, most sites don't seem to do much with the data they have, but that won't last.
It's unfortunate, but the vast majority of people don't realize the commercial trends they're enabling when they give in to this kind of thing. I'm facing the day when I have to start telling clients "it's a great idea to get people's addresses and then email them as much crap as you can" because it will be good business sense.
God, I hate that phrase. Probably time for me to get into landscaping.
This is the voice of World Control. I bring you Peace.
I think to encourage using sites that dont require registration, slashdot should begin rejecting any submissions that link to sites that do. Normally there is a mirror to a site that does not require registration anyway, and it would make reading slashdot stories alot easier. I personally do not visit any nytimes stories posted on slashdot, I ignore them as if they are not there.
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
My view is that if you want to view their content, you should play by their rules.
My view is that if they want me to enter my personal data, they should play by my rules.
And my rules say they should consider themselves lucky if I fill in gender correctly even half the time.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
The New York Times is okay, because they've got a lot of high-quality stories.
The Los Angeles Times is NOT okay, kind of a shame because it has some good content too.
?!??!?!!!???
Because I don't want them contacting me. If I go to a news site, I go there for the news. I don't have to type my phone number into a newspaper dispensing machine to get a newspaper, and if they asked me to, you can bet it wouldn't be the right number. As a consumer, _I_ choose when to initiate a business transaction.
Those are the reasons I refuse to register with acurate information. When I go to a site to try to read a news article, and they ask for me to register before doing so, I find this extremely annoying because it can take up to 3 times longer to register (either with real or fake information) than it would take to simply read the article. Those are the reasons why I consider registration to be bad.
When sites are like slashdot, and permit either anonymous or registered access with value added (such as configurability), I have no problem, and will remain anonymous unless I regularly visit the site. When sites require registration before I can access the information, those sites are likely to lose my eyes going to their site, and the companies that run them are less likely to receive any purchases from me in the future because my first thought of them will be "Oh yes, they were annoying."
One of these days, someone is going to do a study and discover that corporations that make potential customers happy make a bigger profit. Until then, we will continue to see such things.
The reason they are starting to require registration is simple. They need to make money and they haven't figured out how to do it yet. Ad revenues have collasped in this economy. Their product is their news reporting and they were giving it away for free. Now, would you rather pay for the news (as you used to for a newspaper) or just give them a little demographic information instead? If you are really paranoid you can give them bogus information except for a valid email. What does this cost you but a little time to fill out a form?
One other thing I should point out. If you do decide to register for the LA Times or the Chicago Tribune you can use this user id at both sites. Once the rest of the Tribune Company sites (7 or more papers) require registration you will be able to use it at those sites as well.
One last note, and I am somewhat biased here, but so are you. Saying that you will continue to post NYT stories, but not LA Times stories is hypocritical! Post the news that is interesting. If you are going to post any registration required stories I would post ones from the LA Times, Chicago Tribune, Newsday, Sun Sentinel, Orlando Sentinel, Daily Press, and other Tribune Company newspapers. This way slashdot readers will only have to register once for many sources of information.
One final thing. Someone asked how hard it could be to create/maintain one of these sites. Let me say this, it is hard. The functionality and traffic of some of these sites dwarfs that of slashdot. Just think of some of the features they provide. Of the top of my head, stories, ads, polls, quizzes, contests, streaming media, customization, registration, newsletters, and much more. Not to mention continuous updates throughout the day of breaking stories along with relevant photos, stories, and other information. This is a lot of work and requires many highly technical people along with many researchers, writers, and producers.
Ok, enough rambling. Nobody will read this anyway because it's anonymous. Oh well, I feel better at leats.