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Washingtonpost.com Wants Identities of Posters
mytrip recommends a News.com account of a panel discussion in which the Washington Post's online executive editor Jim Brady argued against anonymity on his site. He's welcome to try to carve out a space for civilized discourse, but it seems that he can't help alienating the Net-savvy whenever he opens his mouth to speak of it. "... he would like to see a technology that could identify people who violate site standards — and if need be — automatically kick them off for good. ... Brady also lamented that closing user accounts doesn't keep bad eggs off a site. They just come back and create new ones ... Brady believes that in the next five years people will be required to identify themselves in some way at many sites. 'I don't know whether we do it with a credit card number, a driver's license or passport ...'"
We all know that the best Slashdot comments come from anonymous cowards, right? This guy is nuts to require registration!
Just require people to come down to the Washington Post's office and deliver messages in person.
So I guess the Wapo won't be quoting anonymous sources anymore.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
One user = one login. It is the stuff of internet legend.
God spoke to me.
this is the death blow for any forum, NO ONE is going to give you their CC or drivers license (atleast their real one)
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
He can simply require anyone who wants an account on his site to present themselves at his office with three pieces of photo ID and a completed application form. He can then interview them, check their references, and decide whether or not they are acceptable.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
He wants to take economic advantage of the Web, but doesn't like the way people use it??? "WAAAAAAAH!!!" "MOMMY!!!"
We know how people will use the web, and how they won't. If he can't adapt to the technology, he should stop bitching and get the HELL off the web, and go back to what he knows: newspapers. If he can't make it there these days either, then... "WAAAAAH!!!" yet another company fails to adapt, and everybody will go on to the next. He will be a bit less rich next year. Am I supposed to feel guilty? Strange, but for some reason I don't feel anything like that at all.
none of the above does anything to stop abusers.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
"Brady also lamented that closing user accounts doesn't keep bad eggs off a site. They just come back and create new ones..."
Hey, that's life. I wish I could figure out a way to keep every kook and asshole from coming near me but it's impossible. Why is it any different on the internet?
I like big butts and I cannot lie.
Oddly, this guy has a point. Most reasonably popular unmoderated forums quickly degrade into meaningless flames, trolls, and drivel. All it takes is a few bad apples to turn the rest of the barrel rotten, as the saying goes. Funny enough, I think Slashdot has the most effective and elegant user-moderation system I've seen. Sure, it's not 100% perfect, but more times than not, the random trolls and other crap are already modded out of my viewing range by the time I get to an article.
Most people associate bad Internet behavior with anonymity. That's true to some extent - obviously people are much less civil when dealing remotely and dispassionately with other people. Put a random Internet troll in a biker bar, and I guarantee you he'll be *much* more polite to his fellow patrons. But Slashdot has proven that you don't need to lose anonymity to create an effective flame and troll filter. Let your most trusted users do it.
I'm always surprised that more sites don't copy this system. Or maybe someone has, and I just haven't heard of it?
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
But that's just it... For the same reason that paid registrations are not common, all of his proposed authentication schemes won't become common. Registration is onerous and invasive. At a minimum, it's a hassle to have to provide information. Worse, you have to pay a price, whether it's with dollars or personal details (which, as we all know, have great value to companies). Even people who are not privacy nuts dislike having to give out their name and email address just to view some online content or post a comment.
So what will happen? Sites are welcome to create more complex authentication and registration schemes... but as long as other sites don't have such schemes, online participants will naturally gravitate to the sites that have the lowest barriers to entry. So the successful sites will be those that make it very easy to participate.
Of course, we already see this online. Wikipedia and Slashdot are two examples of sites that don't try to prevent anonymous contributions... instead they rely on community self-policing to filter the useful contributions from the trolls. Ultimately, that's the solution: it keeps the barrier to participation low (so you can build up a thriving community), and the mechanism of burying crappy contributions inherently highlights better contributions.
The reason that many sites don't like this answer is that it is hard to generate a useful community (for one thing, you can't treat your users as merely cattle to squeeze money out of--you have to actually build value to keep them visiting your site).
The easiest way is to authenticate by cell phone number. When you register for a site, your password is sent to your cell phone as an SMS message. One registration per cell phone number. Yes, it's possible to buy multiple SIM cards to get more phone numbers, but they're not free.
This costs the site about $0.05 for each message sent. For sites that derive some value from having members, it's worth it.
Slashdot would have paid about $50,000 or so in SMS fees by now.
Sadly, sites that adopt this will still be cesspools of hateful comments. Because, ultimately, they don't have the courage to edit fairly and won't adopt ./-style moderation.
So... newspaper cite will still be cesspool of hate. Fair-minded users who value privacy will still ditch. Phhht.
The real lesson is that old-media sites still haven't learned what makes internet comment boards successful, and they revert to old-school control tactics that won't help and will harm.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
You really must have some form of user moderation. Slashdot is one example, but I know it confuses less savvy folks. The Houston Chronicle has finally gotten what I think is a reasonable and yet simple recommendation system ( http://www.chron.com/ ). It's amazing how I've come to expect user comments after stories. Sometimes they're even quite informative, insightful, or whatever. Sometimes in local news the people involved or witnesses may even post about inaccuracies in the article.
expandfairuse.org
My experience goes, the reason people don't some things at the dinner table is fear they well be attacked and bashed over the head with the (real-life-equivalent) of a steel pipe. In real life, people can't readily speak their mind at times. Now, perhaps this can be viewed as a good because it keeps descenting views quiet. Me? I'd rather hear the KKK and neo-Nazi members speak. Sure, there's the risk that they'll be able to recruit more members. But, history has shown that desegregation and other *real-world* things are what have life-changing effects on people's opinions on things.
Now, maybe the internet is really so revolutionarily different that there is no history to extrapolate from. But, if that's the case, it still seems the case that the good would intrinsically outweight the bad. Will people's feelings be hurt? Will there be trolls and flamers who are more interested in creating dischord than having actual discussions? Sure. That's the reason for things like moderation, editors, etc. The only thing attaching real-world identification to a username will do is either (a) keep the threat of steel pipes to the head from other users running so high that we're back to the self-censorship that leads nowhere (and open up places the Washington Post to wrongful death suits) or (b) keep the threat of editors and their reign of power so high that some people will stop posting entirely.
In short, being an online editor against a seemingly endless flow of trolls, spam, etc seems impossible. But, instead of trying to revert back to the comfortable and easy, perhaps more consideration should be done on tackling the problem by engaging it the hard way? Ie, hire more editors and stop treating online posting as some quirky, cheap add-on that you can control with a few lowly staff or some magical technological fix.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
Ever read washingtonpost.com's comments?
Guess what they're anonymous and they're basically worthless, consider the lack of any meaningful moderation system ala Slashdot. Comments in articles quickly become long, barely threaded and filled with idotic or worse comments.
It's the rule of internet forums, without some party moderating the debate, the troll wins and the comments suck.
Slashdot's answer is to allow the mob (users) to moderate, but Brady, since he's from the more traditional media, is wary of the mob. The mob has all sorts of biases and tends to reinforce its beliefs. It may be interesting discourse, but it can be difficult to get a balanced discourse -- and this is something the Post is committed to, for better or/and worse.
End result: The Post has moved slowly on user moderation and tried to keep moderation in the hands of a limited number of editors, which becomes overwhelming with so many posts and so many trolls.
His answer, is to require require people's ID to post on his company's web site. Throw in a little potential shame of trolling and see worthless comments decrease -- certainly people will think about them more.
Honestly, I think Brady's wrong on this point, I think the right answer is closer to Slashdot than what he envisions, but it's silly to try to slur the man as an enemy of free speech. Remember he's talking about the policies of the Washington Post on the Washington Post web site, not for the internet as a whole.
The biggest enemy to free speech can sometimes simply be too much noise.
Oh, and on a related note, you may be interested in reading an article Brady wrote on the event that CNET describes as a "notable history." It's available here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/11/AR2006021100840.html
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
It would be like a librarian asking for censorship.
No, it would be like the librarian asking for quiet in the reading room. It's not the dissemination of ideas or the idea of anonymous communication that bothers him. It's the disruption of discourse by people who refuse to adhere to simple rules.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
You're engaging in Nerd Logic -- the fact that a sufficiently motivated abuser could get around any of those things isn't the same as "none of the above does anything to stop abusers".
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Kind of insightful, actually, when you think about the topic.
"Remember he's talking about the policies of the Washington Post on the Washington Post web site, not for the internet as a whole."
...
Actually, in checking TFA, the man said:
"I think part of the problem is that people aren't held accountable on the Web," Brady said. "People say things online they would never say when disagreeing with someone at the dinner table. I think heated debate is fine, but when there are (flame wars), many people won't take part for fear they will be attacked and bashed over the head with the (Internet-equivalent) of a steel pipe."
That sort of looks like the "internet as a whole" to my glazed AC eyes.
Yes, I was tricked into reading TFA.
Onwards
He talks about a recent case that brought the problem to light, and again I quote:
"Brady knows how intensely many Internet users disagree with him. He made headlines in January 2006 after shutting down the comments area of a blog where outraged readers gathered to rebuke the Post's ombudsman, Deborah Howell.
Following the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, Howell erred when she said that the lobbyist gave campaign donations to Democrats as well as Republicans. Abramoff gave only to Republicans. The paper's Web site saw more than 1,000 comments, many from people who accused the Post of conspiring with the Republicans.
Things got worse when Howell posted a clarification. When Brady saw that many of those comments violated the paper's policy against the use of profanity or personal attacks, he blocked users' ability to post. The decision was widely criticized. In defense of his decision, Brady wrote that many of the posts weren't comments at all, but the kind of thing "you might find carved on the door of a public toilet stall."
So cry me a fucking river. For a lack of fact-checking before PRINTING their politically-inflamatory and BULLSHIT story, or perhaps for deliberate "muddying the waters" about Abramoff's activities (shit, what do I care, I'm not even a zeppo), his paper got a hefty fucking slap in the face for screwing up, and now he's whining that they got caught out.
Tough shit. You screw up, you pay the price. Same goes for all of us, no? And what's more, this is the VERY SAME standard he wishes to hold AC's to, that they be "held accountable". And he doesn't want to be, given as the WP shut down the comments section on that particular story he's so happy to chat about.
Shove it somewhere dark, dude. You lost your own argument all on your lonesome. Hypocrisy, anyone?
Yes, we ACs are a complete fucking pain in the ass, are we not?
Why don't they just have two forums: one anonymous, and one that requires a dna sample. Let people use whichever they prefer.
What he should be trying to do is foster a more positive, creative troll like we have here at Slashdot. Point out the benefits that good creative trolling can bring, along with the chance for career advancement into such exciting fields as Microsoft shill, Comcast Manager,and yes, even working for the Washington Post. After all, where do they think some of their most flame worthy reporters and Op/Ed writers honed their skills? That's right,by being trolls!
So let us look upon silly ideas such as his for what they really are-an admittance of failure. He has failed to attract quality trolls, either through the poor quality of his management,or simply the inability to get the kind of stories that bring out the truly great trolls. While he rants and raves about his truly poor quality trolls let us look back upon our rich history such as the GNAA and the guy that made giant Penisbirds out of ASCII art and remember: Truly great trolls aren't born overnight. Like mighty dynasties they take years of hard work and determination. Which is why we here at Slashdot should be proud at attracting trolls a cut above the rest. It just proves we here at Slashdot are worth the effort.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Oh, that's nothing. You've clearly never read the YouTube comments. And strangely enough, those of some major newspapers and media outlets. I can't remember exactly where it was, but I think it was ABC News (America) that was just full of insane people on every thread about the Democratic primaries. The "nerd oriented" sites have nothing on those which appeal to the general population. Which is odd, because I thought nerds were experts at being trolls and anti-social loons, but you learn something new every day.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Slashdot's moderation does occasionally mod down the wrong things, as you say things for political reasons. But that happens much less often than on other sites, and happens infrequently enough here that I can usually see modded up comments from both sides of a contentious issue.
Until we find something better Slashdot has proven to work better than all the alternatives, and they do spend time tuning as well...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Even 'Letters to the Editor' are tightly screened and edited so they meet the standards of the newspapers.
So his position on wanting to control the comments on his site aren't out of line, if you're looking backwards.
Let's look forwards, shall we?
He's not going to suddenly 'get' the ways of the internet. He's not going to understand that he can't screen every single post on his site. He's going to look at how people react and be dismayed that the comments are under the banner of his illustrious paper.
Unless he finds some manner of complete control over what gets posted on his site, he's not going to be happy. Expect more internal moderation prior to posting, etc.
Local papers have an easier time dealing with this because, well, they're local. They generally don't have the number of eyeballs on them so their comments can stay pretty on track. Something like this, no possible way.
The most logical possible outcome I see coming from this is two places for comment. The 'approved and moderated' ones that are attached to the stories and 'the riff-raff' ones that are delegated to some odd link off to the side. Kind of like burying a story on the inside of page 4. You can say it was there and it wasn't your fault people didn't read it.
Well, I'm posting under my real name and with my original Slashdot ID, which is low enough. And I've been running online discussions since the 1980s, so I have some experience with this.
I have to agree: Cutting yourself off from unattributed expertise is crazy.
But there is a difference between requiring disclosure of real identity, and publishing that disclosure.
In a forum context, there is a middle ground that I've labeled "pseudonymity." Google will find you the citations.
This is actually closer to the model used by the Washington Post in its journalism in cases where the value of the information merits "anonymous sources" because that information otherwise would not be obtainable.
There really are no anonymous sources. There are unnamed sources, and occasionally one who emerges (like Deep Throat) as a full-fledged pseudonym.
The right thing to do is simple: Figure out your goals, and then choose the model that best supports those goals.
The problem most newspapers have is that they have not articulated any goals for adding public comments, blogs or forums, other than boosting pageviews for commercial reasons.
If that's the only goal, then by all means, allow truly anonymous random comments. That will work. Just don't complain about the quality.
If the goal is something different -- to build a cohesive and functioning community, to enhance civic engagement, to advance understanding and promote participative democracy -- then it's likely that unfiltered anonymous commenting will be the worst choice. But many people may have legitimate needs to cloak their identity, and throwing them overboard in order to guard against the occasional idiot and vandal is counterproductive.
Why not adopt a Karma system? It's not like it's a new concept. (Hey... look: we have one here.)
People who're "new around here" or tend to troll tend to have their messages buried. The messages of established, insightful posters tend to float to the surface. A very lightweight and open system of moderation allows anonymous messages of value (like that of the parent) to be "modded" into higher visibility.
Additionally, giving certain "privileges" to quality posters allows you to retain the core discussion group. There's no need to set up additional barriers to your potential readership.