Slashdot Mirror
Leaving a Comment? That'll Be 99 Cents, and Your Name
netbuzz writes "Anxious to lift a ban on comments brought about by incessant trolling and anonymous slander, a Massachusetts newspaper has begun requiring two things of online readers who want to leave their thoughts on stories: a one-time fee of 99 cents and a willingness to use their real names. Says the publisher: 'This is a necessary step, in my opinion, if The Attleboro (MA) Sun Chronicle is going to continue to provide a forum for comments on our websites.'"
posting here is still free
Slashdot has for a long time had a way of filtering the trolls out, why can't a newspaper have their own scheme to do so?
Except that you never had free speech rights on someone else's website?
The first amendment to the constitution doesn't obligate a newspaper to print any anonymous inane bullshit one may send in. I don't see how this is much different, paywall aside.
Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one
-- AJ Leibling
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
Whether or not it's a "great idea" it's the newspaper's right as a private business to require whatever they want for someone to post comments on the site. It might not be the best way to encourage comments, but if you look at the comment section of the Washington Post or other newspaper, there is so much spam and garbage that there ought to be a requirement of real name.
Also, a one-time membership fee of 99 cents does not seem unreasonable for a city's daily newspaper. Or maybe just allow subscribers to comment.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The 99 cent fee sounds like 1. An excuse to charge the credit card presented as ID, 2. A way to make back the credit card fees and cost of having a person review the transaction.
My local newspaper site, madison.com , is pretty new to comments. They disable them on crime stories I've noticed but anything doing with politics, the proposed high-speed rail service between Madison and Milwaukee, or state workers will attract trolls by the dozen. It makes reading the news stories like taking a walk through Craigslist's Rants and Raves section. When it turns to /b/ I'll just quit reading I suppose.
The concept of paying to comment seems a little too far though. That said, I'm all for having to publish your real name, address, phone number, and a JPEG when leaving a comment on a news site. Anonymity breeds stupidity and the best way to combat trolls is to force them to stand by their comments. Slashdot's system works, and I've seen other half-assed attempts to mimic it, but in the end people just need to be held responsible for their own actions.
In fact, I'll start. My name is Jay and yes, I've trolled before. I try very, very hard not to do it now and I've said things in online forums that'd I'd never say to someone's face. I'd promise not to do it again but the dumb republicans are still out there and need to be told what's what.
"This food is problematic."
I don't want future employers googling me for my political views, so I want to use a pseudonym, but I'd be happy to give them my full name to activate the account.
I doubt he's talking about comments from the Secretary-General of the UN or the head of the IMF. It would probably be of concern to local officials, though. You know, the ones that would most likely be reading the paper and commenting on its articles. 100% of that town's population has heard of that paper.
Some people have it coming - I'm just the delivery system.
No, when they say 'real name' they mean 'name that matches the one on the credit card that was charged $.99'.
But he has a point. Part of me would like to see ACs banned on Slashdot. But then I think that sometimes people could want to post something without it being tied to their name. Maybe because of work.
What I would like see is for you to be required to have an account on Slashdot and have the option to post as an AC but still have it count on your Karma.
It would probably reduce the really bad posts by %5 at max.
But I have got to be honest. Have any of you ever read the comments on most newspaper sites? How about on CNN.
On average the posts on Slashdot are far more intelligent and good mannered than what I see on most News sites!
Frankly it isn't a good state of affairs when Slashdot is a bastion of good manners!
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Thing is, online reputation and such works with pseudonymous speech; you don't need real name, you just need a consistent identity.
I've used this nym on /. for about 15 years.
Someone give this man a cigar. He's divined the actual purpose of the fee. The rest of you, who think that it's $0.99 per comment, you fail reading comprehension.
To be fair, the headline itself is poorly written, and does imply $0.99/comment.
He's also underestimating the credit card transaction fee.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Actually spammers don't mind paying small fees to spam forums as their credit card info is stolen anyway.
Right on, but Slashdot perfected the mod system ten years before these craptacular news sites did (I'm looking at you HuffPost -- uggggghhh). As far as I'm concerned it has been effective and got rid of the GNAAs (which are about the worst trolls on the web I've ever encountered). Every other sensible site should follow /.'s model. I'm not just being a brown-noser. CmdrTaco et al. did something very innovative here as far as I know. If they were Amazon, they would have had a patent and made MILLIONS!! ;)
This post was generated by a Cadre of Uber Monkeys for Monkey-Man2000 (603495).
The Supreme Court has clearly stated that spending money is equivalent to free speech, and since equality is commutative that must mean that free speech is equivalent to spending money. It's really quite logical.
I am officially gone from
Whether or not it is the newspaper's right as a private business, it is everyone else's right to comment on whether or not it is a great idea.
I can understand an occasional AC post. When you know the group-think is going to smack you down as a troll and you think it's right and you want your opinion at least heard. Also, as you said when it's work related it's nice to be Anon. People should have the opportunity to be anonymous I think, you/we just don't have to value it as much as people that back their POVs with their names (or pseudonyms). That's the genuis I believe in /.'s system. Posters with names automatically are modded up a bit, while Anons still have a tenuous chance at being modded Insightful.
No other boards that I'm aware of with mods have that, and I greatly value it... Certainly, with semi-professional mods that simply smack people down that disagree with them. That's why again, the meta-mod system on /. is a great equilibrator...
Just my 2c
This post was generated by a Cadre of Uber Monkeys for Monkey-Man2000 (603495).
If they are willing to pay to troll, then they are welcome on my blog. I'd kick them off, and then they can pay to spew again. It's easy money, and if it is consistent, then it would be better than ad revenue.
testing out my trending skills
"if every person who posted "the economy is in the shitter and it's so-and-so's fault" would just *get a job* we probably wouldn't have a recession any more to complain about."
Yes, because the current problem with our economy is too many jobs and not enough people to fill them...
all that time generating content, looking for feedback, and getting back nothing: its debilitating. then they find out they've been tricked. a second negative dose: even more discouragement
the point is to discourage the troll, stop them in their tracks, get them to think before posting. the rubber room is a huge dose of poison for their behavior. of course they will find out what happened, but you've given them a big amount of grief, to make them think about their behavior
and that's really the best you could ever hope to do with some of these cranks
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
...you have a point. I mean, our paper has always been very strict about verifying the identity of writers of letters to the editor. So what's the difference? Google. No employer is going to sift through thousands of newspapers to see if you wrote any LTE's they don't approve of. But googling? Oh heck yes, in a heartbeat.
I still agree with the newspapers on this, but it sucks that some people will be--justifiably--afraid to speak up.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Right on, but Slashdot perfected the mod system ten years before these craptacular news sites did (I'm looking at you HuffPost -- uggggghhh). As far as I'm concerned it has been effective and got rid of the GNAAs...
Sure, but the everybody-can-be-a-cop method of moderation means that what's visible on this site is dependent on public opinion. It also creates a race to see who can be the first to post the chair-throwing, overlords, I-want-a-phone-thats-just-a-phone, walled-garden, xhcd-cartoon, privacy, etc comments. The noise level hasn't gone down, it has just had its energy directed into people mugging for that +3 Insightful tag to appear next to their post.
Every other sensible site should follow /.'s model.
All it does is arm people during fanboy wars.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Or this will just prove that comment board spammers, racisists, raving lunatics, and flamewar instigators are too cheap to spend $.99. Local papers seem to be magnets for that special form of troll, the unemployed/retired town know-it-all. They pick a subject matter (taxes, libraries, lighting, etc) and latch onto it like god himself had made it their life's mission. Then they spam every single article with a hysterical comment somehow linking the subject with their pet topic, preferably littered with insults to other writers, local residents, and maybe a racial minority for that special touch.
It might not be the best way to encourage comments,
Actually I think rather than discouraging comments it will simply move more single sided bias to the entire story. A news paper attracts a certain readership with certain views that align with the typical views of the writers. Essentially an army of uninformed yesmen who have made the critical mistake of thinking they can get a completely unbiased view from any one newspaper rather than reading several. Your typical comments on news sites with absolutely no moderation will tend to agree with the author. You then have to rely on some outsiders who have chanced by the article to weigh in and give them some balance.
This is very similar to the slashdot moderation system whereby any negative Apple related comments get modded flamebait for the first few hours. Regardless if you have a pro apple stance or hate the company your typical apple post reads like a bitchfight between moderators, +1 informative, -1 flamebait, +1 inspirational, -1 overrated, back and forth till one side or the other wins.
What this comments paywall will do is further alienate the people who provide the balanced view, since only the hardcore daily readership will signup for the commenting section. Though I'm not sure that some news papers will suffer from this since many of them couldn't get more biased if they tried. My local paper's comments section on any typical article about a project going over budget, or behind time, or missing a KPI will be 100 comments all saying how this is all the governments fault and we'd never have had this if we'd voted in the libs. Often you get comments like this even on private projects so I've given up on the comments of these articles a long time ago.
This isn't a debate on the economy, but put simply the problem is too few people *willing to contribute* because they have a salary expectation that cannot be met by currently available jobs. If underemployment benefits were stronger than unemployment benefits (meaning you could earn more by taking a low wage job and collecting benefits than by taking no job and collecting benefits) our overall productivity might start to recover. As it is the only thing keeping 10%+ of the country "contributing" is that they get to spend the government's money...
Or... we have too few employees willing to hire, because they have a (low) salary expectation that cannot be met by the available candidates to do their job.
Now hiring C# Developers, minimum 5 years of experience in C# development and project management, with deep understanding of C# sockets, multi-threaded programming, remoting, COM object interoperability, Firefox and Internet Explorer extension development, must have college degree, MCSD certification, and MCSE certification. $8/hour. Paid vacation and increase in pay available after 3 years of employment.
Actually they don't exist. Everyone who got paid less than their previous job would like to claim underemployment, even if in fact, they really were not qualified for the higher paying job :-)
As it currently stands, If I am making X on unemployment, then get a part time job that pays Y, my unemployment checks will be X-Y. After a couple months, EDD will see that I am employed, and adjust my benefits so that not only do I no longer get paid X-Y, but if I lose that job, the benefits are based off the lower salary and vastly lower. It's kind of sad because there are plenty of people would be happy to take lower paying jobs to help their unemployment last longer, but if they do so, they're shooting themselves in the foot. The system as written, forces you to wait till you can get a job that pays well, or lose all your benefits.