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.
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.
Actually spammers don't mind paying small fees to spam forums as their credit card info is stolen anyway.
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
...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.
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.
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