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.'"
I guess speech is no longer free.
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?
Call it a hunch but I don't think your last name is squid or quid.
you aren't dealing with sophisticated tor and proxy users and ip spoofing, you're dealing with the local technically barely literate cranks. so just enforce ip bans. or even cookies. these guys are sitting at home on one computer, not even in a coffee shop. and you're probably only dealing with 12-24 committed griefers only, so its not an endless problem
finally, i was always a fan of the rubber room (there may be a better term for this technique):
once you've flagged the committed griefer, make it so his comments only appear to him. oftentimes these hacks will comment freely and continually for months on end, completely oblivious to the fact that no one is reading their comments except themselves
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
and a willingness to use their real names.
Somewhere in this country, there's a Hugh Jass who feels silenced.
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.
The 99 cent one-time fee is a great way to verify user identity by using the banking / credit-card system.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
Can I a pay a little extra to make my post all caps?
Somewhere in this country, there's a Hugh Jass who feels silenced.
That's what a middle initial is for, unless someone's name is already Hugh Gerald Rection.
What person has to review the transaction?
if the 99 cents shows up, the account is legit.
Of course, nobody ever got a credit card for their dog, did they?
Naturally, the newspaper in question has a right to do this, and especially if they are a small paper they may feel they don't have the resources available to consistently moderate user comments. Traditionally, newspapers confirmed the identity of people who wrote letters to the editor - which also is helpful in eliminating spoofing.
However, there is certainly a downside. Sometimes, the things that most need to be said require anonymity. When the prevailing dogma - whether secular or religious - precludes the truth, those who wish to speak the truth must take steps to protect themselves. Slashdot has found a pretty good way of reducing the impact of trolls while both preserving anonymity and allowing the use of pseudonyms that allow regular posters to develop a good reputation without revealing their true identity.
I hope and expect that most online media will follow Slashdot's example, rather than the example of the Sun Chronicle.
If you want to post anonymously and for free (although this is a one-time ninety-nine cent fee, so it doesn't exactly break the bank) then there are lots of venues in which to do so.
Different parts of the internet offer different ways to screen out trolls, with varying degrees of success and with varying costs and benefits. Some newspapers impose lengthy delays (and incur significant costs to themselves) on comment posting to allow for their own moderators to screen comments. Slashdot has a moderation system which is generally good at elevating comments supportive of our constituency's preferred varieties of groupthink, but which may handle less-popular viewpoints less well (even when expressed cogently, politely, and coherently, such views face a toss-up between up- and down-moderation), and which also allows well-written posts that don't appear within an hour or two of the story to disappear from the radar of most readers.
And this isn't exactly a new concept for newspapers. Are there any serious newspapers with appreciable circulation numbers that allow anonymous letters to the editor in their print editions?
See also: The Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, Penny Arcade. Maybe this is the right solution to the GIFT problem for this particular institution. I look forward to seeing if this is effective in improving signal-to-noise.
~Idarubicin
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.
Correct, it's "squid0". Now shut up and be glad it's not "Robert'); DROP TABLE Students;--".
No, but if slashdot ever initiates such a rule I will legally change it.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
In the case of newspaper article comments I'm not sure a real name is a bad idea.
I've seen (and left) a few in a local paper that were terribly insensitive--not always wrong, exactly, but when your grandma drives into a car and everyone is killed--the local paper, read by the family, might not be the best place to debate the merits of/problems associated with DWO.
I've seen articles about parental negligence, a 20 year old drowning because he didn't wear his life jacket, etc. with some very insensitive finger pointing.
I'm not saying the debate is wrong, but when you lose your kid to some thing like this, you don't need to read about how stupid he was not wearing a life vest--it needs to be debated but not right there (Plus, trust me, all those who knew the kid will be wearing life vests in the future).
So having a real name associated won't (and shouldn't) stop people from posting their opinions, but it might help them remember that they are communicating with real human beings with feelings and not throwing a comment into some abstract internet debate.
Actually spammers don't mind paying small fees to spam forums as their credit card info is stolen anyway.
FWIW: The US Postal Service requires both a credit card and a valid email to do an online change of address, or set up a temporary forward of mail. They also require that either the old or new address match the card billing address.
> The 99 cent one-time fee is a great way to verify user identity by using the banking / credit-card system.
Yeah, umm... The thing about that is that they don't verify your identity. At all.
No, seriously you can get a credit card in ANYONE'S name so long as you're paying the bill. They verify the transaction, not the person's identity.
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).
...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.
It's as if a million trolls suddenly cried out, and were silenced...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.