Slashdot Mirror
Reuters Ends Anonymous Comments
eldavojohn writes "In an effort to retain civility, it appears that Thompson Reuters has ended anonymous web comments. You may recall the defense of the anonymous commenter, but you need look no further than Reuters' own Dean Wright (Global Editor, Ethics, Innovation and News Standards of Reuters) for two lengthy editorials arguing against anonymity online. After reading his complaints against anonymous readers, it almost seems like they need a moderation system to decide what's worth reading and what's trash."
Frankly, Reuters as a news organization has, like all of them, gotten a lot sloppier as competition for online eyeballs has squeezed all the value out of anything other than eye-popping headlines.
There's really not much you can do to keep commenters from hiding their identities, and it's somewhat hypocritical to do so when you omit bylines from many of your stories, and when your reporters, columnists, editors, and editorial writers are just fronts for the attitudes of the corporation.
Allowing people to remain anonymous to readers, but insisting that they give you identification you can use to trace them if they violate the TOS, seems a reasonable compromise.
Why is this under "yro"? You and I have no inherent right to make comments on their website. If they choose to invite comments, they have every right to attach conditions to that invitation. Anyone is free to setup their own site to comment on Reuters news coverage, if they don't like the conditions attached to commenting on Reuters sites.
A little comment moderation does go a long way, though. Reading the comments on articles on New York Times' web site, the only real moderation is that readers can "like" certain comments. You can then open the "Readers' Recommendations" tag to read comments rated by order of the number liked. This tends to make the comments much faster to read, putting the more useful ones near the top. It's not as robust a system as you get on Slashdot, but it's far and away better than comments systems that just sort comments by time and leave reading to pick through scores of trolls looking for any sign of intelligent life.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
Here on Slashdot in the Old days: anti-MS, Pro-Apple, pro-F/OSS got you points - guaranteed. Posting anything opposite got yo modd'ed "Troll" or something else "-1" - regardless of the merit.
Now, the Apple fanboys have chilled and with Apple's success, they're not such the under dogs as they once were. Posting anything that's critical of F/OSS will get modd'ed down unless it's really something specific that's also a criticism of folks in the F/OSS community.
The Libertarian bent here has been chilling too - I think it's the economy and seeing Mr. Rand or drank the Randian Cool-Aide and went back for seconds Alan Greenspan and others admitting that deregulation wasn't such a god idea.
Building up karma wasnt' as easy as it was in the old days - I abandon accounts when I get bored and start new ones .... like I'll eventually do with this one. When I have an account I spend way too much fucking time on Slashdot or any other posting site spewing my two-bit, ignorant, no nothing opinion.
It's kind of a sick sort of entertainment really. Although, unlike TV, I do learn a bit more on very rare occasions. Sometimes - very rare times, the corrections to my two-bit ignorant opinions are quite educational.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
One thing /. could do to improve slightly would be to outright prevent AC from being the first poster for an article. That would mostly eliminate the "first post" crap.
Remember to maintain your supply of
I disagree. The problem is that comments in such places are not at all a realistic representation of what most people who read the articles think.
There is a vicious circle involved, where only the most hateful tend to be likely to comment, because so many of the other commenters are posting vile stuff. This is not the same thing that happens in "real world" environments, where social pressures that have evolved over centuries tend to keep things in check -- rewarding those who are diplomatic and follow decorum, and punishing those who aren't/don't. This is a GOOD THING....imagine if the discussion in a university class always degenerated into the sort of things you find in unmoderated, anonymous comments threads.
Even people who are nice in other environments may end up posting hateful comments. The Stanford Prison Experiment can give insight into why.
Well, the system does have its problems, but it sure beats all the others I've seen. I don't think you can ever achieve the "perfect" system, especially since we are talking about the quality of the comments, an inheritly subjective issue.
In the ideal system all the comments I deem worthwhile should rise to the top, but since each person's definition of worthwhile is different, by definition you cannot have such a system.
Example: I do not completely agree to your post, but I think it is interesting and thus I wish it to be modded up so I can see it. Someone else will think you wrote a pile of shit and would want to see you buried to oblivion. etc.
Whenever in an argument, remember this.
I've actually seen a fair amount of what you describe on my local paper's comment boards. Since I live in Nevada, every single news article inevitably devolves into a "Well, if Harry Reid did his job, then..." vs. "Well, if the Republicans didn't destroy the country, then..." flame-fest, and this is without anonymous commenting enabled. The best part? Guess who recommends comments - that's right, people willing to slug through that crap and recommend the viewpoints they agree with. The result is a self-perpetuating cycle of idiocy and venality, with all of the reasonable people staying away from the comments section like the plague it is.
Unfortunately, I don't know what a good solution to this situation would be. Personally, I'd lean toward "nuke it from orbit - it's the only way to be sure" and just eliminate online commenting entirely from most news sites - it's not like newspapers were known for their willingness to post anonymous content before the Internet anyway.
Haven't met many news site editors, have you? Knowledge of Strunk and White doesn't translate into an infallable understanding of world or even local politics.