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."

Comments

Doctor, mod thyself.

[blair1q]

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.

Re:Haha

[twoallbeefpatties]

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.

Re:Haha

[AnonymousClown]

Actually, it's kind of a fun game. Lurk for a while, get what the group think is, set up an account, post things that get modd'ed up easily, and then when you have karma up the ass, post any Goddamn Fucking thing you want. Some are really entertaining - EthanolFueled for one - love his comments

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.