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

Haha

[mewsenews]

Like comment moderation would ever work

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

[gambino21]

I really don't understand why more news sites don't implement a threaded and user moderated comment system. Sure, the slashdot system isn't perfect, but the comments here are far more interesting/productive than the mainstream news sites. Removing anonymous commenting sounds like throwing out the baby with the bathwater, there are plenty of people who might have a valuable comment, but don't want to be bothered by registering for yet another web site.

In addition, I'm sure there are plenty of comments from registered users that just aren't that valuable. A threaded and user moderated system similar to slashot would vastly improve/filter the quality of comments on most sites, and long term would increase readership, so it just seems like an obvious solution.

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.

Re:Haha

[jgagnon]

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.

Re:Haha

[Moryath]

Slashdot's system has plenty of room for abuse.

There are people who maintain a dozen or more Slashdot accounts in order to play the 'mod point lottery' more often and get around the prohibition on modding and commenting on the same topic.

There are people who regularly abuse the theory of downmodding, using "flamebait" or "troll" to replace "disagree." Do it fast enough, and insightful comments get buried to -1 just because someone disagreed with it or decided it was politically or philosophically something they wanted to bury.

There are people who get their hands on mod points and go into histories, applying every single mod point as a negative to any old post just to ding down their max on someone's karma.

If they got rid of "troll" and "Flamebait" and simply raised the upmod ceiling to 15 or so, the system would work better. More room for upmodding, more room for posts to rise to the surface, no worries about the "early bury and never recover" problem.

Re:Haha

[Kilrah_il]

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.

Re:Haha

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't actually have much experience of modding do you.
First a Moderator gets to mod a post once.
Second there isn't much that deserves modding up, even seemingly good posts are often rehashing old argument after old argument.
Third if you wish to moderate and use your mod points then browsing at -1 is essential, all the obvious candidates for modding up go really quickly. Not only that but posts are being meta-moderated within minutes of being written.
even posts that have had no initial moderation.

Meta-moderating has actually changed over the years it used to be evaluating if mods were being fair and even handed, now its more to do with the quality of the posts themselves. Thats harder than playing agree or disagree with other Mods.

The other change is that there used to be more downward modding for being off topic now its mostly reserved for offensive morons. AC's were rarely modded up in the past but these days it is not an issue if an AC makes an interesting point. Funny mods I will only give if they are original and funny rehashed memes are not usually funny.

If your not getting moderated you may be boring or stating the obvious or just not bringing anything to the table in which case it's time to give the reply button a rest till you really have something to say.

i'll post this anon since its off topic but hopefully informative but there is nothing happening with this story anyway. Slashdot seems to have a quota for storys to post each day. less would be better ...

Real names?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't mean to call out these particular commenters, and I'm happy to see our readers taking the time to engage in robust discussion on Reuters.com. But I'm beginning to think our discussion would be even more robust and insightful if those making comments signed their real names.

Fuck you.
- John Smith.

Anonymity, pseudonymity

[Anonymous Coward]

Without having read TFA (hey, it's a venerable Slashdot tradition!), I'm not sure what they actually hope to gain by eliminating anonymous comments. Surely as long as people are free to create throwaway accounts that are not actually tied to their real identities, trolling etc. will persist?

Signed, an AC of many years (by choice)

MOD PARENT DOWN

[Brett Buck]

you knew it was coming....

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.

Confused

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Nah, it won't be a problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I've studied anonymous commenting for a while... And while I wrote passionated blog entries in its defence in my younger days (=a few years ago), I can't say I'm for it anymore. In blogs, etc... sure. In newspapers or any other "high quality" media? No.

The flaw in your reasoning is this: The problem isn't intentional trolling. The problem is "too many idiots with too much time". The people who have jobs, relationships, hobbies, etc. don't waste much of their time arguing online. What this means? People who don't have jobs, education, hobbies, relationships, etc. form a large part of the people who browse news stories and choose to comment on them. The vocal minority that is more prone to extremism (be it left, right, whatever...), doesn't really have anything intelligent to say and post in pretty much every news story. Then a sane person appears and he goes "I might have something to contribute to this story about astronomy... Whoa. 76 comments and they are just all flaming each other about immigration? I'll just leave". It is a positive feedback loop of idiocy.

Now, there are three common answers to that. One is "strict editorial policy, such as an employee approving all comments before they show up" but this is really quite unoptimal solution. It takes a lot of manhours, works well only during office hours and generally isn't good for a live conversation where people react to each other, etc. etc.. The second one is "disable all commenting" but some people actually have something important to add. The third one is "Force users to register first".

The last one reduces the amount of comments but this is a good thing: There is a lot less crap to go through when you want to see if there is anything worthwhile. Even more importantly, you can see "Oh, that idiotic comment is written by P4triot86... And that one... And that one..." so the comments section will imply "There are a few idiots regularly posting here" instead of the false "People really think this way".

Re:Nah, it won't be a problem

[oatworm]

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.

Re:"Why allow them?"

[chammy]

It's not like their server couldn't log the IP along with the anonymous comment. And what about services like 10minutemail, mailinator, or guerrila mail? I doubt hunting down someone by one of those email addresses would be any easier than just using whatever IP they posted under.