Will Real Name Policies Improve Comments?

TechCrunch has a story about the recent trend of websites wanting users to use their real names in an attempt to make comments better. The story points out that the practice didn't work in South Korea. From the article: "...In 2007, South Korea temporarily mandated that all websites with over 100,000 viewers require real names, but scrapped it after it was found to be ineffective at cleaning up abusive and malicious comments (the policy reduced unwanted comments by an estimated .09%). We don’t know how this hidden gem of evidence skipped the national debate on real identities, but it’s an important lesson for YouTube, Facebook and Google, who have assumed that fear of judgement will change online behavior for the better."

Comments

Censored Slashdot Post

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

21 July 2012

Censored Slashdot Post

http://pastebin.com/awkG002M

Censored slashdot post

By: a guest on Jul 21st, 2012

Hi fellow slashdot readers-

Many slashdot readers have complained over the past few years that the Slashdot
moderation system is broken. Now I think I know why. I've been a Slashdot
participant since the 1990s, and used to have a low-numbered account. I don't
like censorship. A lot. I was surprised and offended when I discovered active
censorship happening right on slashdot. Read on for details.

A few days ago I tried to post an interesting story to Slashdot called
"The Gentleperson's
Guide To Forum Spies". The article was written by an ex-COINTELPRO spy,
and describes in explicit detail how agents control and manipulate Internet
forums. So, I tried to post this story and discovered that each time I posted
it some Slashdot editor would quickly (within 3 minutes) delete the story
before it came to the atention of other editors or readers. Someone on the
Slashdot editorial board does NOT want Slashdot readership to learn the
techniques used to control an internet forum. Note that these techniques
only work so long as the readership remains IGNORANT of how they work. A
little forensic investigation by someone with DB access will even show
which editor(s) repeatedly deleted this story on 18 July 2012. Honest
editors are smart enough to figure out what to about COINTELPRO infiltrator
editors. Given that I have a natural dislike of censorship, I'm trying a
different tactic to expose my fellow Slashdot readers to this censored content.

Here's a challenge to my fellow geeks: Try to post the above story,

Re:Censored Slashdot Post

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

This is the first I have posted this. Nice try. Where are you on this spectrum?

Doesn't matter

[SuperKendall]

I have no doubt some of what is in that linked article is going on, but overall those actions are lost in the noise that is the Real Internet full of real people, including trolls and all...

Also remember that words on forums do not really matter that much in the end, which is why in reality there are not that many resources put forth to control them even though there could be.