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

It's a long term policy

[Tim Ward]

Eventually people will realise that employers Google these things, and that posting nasty stuff means you can't get work.

But this could take a generation to work through.

Re:It's a long term policy

[Znork]

Actually, it means you can't post personal stuff, as you'd find that employers would refrain from hiring people for everything from their political view through religion to sexual preferences, medical issues or even hobbies. In fact, a whole lot of things that _shouldn't_ be a problem are far more likely to be a problem than some bad behaviour.

Then one'd try and fail to rectify those issues by a vast and comprehensive anti-discrimination law(book), while internet asshats plead tourettes and keep trolling.

Banning anonymous speech mostly bans speech that shouldn't be banned.

Re:It's a long term policy

[cheesybagel]

I have been asked political questions in job interviews more than once. Yup it happens. Hobbies? There is a reason a lot of people put that in their resume.

Re:It's a long term policy

[Jane Q. Public]

"But this could take a generation to work through."

It will never get that far.

An awful lot of people understand that freedom of speech requires the ability to speak anonymously (precisely because others will be seeing that speech and judging it). Imagine if the United States were like some countries, in which political dissidence could get you killed or imprisoned for life? Would you dare say anything against the government, using your real name?

This employment situation is merely a small-scale version of the same kind of tyranny.

Several states have already passed laws that prevent employers from using social network content in their hiring practices, or requiring account credentials. I expect soon that will be most states, or even a Federal law.

Re:It's a long term policy

[Anonymous Coward]

Eventually employers will realize that almost everybody gets drunk and wears a lampshade at some point in their lives. I am Spartacus... mooning the camera with a dildo up my ass. Then they will be forced to lower standards.

.

Re:It's a long term policy

[__aaltlg1547]

In most places political discrimination is OK. Not in California though. If you live there it's asking for a lawsuit to ask about politics or sexual orientation or gender identity.

Re:It's a long term policy

[Gerzel]

The only problem is everyone at some point posts nasty stuff, and at many points it is fully justified.

You could get a cooling effect on free speech if all potential employers are going to rate their employees by their non-work related speech. Sure you don't want to hire a KKK clansman but what about an atheist? Does a Libertarian employer have the right to refuse to hire a Communist or Socialist employee? What about one that is merely Liberal? What about someone who argues for pornagraphy and/or erotic art?

There are many decisive issues that we need to be able to freely discuss in online and public forums without fear of those discussions damning our chances at attaining our livelyhoods.

Re:It's a long term policy

[SomePgmr]

Someone should just do comments as a service, like Disqus does, but using the same basic system as Slashdot.

It allows for anonymous posts, which can either disappear or be highly visible based on the content of the post, or you can opt to lean on your history of being a decent contributor and post using your name... which lends some very modest bit of credibility and visibility to each post on an individual basis.

Give the site admins using the service the option of considering network-wide "karma" if they want, or keeping it specific to their site. Allow for temp/perma bans and spam flagging.

Maybe that's a product. Maybe you do it for free and do a "powered by" that links slashdot to increase traffic. Either way, outsource the JS work to someone else. ;)

Re:It's a long term policy

[CanEHdian]

Try: douchebags that see comments that aren't politically correct will try to find out where you are employed and then complain with your employer "Did you know that your employee so-and-so said this-and-that?"

Can't win online with arguments, then extort the employer. Because if they don't punish you, the employer must agree, no?

Re:It's a long term policy

[SuricouRaven]

It would, yes, if you ever knew about it. In the real world, if a potential employer rejects your application based on your political views/sexual orientation, they aren't going to outright say it. No, you'll just get a generic rejection letter along the lines of 'Your application was not successful at this time.' No reason to even suspect they rejected you based on a google background check, and no possibility at all of proving it in court.

Re:It's a long term policy

[burne]

Eventually people will realise that employers Google these things.

I think I was hired because my current employer googled my real name. Being what you are can be as much as an asset as it can be a liability.

Re:It's a long term policy

[joocemann]

And then another generation for employers to realize they are losing out on talent by applying prejudice and ending up with a specific subset of the population with a specific subset of less-than-ideal attributes.

Everyone knows that the best form of management is management that works -- management that actually makes comprehensive judgement of its human resources and utilizes the individuals as effectively as possible. This means that Billy Bunkins on facebook may be a beer chugging lightly racist redneck -- but at work he is the king of fabricating product X, nobody can even come close to his quality and rate, and he is cordial to all coworkers regardless of race. A good management team will recognize that having Billy Bunkins is more valuable than applying prejudice and selecting less effective but less controversial people (when considering their private lives).

Re:It's a long term policy

[blue trane]

So if Alan Turing posted about homosexuality which was illegal in his time, he should never have been hired for anything?

Anyway a better answer is a guaranteed basic income. Then people can post freely and employers can discriminate against them, and each individual can still contribute to society by working on their own projects, and/or towards challenges held by govt and biz (bug bounties, netflix prize, darpa challenges, etc.).

Re:It's a long term policy

[jonfr]

Companies that hire people on there political views are doing so because it benefits them (so they believe) when it comes to having all employee agreeing on certain views.

The downside is that a group of people how do nothing but agreeing with each other do not make a lot of progress at the same time. This is evident today's world.

Re:It's a long term policy

[assertation]

I see your point. It took years for it to sink down to some people that they should get a separate email from work for personal messages.

Re:It's a long term policy

[ultranova]

Eventually people will realise that employers Google these things, and that posting nasty stuff means you can't get work.

And not posting nasty stuff won't help you either, unless your name is unique in the whole wide world. And this, of course, makes everyone "unhirable", leading this system to its well-deserved collapse. Time will tell if the concept of free speech dies first.

Re:It's a long term policy

[datavirtue]

Yeah, but you can tell them you Googled them or you risk a lawsuit becasue of employers harvesting protected information....club memberships and group affiliations being a couple of them.

Re:It's a long term policy

[__aaltlg1547]

But they don't dare raise the issue in an interview. Managers and HR people are trained to steer conversation away from such subjects even if the interviewee brings it up.

Re:It's a long term policy

[mjwx]

Eventually people will realise that employers Google these things, and that posting nasty stuff means you can't get work.

But this could take a generation to work through.

Real name accounts wont change this. Right now most people dont care that their Facebook is open to the entire world and getting a job is about getting the interviewer to like you more than anything else.

Even using your real name could be bad, there's a Tim "Sharky" Ward who's not a nice fellow (he's a loan shark and a roid junkie) and recently been arrested in Thailand for stabbing a Canadian. I'm certain you wouldn't want to be mistaken for him just for having the same name. If nothing else, real name policies will make such HR departments complacent, You might be Tim Ward from Washington (for example, I have no idea where you live or if Tim Ward is your real name), but HR flunkie #1 looks up Tim Ward from New Zealand who's currently in a Thai jail for stabbing someone and doesn't really give a toss that you're no him.

Re:It's a long term policy

[AmiMoJo]

"Real name policy" is a bit of a misnomer, it is more like a "realistic name policy". You can sign up with any name you like, just not one that is an obvious nickname or forum handle. Create an account as "John Smith" and it will be accepted, regardless of your actual name.

So really all it does is require people to create more realistic aliases. It will take a while for people to realize this.

Re:It's a long term policy

[base3]

Several states have already passed laws that prevent employers from using social network content in their hiring practices . . .

Not that I don't think that ethically, that's great, but it's also utterly unenforceable. How is someone going to prove he or she was denied employment because a hiring manager or HR checked out content on Myfacetwiitter?

Re:It's a long term policy

[Compaqt]

Best thing to do is to simply not ever look up people's social networking history.
Keep work related to work.

But I wonder what will happen when/if someone with a history of weird posts on his Facebook gets a job, and then goes postal. Will some greedy lawyer ram through a huge lawsuit which will then force businesses to always look through every piece of online history you have?

Re:It's a long term policy

[Cro Magnon]

Eventually employers will realize that almost everybody gets drunk and wears a lampshade at some point in their lives. I am Spartacus... mooning the camera with a dildo up my ass. Then they will be forced to lower standards.

.

They'll only realize it after they get fired when their own drunk pics surface.

Re:It's a long term policy

[Cro Magnon]

Last time I googled myself, the MyRealName that came up wasn't me. I found someone else's FB, LinkedIn, and several miscellaneous stuff. My first post was on page 2, and was some dumb question I asked on a tech mailing list.

Re:It's a long term policy

[epine]

So if Alan Turing posted about homosexuality which was illegal in his time

Homosexuality wasn't illegal ya stupid cocksucking hayseed, it was homosexual acts that were illegal. Oops, did I cross the line with my word selection there? Sorry about that.

I was reading Borges' The Immortal the other night.

Taught by centuries of living, the republic of immortal men had achieved a perfection of tolerance, almost of disdain. They knew that over an infinitely long span of time, all things happen to all men. As reward for his past and future virtues, every man merited every kindness—yet also every betrayal, as reward for his past and future iniquities. Much as the way in games of chance, heads and tails tend to even out, so cleverness and dullness cancel and correct each other.

I loved the old McCarthy update to the Socratic method "have you ever ..." as if single-instance statistics define everything you need to know about a person. "Have you ever called someone a cocksucker?" Why, yes. Yes I have. Once in 40 years, as a segue to Borges, ya stupid cocksucker. And YOU know who I mean.

Re:It's a long term policy

[Jane Q. Public]

"Not that I don't think that ethically, that's great, but it's also utterly unenforceable. How is someone going to prove he or she was denied employment because a hiring manager or HR checked out content on Myfacetwiitter?"

That's exactly the same kind of problem faced by victims of racial or other discrimination. How does one prove it? It isn't always an easy thing. Nevertheless, it's probably better to have the law, than not.

One thing it DOES do, though, that can be easily enforced: it prevents employers from demanding access credentials to your accounts. They can't ask. It's illegal.

Re:It's a long term policy

[Mister_Stoopid]

Someone should just do comments as a service, like Disqus does, but using the same basic system as Slashdot.

Oh please god no. It's bad enough waiting for a comment thread to collapse for 15 seconds after I click; don't spread the slashdot comment code to other sites, please!

Re:It's a long term policy

[SomePgmr]

Well like I said at the end, outsource the JS part at least. :)

I like what slashdot moderation does at a high level. At lower levels it's been a bit ugly for some time now.

Re:It's a long term policy

[Gerzel]

Not an option. Someone does something, especially if they work with children, if they had anything in their social networking history people will be howling that the employer didn't do enough. If the employer does look they are only partly liable to someone who wants to be hired and is less likely to sue.

In short our legal system makes it so that employers will look rather than not look. It does not reward discretion.

John Smith

[kc9jud]

Yeah, my name is John Smith... I'm really afraid of people's judgement.

Re:John Smith

[ShoulderOfOrion]

Bob Johnson here. John, is that you?

Re:John Smith

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a lot of reasons to be concerned with people's (poor, inappropriate) judgement.

A poster may have perfectly good reasons to be anonymous: they may be subject to various kinds of active hunting, from spouses to creeps to national agencies; there are people who may have made mistakes (or not), have been through the legal system, but have been pilloried on some list somewhere; they may be activists of one sort or another, engaged in illegal activities (and don't even try to tell me that all laws are good just because they are laws... it's just too easy to take your wet-noodle premise and slap you silly with it); there is strong tendency to "attack the messenger" rather than try to respond to the message, and anonymity makes that an empty exercise... it neither hurts the poster or benefits the attacker; anonymity means no one gets to scrape you from some forum and "market" to you (it may not be evil but it surely is annoying.) And so on.

Yes, real name policies let the lowlives run essentially free. But that's what moderation is for, and that's where the most effective energy can be applied. The one thing slashdot does really wrong is start anonymous comments at zero. They should start at one, just like any other comment, and go down only when they're obviously of lower quality. It's a form of prejudice, nothing more. A counter argument is that it is statistically justified, but that's an over-democratic solution that harms the legitimate posters at the same time it addresses whatever problem there is. It's like racial profiling: if most of the crime in an area is from blacks, and then the police start pulling people over because they're black, we have a problem. With an anon post, when you droprate the post because it's anon, you've essentially done the same thing, except the problem area isn't arbitrary search, it is the chilling of speech (because low scores tend to make posts less visible.)

In the end, real name policies are a bad idea, the only people who really benefit from them are corporations.

Re:John Smith

[ohnocitizen]

This. Real name comments are basically a way of saying "Hey! Anyone being stalked, stay off the internet.". Bear in mind, before dismissing this, that *anyone* can potentially be stalked, for any number of reasons. Imagine being active in an online community for years, being stalked, and having to beg that website to remove your comments...

Re:John Smith

[FatdogHaiku]

John "Cockgobbler" Smith or John "Smalldick" Smith?

Missing employees of Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems?

Re:John Smith

[fast turtle]

The problem with starting AC's at 1 is the number of Off-Topic and Trolls. Keep in mind that /. allows us, when logged in, to get the karma bonus for posting AC. If I can't be bothered to log-in or don't have an account, then there is little reason for me to be granted any benefit such as the +1 Karma Bonus

Re:John Smith

[flimflammer]

Uncle Bob, is that you?

Re:John Smith

[jrumney]

I was thinking that was why it failed in Korea. Everyone just signs their comments as being from Kim.

Re:John Smith

[R3d M3rcury]

Pleased to meet you, Mr. Smith. My name is Min-jun Kim.

Perhaps you know my friend, James Smith?

Re:John Smith

[kc9jud]

My comment pointed more toward the fact that, to most people on the Internet, my "real name" is useless. Whether I'm "John Smith" or "Zorkon, Lord of the Universe," it doesn't really matter. My name doesn't mean anything -- not only are there the obvious cases where having one's name online is just plain bad (like you mentioned), but even when it's not a "bad idea," it doesn't add anything. If it doesn't add any value, why is it useful (other than to make it easier to track me)? To paraphrase Bill Shakespeare, "What's in a name? That who we call John Smith by any other name would still be an idiot."

Re:John Smith

[Anonymous Coward]

I think -- and this is definitely just an IMHO -- that what people are looking for is something they (wrongly) think of as "accountability", which really boils down to knowing not only what you're saying, but what you have said in the past.

Frankly, I find that odious anyway... if I say something, I want it taken on its own, not to have a finger pointed at me and a remark delivered of the class "look what this ID said over here, you can ignore this person." That's just another form of not dealing with the points or arguments being made at the moment. Plus, I hope that today, I am not the same person I was yesterday. I try to learn and grow. I may not do well at it, but I do actively try. I may not even agree with a post I made last month, or a choice I made ten years ago, etc., and I'd just as soon not be defined through them by someone who just learned how much pure crap Google can dig up.

Just as one tiny example, as a teenager, I was heavily into drugs. Today, I think using drugs was outright stupid (although I am very pro-choice... you want 'em, bless ya, take em and be careful to duck the idiots in government who would do you harm for your choice), and that opinion has only gotten firmer over the years. So if someone were to dig up my drug using history and try to define me by it, it'd be like they were talking about some other person entirely. And that is far from the only significant path change I made, believe me.

Now, clearly, for marketing, there's every reason to track. The idea is to make money, and the more they know, the more accurately they can target you. So do you want to be targeted? Did you give permission to be targeted? Likewise, for the government, they only benefit from tracking: that's what Carnivore, Enhanced Carnivore (DCS 1000), ECHELON, Oasis, Fluent, Total Informational Awareness (TIA), MATRIX, CALEA, and TEMPEST were/are all about, to name just a few. The problem there is that the government is, IMHO, no longer either for or by the people, nor do they consider themselves bound by the plain English of the constitution, and so these collections are not a good thing.

Then for Joe Poster? If he needs to know, I'll decide he does, and then I'll tell him. Otherwise, he can deal with my posts on a one by one basis, like it or not. And if anyone thinks they can force me to ID, or tricks me into being ID'd? I'll just quit posting, or change identities. I'm interested in public discourse, but my personal details are irrelevant to that pursuit unless I say otherwise.

Fear???

[stanlyb]

So, let me ask you this: You intend to implement FEAR in your policy!!! What the f%$%$%$%

Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Should make it easier for security forces to track down those fomenting sedition, apostasy, gayness, etc.

Re:Yes

[Frosty Piss]

Should make it easier for security forces to track down those fomenting sedition, apostasy, gayness, etc.

"Gayness" is a politically incorrect term, and in any case homosexuality is a politically protected class.

Mr Coward, Mr. Anonymous Coward - please report to the Thought Control Center for Politically Correct Thought Retraining.

Re:Yes

[Sir_Sri]

homosexuality is a politically protected class

Not anywhere that still goes after apostasy. To the contrary, running on a platform of rounding up and executing the gays would be a great way to get elected (or appointed) in places like saudi, iran, uganda, etc.

It will also help governments demand people say supportive things. For example, right now lots of authoritarian regimes are happy to demand people show up to parades and pretend to be excited (and leader speeches and so on). Now imagine being told you don't 'like the dear leader enough' on the north korean future equivalent of facebook and twitter and so on.

Re:Yes

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Should make it easier for security forces to track down those fomenting sedition, apostasy, gayness, etc.

How does one foment gayness? After all, fomenting straightness is a laughable idea, Unless you are talking about throwing a party and then I could see them wanting to track people down, like the kids in Project X.

Slashdot statistics?

[punit_r]

Does Slashdot have any statistics to share on the percentage of troll posts / off topics and flamebaits by ACs vis-a-vis registered users ?

Agreed, that registered users may not be using real names. But, still Anonymous comments v/s registered comments will provide a good starting point. My gut feeling is that the statistics would have a higher number of ACs being abusive and malicious than the registered users.

Re:Slashdot statistics?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe, but even if there's a correlation, should we throw the baby out with the bathwater? There are good reasons to be anonymous. One would like to think that posts were judged based on their merit and content rather than on who posted them, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

One unfortunate aspect of /. seems to be that people posting AC with good things to say often end up in the same Score:0 oblivion as spam and troll posts, which is curious for a community that purports to value anonymity. I've seen spam posts rated 0 right next to some AC with a well reasoned and articulated point, also at 0.

Taking the argument too far to one extreme leads to the "No Facebook account? You must be an antisocial mass murderer!" line of thought.

Re:Slashdot statistics?

[gweihir]

No idea, but I filter ACs out, unless they manage to get moderated up or answer my postings. I only answer to ACs answering my postings if they make good points.

Re:Slashdot statistics?

[Skapare]

I have the same rules about answering postings, but I don't limit that to just ACs.

Re:Slashdot statistics?

[ThatsMyNick]

I only answer to ACs answering my postings if they make good points.

I dont suppose you answer to non-ACs that dont make good points either right. Then I dont suppose it matters if the person responding to you is anonymous or not, does it?

Re:Slashdot statistics?

[gweihir]

It does. I am not above to point out to non-ACs that they are idiots and why. With ACs, I assume they already know they are idiots and wrong, otherwise they would not post as ACs. /. does allow pseudonyms, after all.

Re:Slashdot statistics?

[dustmite]

Who cares? They get modded down and by and large don't affect the discussion. If your discussion forum doesn't have ancient features that help filter out the crap, it's because your discussion forum platform sucks, not because everyone needs to be forced or pushed to give up anonymity. Yours, Mr. Dust Mite.

Re:Slashdot statistics?

[icebraining]

One would like to think that posts were judged based on their merit and content rather than on who posted them, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

They are, just not as individual posts but as a continuum.

Re:Slashdot statistics?

[SuperKendall]

It seems to me that most AC's who have really good points have generally been moderated up.

Also of course, it depends on the story - on some stories as a moderator you are looking more for AC contributors if it's a sensitive topic or people might be divulging some information that could hurt them otherwise due to the subject matter.

Boy are people naive

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who's dumb enough to think this is them trying to "clean up" the Internet needs to realize the business potential of harvesting real user IDs in comments and stop thinking this is something they're doing to improve anything but their bottom line.

Betteridge's Law of Headlines

[El_Muerte_TDS]

So, no.

Re:Betteridge's Law of Headlines

[PuZZleDucK]

I hadn't seen this one so lets save anyone else in the same position the job of "select-copy-newTab-paste-clickFirstLink":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headlines

Link to the TechCrunch article

[bwintx]

TFS linked only to another Slashdot thread. The TechCrunch article TFS mentions is:
http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/29/surprisingly-good-evidence-that-real-name-policies-fail-to-improve-comments/

Re:Link to the TechCrunch article

[bwintx]

Sorry to reply to myself but just noting the obvious, namely that TFS does have that link now. Guess I caught it pre-"oops."

No.

[ildon]

You might get less trolling (but not much less) but you'll miss out on a lot of extremely useful comments that can only be made anonymously or semi-anonymously. Some people are too shy or scared to speak out without anonymity, some just value their privacy. You'll almost never get insight from insiders at a company without some level of anonymity. Too much good value is lost for too small a reduction in bad comments, and bad comments can be controlled by good moderation anyway.

Re:No.

[Darkness404]

Exactly.

Part of free speech and the "marketplace of ideas" requires there to be at least some level of anonymity. Trolling is simply part of the internet. Just ignore the troll comments if you want, or read them if you want.

Anonymous speech has had huge impact, particularly in early American history. You have to remember that the major works of early American politics were anonymous, including the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers.

Re:No.

[Anonymous Coward]

I totally agree. Just look at all the highly-moderated comments I've posted on Slashdot over the years.

- Anonymous Coward
(You think that's not my real name? Prove it!)

Re:No.

[hedpe2003]

Some of the most critical insights we need to hear are in direct opposition of established institutions.

Sometimes these institutions are powerful in themselves. Other times, they may not hold far reaching power, but the ideas are most obvious from within the organization itself. So the people who have the knowledge to actually justify an idea are the ones with something to lose.

I agree with you completely. From a ‘benefit to society’ point of view, the cost is way too high for this to become the norm. But even from an individual site’s perspective, controversial (but insightful) comments are the kinds of posts which really validate the user community as one which is critical and open-minded. They often contain critical insights about the world we live in.

It is important to decrease trolling and poor comments, but are you losing more than you are gaining by forcing real names? Especially when there are alternatives. Some effective tools already exist, like good moderation and feedback/karma/ratings. Innovation in these areas, to improve them, is the way to go - rather than giving up and removing anonymity.

Re:No.

[Darkness404]

Really now? Because last time I checked, Occupy Wall-Street was a pretty major movement which was mostly organized on the internet using screen names.

Re:No.

[ildon]

I can't agree that *anonymous* free speech is a right. It's a bit complicated, but if you can get away with anonymous speech, that's fine, but there should not be an *expectation* of anonymity. Say you write and publish a presumably anonymous pamphlet or something, and another person figures out who you are based on some clues or catching you in the act. If you had a *right* to anonymous speech, then it should be a crime for that person to reveal your identity. But it should not be a crime for that person to reveal your identity if they choose because that infringes too much on their right to free speech, and if you're writing something that, when tied to your identity, could bring into question your motives or reliability, then people should be able to know that in order to make sound decisions regarding your speech.

Re:No.

[Briareos]

Sorry, forgot to log in there for a moment...

So - fuck no, it fucking won't.

Maybe "93 Escort Wagon" IS my real name...

[93 Escort Wagon]

For most people, using your real name (e.g. "Joe Johnson") doesn't really remove your anonymity that much - nor does it pin down your location anymore than posting under a pseudonym does. It might be interesting, from an academic viewpoint, to see if people with unusual names (e.g. "Moon Unit Zappa") behave in a more socially acceptable manner when they're forced to use their real name online.

Also, why the heck does the only link in this story go back to another Slashdot post? That link adds nothing to the actual topic being discussed. This whole item needs a giant [citation needed] appended to it - there's no supporting evidence at all.

Re:Maybe "93 Escort Wagon" IS my real name...

[Sir_Sri]

it's possible they updated since you posted this. The first link is a callback to the previous /. story, the second link is to a tech crunch article about how effective the policy was in south korea.

Re:Maybe "93 Escort Wagon" IS my real name...

[93 Escort Wagon]

Yup, they updated it - several other commenters also noted the (initial) lack of a link to the Tech Crunch article.

In any case, I'm not sure South Korea is a good test bed. A friend of mine is from there and has previously made the observation that some huge percentage of the population has one of two family names - Kim or Park. Having to post their real names probably isn't giving away much from a practical sense.

Re:Maybe "93 Escort Wagon" IS my real name...

[rta]

i have a somewhat strange name and tried to make this point in email to NPR.org and ConsumerReports.org both of which require real names. Unless you require SS# as well, "real name" really has a disparate impact on people w/ more uncommon names.

My solution had been fairly easy. I won't even consider posting on a real-name site. And this doesn't even address the issue of how trivial it is to circumvent these by posting under a false name. So basically the only people you exclude are the ones (like myself) who are prudish enough to care about not breaking a EULA for which there's no penalty anyway.

Re:Maybe "93 Escort Wagon" IS my real name...

[DMUTPeregrine]

For some people using a real name actually improves anonymity. People with particularly common names will share real names, while most people choose their pseudonyms to be unique (or very nearly so).

won't make a difference

[thetoadwarrior]

Facebook has proven people are happy to harrass or say retarded things even under their real name.

Re:won't make a difference

[Hentes]

Exactly, I have argued something similar a few days ago. Basically, people are rude on the internet not because of anonymity, but because you can't punch them in the face.

Re:won't make a difference

[ProzacPatient]

Expect a lot of posts from people like "Ben Dover" or "Hugh Jazz".

Re:won't make a difference

[lwriemen]

What difference does your ability to try to come punch me in the face make? I thought if you got the other person to take a swing at you, then you've won the debate.

Re:won't make a difference

[ToddInSF]

Also, it's one thing to read remarkably stupid pseudonymous remarks written by a stranger...

Quite another to be embarrassed by shit a friend or relative posts.

It's not always about you all the time; but this time, yeah, it's all about you.

Obvious answer...

[Volante3192]

We don’t know how this hidden gem of evidence skipped the national debate on real identities...

Because it doesn't fit the expected narrative!

Sort of works on Facebook, but:

[Hazelfield]

A couple of points about Facebook:

1) You have a real incentive of actually signing up with your real name because otherwise your friends won't find you.
2) Your friends can see what you write.

This creates a (somewhat) self-regulated comment environment. People still post dumb stuff on Facebook because they're dumb, but at least you get rid of most trolls, one-liner thumb seekers and Justin Bieber haters that haunt for instance Youtube.

Re:Sort of works on Facebook, but:

[DMUTPeregrine]

About half my friends are online-only, and the other half I know IRL.
I use fake names on all my facebook accounts, and tell my friends what the name is.
I use separate facebook accounts for different purposes. EG some businesses give you things if you friend them on facebook, those get 1-time use accounts made. Friends and family have different accounts.

Re:Sort of works on Facebook, but:

[devent]

This has nothing to do with the issue. You don't have spam on Fb because you can choose who you read and who you ignore. If a "friend" on Fb is just a troll I can revoke him from my friend list and never see him again. That has nothing to do if he is using a real name or not.

Re:Sort of works on Facebook, but:

[gl4ss]

..oh but of course it is, if you didn't know there's people who post "OMG THAZ SHIT WACK POOPOO" allover the net but don't do with that their fb feed because their fb friends who sub to their stuff with their real names don't want to see that and they realize that, but they still do it on other sites. hell, it wouldn't be cool at all if all my slashdot rants appeared on my fb feed - however, I do realize that pretty much anyone of them could come to slashdot to read them. if they'd complain I'd say tough luck wtf are you complaining about rants you specificially went through trouble to find.

Re:Sort of works on Facebook, but:

[Mashiki]

No it doesn't work on facebook. Hell it doesn't work on any site where they require the "facebook social plugin" if anything, the comments degenerate even faster, and it becomes a giant screaming shill match of epeen stroking to see who can become the biggest asshole of the thread with the most likes. Oddly enough, I generally just strike sites off my reading list that use it for commenting.

Just makes comments less interesting

[hawguy]

I've found that moving from anonymity to real-identity based comments (i.e. Facebook) just makes comment board much less interesting.

The SJ Mercury News switched to FB comments a year or 2 ago, and after the switch, I stopped reading the comments (and the site) because the comments switched from controversial discussion (and yes, even some trolls and personal attacks) to boring "Yeah, me too buddy" comments.

On Slashdot, I often post anecdotes from current and past jobs, and I wouldn't do so if my name was attached to the post.

Re:Just makes comments less interesting

[Dachannien]

On Slashdot, I often post anecdotes from current and past jobs, and I wouldn't do so if my name was attached to the post.

Yeah, me too buddy.

Re:Just makes comments less interesting

[IntlHarvester]

A lot of sites are figuring out that user comments are relatively worthless. Yes, they increase page views and 'interaction', but at the same time only a small percentage of users are looking at them, because who has the time to read hundreds of largely worthless comments? When you see 1000+ posts about the latest smartphone news, most of those comments are "write-only", nobody ever reads them. But the site still has to maintain hosting and pay people to moderate the comments, which could easily outweigh the advertising revenue.

So, I can see how a site would be perfectly happy with a smaller number of 'boring' facebook comments.

Slashdot was largely set up as a discussion site with threaded comments, user moderation, filtering, etc. People post longer-form comments and actually reply to arguments. It's a tech audience which is generally OK with anonymity (even though everyone thinks everyone else is a "shill"). It's an entirely different atmosphere than most high-traffic blogs or newspaper comment sections.

Re:Just makes comments less interesting

[cpm99352]

In Vancouver, WA. the local newspaper (http://www.columbian.com/) did the same thing. The user comments have degenerated into useless tripe, mostly agreeing with the article.

Before the Facebook conversion, we had very insightful commentary about the real estate collapse from banking insiders (the local economy revolves about building affordable housing outside the restrictions imposed by nearby Portland, Oregon). Additionally, articles about the corrupt Vancouver WA police dept and articles about the county budget often brought about interesting reader comments. Oh, and post-Facebook conversion, conveniently it appears the old articles have "disappeared" from the archives.

However, now that the Gestapo, excuse me, Facebook registration is required, newspaper comments are bland and mostly uninformative. Which, I'm sure, is the way Corporate America likes it.

Oh, and on the gunsafe article, the following article is interesting in that the police officer in the Slashdot post tried to implicate his daughter in the death of his son. Were Facebook registrion required for posting, it is doubtful this sort of thing would surface:

http://www.oregonlive.com/clark-county/index.ssf/2012/01/former_clark_county_deputy_fil.html

"Investigators further state that Owens blamed his son's death to his 11-year-old daughter and tried to force a confession out of her.

"...Deputy Owens did not maintain the highest standards of conduct and discredited himself and the Sheriff's Office....," the document states. "....His selfish, shameful and cowardly behavior has left an indelible mark on our agency and has raised serious doubts about his credibility, judgment, truthfulness and fitness for duty."

The Multnomah County District Attorney's Office declined to prosecute Owens for allegedly coercing his daughter. The incident happened in the Portland area."

Interesting of course that they didn't prosecute him.....

Re:Just makes comments less interesting

[TheCarp]

Case in point: Linkedin.

I resistsed signing up for YEARS until I left a job recently. I wanted to maintain the ability to contact people...so I made an account.

So now I have slashdot, facebook, linkedin..... in decreasing order of interestingness.

Comments here, most stupidity, and most interesting. wide range, great stuff. Here, I too post anecdotes about work. Sometimes, I even post AC, just for a little extra protection on those that are about work.

On fb, seldom to never post anything work related, and few things with much thought or interest. Its not just that I know everyone there, and they all know where I work and all my other friends, but, because they are family and other social relations, its not exactly where I go if I want to talk technical, its chock full of the non-technical people I know.

Linked in....worst of all. Nearly all professional relations. Anything you say could hurt real job prospects. It seems nearly ALL communication that does happen is in private messages or on private groups. Its as exciting as a party thrown by the HR department.

Anonymous is critical

[EmperorOfCanada]

Anonymous comments is critical for the free flow of genuine information. It is one thing for some twerp to call people schoolyard names but it is critical for somebody working at say the police department to mention that the policeman waving the club is named Bob Smith and that you can tell because of his distinctive boots. Or if you negatively comment on a beating video that the cops should be fired won't result in the cops pulling you over and "finding" drugs in your car.

Re:Anonymous is critical

[dutchwhizzman]

Also, there are countries where you would be prosecuted for things you wouldn't be in most countries where /. is readable. What about people that want to chat about their forbidden homosexuality? What about victims discussing religious figures raping children entrusted to them? A lot of things that should have a place where it's safe to discuss them would be a lot worse off if people's real name would be attached to those discussions. We wouldn't have been able to hear from the dissidents in Egypt and Lybia if their names were routinely added to their postings, because the whole revolution would have been smothered before it started. Countless examples in history and modern times exist as to why "real name accounts" are generally a bad idea.

The problem is the people

[gweihir]

People that are cretins will remain so, whether real names, pseudonyms or anonymity. There are some that will behave a bit better when they can be recognized later, but pseudonymity works just as well here. One massive drawback of real names is that many people will not be able to post anything marginally critical anymore, because their present or future employers could find out. In fact, I am inly allowed to post on /., because I do it under pseudonym. Real-name policies can have a massive chilling effect.

"improve"

[kenorland]

It will "improve" comments in the same way that the Stasi or the Holy Inquisition "improved comments": minority opinions will be silenced since any form of contrarian opinion is frowned upon, and tends to result in repercussions, by employers, friends, and governments.

won't work, just make a fake name

[Nyder]

Seriously, this is stupid.

Fake names are easy.

Bob Dobbs
John Smith
Jay Woo
J. Wu

I don't even have to make clever ones, just some of the most common names in the world will work.

I don't want any of you to know who I am, if I did, you'd probably be a friend of mine. Not one of you needs to know what my last name is, and if I am, or am not famous. It's none of your fucking business unless I decide to tell you.

Maybe we should use numbers instead of names, or I know, we'll all go by our Social Security numbers.

fucking retards.

Re:won't work, just make a fake name

[Noitatsidem]

Very true. You have no idea how many people think "Noitatsidem Eht" is an actual name, from some foreign country. It's not, in fact it's originally derived from the name of a healing structure in the open source game Tremulous... Read it backwords =P

Ask John Doe

[FranTaylor]

Really if you see a post on the internet from "John Doe" are you going to make the connection to the actor/singer?

All this means is that people named "John Doe" or "Joe Smith" or "Sanjay Gupta" will be able to say whatever they want without it being associated with them.

Reduced fear of judgement

[ShieldW0lf]

It is the reduced fear of judgement among the population that is the real reward of such a policy. In my opinion. Reduced fear of judgement, together with more effective application of judgement in that small selection of cases where it's importance is recognized by all sounds win-win.

Re:Only if no law exists.

[DarwinSurvivor]

That doesn't do anything to protect you from the HR drone sifting through 100's of resumes.

re important lesson for YouTube, Facebook, Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Having subscribers' and posters' real names would vastly increase the value of their web analytics, and allow them to sell qualified leads to marketers ("all these email addresses are for people who proactively viewed at least one SUV product video within the last two weeks"). That's what those guys care about, not comment quality.

The real reason your real name is wanted

[Anonymous Coward]

The real reason these web sites want your real name, address, phone,etc., if they can get it, is not to cut down on critical comments, but so they can sell your information to the highest bidder.

0.09% at what price?

[Let's All Be Chinese]

Cranks will be cranks. Oppressive governments will be oppressive governments. Knowing your real name is that much more power over you, that you're required to give to your enemies. The whole discussion doesn't even make sense in the USA, where the founding legalese was dicsussed together using pseudonymity.

Now unthinking and hurtful comments are arguably undesirable, but unthinking and hurtful policies are that much worse. I think I'll take the bad comments --that can be ignored and skipped over-- with the pseudonymity --that provides useful protection against people who don't know when to stop being disagreeable--, thanks.

Re:0.09% at what price?

[ultranova]

The whole discussion doesn't even make sense in the USA, where the founding legalese was dicsussed together using pseudonymity.

It doesn't make sense to you that a country that seceded from an empire in a revolution plotted under the veil of anonymity is trying to remove anonymity now that it's an empire itself? Really?

Re:0.09% at what price?

[Let's All Be Chinese]

Oi, you, what's with the bringing cold hard objective truth to an underbelly argument?

Point being, of course, that it'd be nice if this empire of couch potatoes would see its citizens stand up and make their government show that they indeed have learned from history by stopping acting like an evil empire while still spouting "we're so much better" propaganda. A bit more humility, a bit more putting the money where the mouth is would do America a world of good. And the rest of us too, by the by.

No.

[benjamindees]

Because fuck you, that's why.

Let's name the subjects:

[Anonymous Coward]

Political views. Eample: remember back in '02 when all those folks who were against invading Iraq had their property vandalized because they "didn't support the troops and hated America"? Turns out those people who "hated America and the troops" were right.

Religion. Example: I live in the Bible Belt. If it were known that I am an atheist, I would have some serious problems with my neighbors. Like anonymous vandalism.

sexual orientation. there are folks who have a severe prejudice against homosexuals and a completely asinine hatred for those poor souls who are born with ambiguous sex. To post one's true orientation or birth defect leads to quite a bit of hatred and harassment from very ignorant people.

Metal illness/substance abuse. Folks with those issues really have to hide because of ignorance, prejudice and just the lack of compassion and understanding of people.

Unfortunately there are a lot of jerks out there who will so some horrible things to you if they don't like what you say. But the thing is, some things really need to be said. If folks kept quiet about racism, god knows what our society would be like. But some very brave people risked and in many cases lost their lives to speak up.

Anonymity helps folks who are afraid to step in and at the very least say, "I am out there and I agree. I can at least maybe vote or do something behind the scene to help make a change."

An Anonymous Poster.

I am not anonymous

[Skapare]

I am Skapare. Never heard of me? Then consider yourself lucky.

Re:I am not anonymous

[PuZZleDucK]

Swedish matrix fan? or am I missing something?

Works for me

[Greg Hullender]

I switched to using my real name a long time ago. I do find that it makes me a bit more cautious about what I say and how I say it. As others have mentioned, there does seem to be considerably less flaming on Facebook than in forums that permit (much less are dominated by) anonymous posts. I've even heard it said that Facebook's #1 innovation was producing a system that actually encouraged people to use their real names.

That's the crux of it, though; people use their real names on Facebook because it is in their own best interests. Yes, I'm sure Facebook has a policy, but I'm equally sure that the 99% compliance is not the result of Facebook's (no doubt) excellent enforcement mechanisms. To get people to comply with a real-names policy, you have to give them a proper incentive. For most sites, I'm not quite sure what that would be.

--Greg

Re:Works for me

[SwedishPenguin]

I think the difference though is that on Facebook, people have the ability to control (or at least the illusion of being able to control) who sees what, meaning (they believe) they can reveal for instance political views, religious views or sexual orientation without fear of for instance future employers finding out.

I think the best model is one like Slashdot where users who have previously proven themselves worthy of moderating get to moderate and those who appear to be doing a shit job at it don't, but without the need to reveal their true identity.

And of course revealing a full name is not the same for everyone. Some have very common names and can say whatever they want without it ever coming back to haunt them, while others have one-off names that uniquely identifies them. For a system like that to be fair, some sort of unique identifier would have to be assigned to each individual.

Re:Works for me

[Noitatsidem]

Too bad I use a nick name on FB.

important in some cases, impossible in some cases

[bcrowell]

A real names policy is important in some cases, is impossible in some cases, and is both important and impossible in some cases.

An example where it's important is online book reviews. You don't want authors reviewing their own books, or, e.g., university professors getting their grad students to give five-star reviews of their advisor's book.

An example where it's impossible is basically any web site that isn't selling a product. Presently, the main method for verifying people's real-world identities is to have them buy something with a credit card. For example, Amazon will let you review a book you didn't buy from them, but it won't let you post reviews if you've never bought anything from them. Sites like slashdot and stackexchange can't do this, which is how they verify that your account isn't a sock puppet. As an alternative to credit cards, it would be great if we could get a worldwide web of trust going, but it just ain't happening so far, due to network effects.

See my sig for a case where a real names policy is both vitally important and impossible to verify. This is a site I run that catalogs free books and accepts user-submitted reviews. I have a real names policy, but I have no good way to enforce it -- although in many cases it's transparently obvious that people are violating it (e.g., they post a review that is cut and pasted from their own web site), in which case I delete the review.

Rudeness VS Freedom & Truth

[RudyHartmann]

Some of the belligerent and rude comments on /. get to me sometimes. But I would rather have freedom of speech and hear the unvarnished truth than require proper etiquette. I think we might see more politeness and get lied to more often if real names were required.

Re:Rudeness VS Freedom & Truth

[Fri13]

Do you see more politeness in politics or in class rooms where people do know others names etc?

No.....

Re:It's a long term policy ... for control freaks

[SomePgmr]

Most of these "Real Name" schemes are really just "Facebook Auth Mandatory". The idea is that there's a barrier to making and using bogus accounts. Obviously that barrier isn't so terribly high, since you can always just make a bogus FB account for shit-talking.

Now obviously I haven't done any formal studies on the subject, and I don't know about this thing in Korea, but it does appear to have some minor effect on the general civility of conversation on some sites. No practical method is going to eradicate nasty posts, but the noise level is a little better.

The flip side is, on the rare occasion I post on a site that requires that (I really don't like it), I feel like I have to be really careful about voicing my opinion, for exactly the reason you mentioned.

Re:Only if no law exists.

[hairyfeet]

While I see no point in making everyone use real name accounts I don't see any reason why every site should allow ACs unless they just wants lots of trolls and flames. I mean once in a while we'll see an insightful AC comment but for every one of those we'll see a dozen "nigger faggot shill" comments that just derail conversations.

Now as for whether your real name matters? It depends on who you're asking. If its some nosy Nellie in HR or some potential employer? Then yes they would have a field day finding every stupid thing you have ever said on the net. if its the courts or the cops? Sheeeit, Google done got you by the balls friend, its really not hard to find out everything you've done between Google and the ISP, not to mention I'm sure they have that nifty software that looks for common phrases that people use in their everyday speech. Its been proven time and again whether speaking or typing we tend to fall into patterns which is easy enough to pick up with software or even by a person if they've read enough of your writings.

So while I'm 100% for free speech and think nobody should be forced to make real name accounts (although if they are too lazy to make up any account at all i don't see why they should be allowed to get in on the conversation) but more importantly maybe this will wake up John and Jane Public and make them realize that privacy on the net is an illusion. You'd be surprised how many people truly believe the net is like some magic black hole, where once it goes into the cloud its completely untraceable and they can be as big an asshole as they want and it can NEVER come back to bite them in the ass. Hell look at how many still haven't realized the shit they post on FB can come back to bite them in the ass. The public needs to be smacked with a big old cluebat in this area and if fighting to keep from having to use our real names is what it takes? Well then maybe some good will come from the fight.

And then we have a nazi world

[Snaller]

Where freedom of speech is long dead. But then you seem to embrace that.

Re:important in some cases, impossible in some cas

[bcrowell]

Sorry about the mangled logic in the above post. This part: "which is how they verify that your account isn't a sock puppet" is in the wrong place. It should refer to amazon, not slashdot and stackexchange.

Please define real name

[houghi]

Would it be better if I posted as Jonathan Robert Stevens or as houghi?
At least with houghi people will be aware that the name is not one that I have on my passport. John Stevens just sounds real, but isn't. As my friends also call me houghi, that name is more real then Stevens.
I can even add a fake address to it, if they want that kind of thing. Some sites ask for an American address and then I just make one up. If they verify if addresses exist, I often go for the address of the website/company.

It will lead to more internet related violence

[erroneus]

When you can put a name to a commenter, you can eventually put a face and location to the commenter as well. And it may not be "government" we have to most to fear but instead we can conveniently point to the apparently vast number of self-righteous nut-jobs who believe that thinking any way other than their way warrants a death sentence or other forms of harassment.

Try disagreeing with scientology using your real name and see what happens.

Re:Only if no law exists.

[Anonymous Coward]

> I don't see any reason why every site should allow ACs unless they just wants lots of trolls and flames. I mean once in a while we'll see an insightful AC comment but for every one of those we'll see a dozen "nigger faggot shill" comments that just derail conversations.

Confirmation bias much? Just went to a random article and searched for pure troll/offtopic/spam anonymous comments. There's 112 anonymous comments (out of 498) and about ten of them are pure offtopic/namecalling and another dozen with flamebaitish content. 6 comments are scored -1, 3 of those are anonymous.

IOW, contents of anonymous comments are mostly the same as for registered, though with 0 starting score you don't notice them so often amongst default 2 starting score for registered posters with good carma, and with ACs being in minority poor behaviour stands out more.

Actually, even on anonymous boards niggerfaggot crowd is pretty much localized and shooed from actual discussions, especially if you go to thematic boards and not /b/.

Didn't work on the WSJ

[nbauman]

The Wall Street Journal required full names on their comments pages.

It didn't work. They had just as many abusive, right-wing idiots as they would get with pseudonyms. I get more rational discussion at Slashdot, so you can imagine.

It's amazing what people will write under their full name. I could have gotten at least one or two people fired by reporting them to their employer, and I could have gotten at least 3 or 4 people visited by the secret service for shooting their mouths off about using their "second amendment rights" against Obama.

Re:Didn't work on the WSJ

[ultranova]

I could have gotten at least one or two people fired by reporting them to their employer,

Which is in itself a huge problem for free speech in a society where pretty much everything depends on your ability to stay employed. Eventually, we have to decide between giving up real name policies (I mean banning them through law), free speech, or the idea that people have to work for a (decent) living.

Currently, I'd say that it's the free speech that gets the axe.

Re:Only if no law exists.

[drinkypoo]

Requiring an account is a good thing because it lets you track reputation, but requiring real names is bad because it has a chilling effect on speech.

Requiring accounts is like requiring a SSL certificate, it doesn't prove who you're talking to but it does give a good indication that you're talking to the same person you were talking to yesterday.

ofcourse not.....

[metalmaster]

The pool of shit that exists on facebook is proof enough of that.

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.

Corporations like HBGary, right? WRONG!

[Anonymous Coward]

Tried to profit by creating sockpuppets galore and anonymous coward usage too! Proof? Ok, here goes (lots of it):

HBGary who got caught in the act doing it:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/02/16/945768/-UPDATED:-The-HB-Gary-Email-That-Should-Concern-Us-All

PERTINENT QUOTES/EXCERPTS:

"According to an embedded MS Word document found in one of the HBGary emails, it involves creating an army of sockpuppets, with sophisticated "persona management" software that allows a small team of only a few people to appear to be many, while keeping the personas from accidentally cross-contaminating each other. Then, to top it off, the team can actually automate some functions so one persona can appear to be an entire Brooks Brothers riot online... And all of this is for the purposes of infiltration, data mining, and (here's the one that really worries me) ganging up on bloggers, commenters and otherwise "real" people to smear enemies and distort the truth... "

&

"The Chinese Water Army"

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Chinese-Water-Army-Posts-Comments-For-Anyone-Who-Pays-236294.shtml

* Each doing the same bogus sockpuppet crap, & they're ALL/EACH scum too - just like trolls like you that do the same here...

However - the BEST source of evidence of that going on, especially on /., is probably the words of Mr. Bruce Perens on it:

"It just takes one Ubuntu sympathizer or PR flack to minus-moderate any comment. Unfortunately, once PR agencies and so on started paying people to moderate online communities, and to have hundreds of accounts each, things changed." - by Bruce Perens (3872) on Friday July 30, @03:55PM (#33089192) Homepage Journal

SOURCE -> http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1738364&cid=33089192

* Want MORE? I can show evidences, hard evidences no less, of far more than just a few idiots around here doing it too (tomhudson = barbara, not barbie being one of the worst).

APK

P.S.=> How's that, vs. what you said? The problem imo @ least, is that the sword cuts BOTH ways, but I have a REAL problem with idiots saying "it's freedom of speech" well, not when it's used to harm others untruthfully... when it's truth, you should have NO problem posting it as your REAL self, period, because as the saying goes? "The truth shall set you free!"...

... apk

Re:Only if no law exists.

[gl4ss]

AC's are necessary for getting some gold nugget bits of information. due to nda's and so forth.

the easiest way to leak stuff is to write it to slashdot as ac, really, and all such information has to be judged by what the information is. it's sort of beautiful in a way, a nugget of information that might be totally false but might be true. if people had to use their real names everywhere then some industry wide problems would never get discussed(typical problems at offices, with projects and so forth).

This is "If you have nothing to hide" again

[cybersquid]

I've heard this argument a lot over the years. In roughly chronological order:
If you have nothing to hide then...

• you won't mind the hidden microphone at work
• you won't object to random drug tests
• you don't care if we search you every day when you leave the office
• you won't mind if we monitor your email and eavesdrop on your phone coversation
• you won't mind supplying your real name

...and on and on. Personally, this argument always fails for me.

Re:I won't consider posting on a real-name site

[TaoPhoenix]

Yeah, I also come from the school of internet thought that said "limit your real name on the net, it's the content not the person". I've worked pretty hard to build a "Web Brand" across a bunch of sites, while searching my real name leads to a fairly tame set of results. As I like to say, anyone that motivated can figure out the connection in under an hour, but it's a base level of veneer to slow down the most important cases like snooping HR and spammers.

There was a site that made me REALLY angry when I was about to "post a comment using Yahoo" and then the comment software *ignored* my handle and grabbed my *real* first name off my Yahoo mail account!

So I agree: heavy handed real name policies make me suspicious in the larger context of overall surveillance moves going on.

No it won't

[Noitatsidem]

Simply because, until a website starts requiring an SS number, or similar, there's no true way to verify if somebody is using their real name. I don't use my legal name on ANY websites (even you, google+), that would be ridiculous. It's no different than letting an employer listen in on all of your one-on-one conversations, to your thoughts on politics. If it does get bad, really, more than anything, it will be effectively a form of corporate censorship.

Re:No it won't

[Noitatsidem]

I did just notice some irony between what I just stated, and my signature... Waiting to be modded down, lmao.

Re:No it wont.

[Noitatsidem]

Actually, very good point. Mod this coward up.

Re:Agreed, 110% & why... apk

[Z34107]

APK, you more than klansmen, neo-nazis, and pedophiles, challenge my faith in anonymous expression.

Why did they need a study?

[assertation]

Anyone who reads the comments of an online newspaper will see plenty of people with their pictures and real names getting into pissing contests.

Re:Only if no law exists.

[Schmorgluck]

Right-o, and this is the reason why, for example, pretty much every IRC server includes a nickserv, since IRC by itself doesn't include account registering.

Fuck no.

[Alex Belits]

^^^^^^^^^^^^ (real name)

FUCK NO.

Re:Censored Slashdot Post

[LocalH]

What an immense waste of a sub-200 UID.

Yes

[zAPPzAPP]

In that case I would stop posting, so obviously overall comment quality would be way down!

Jon Houghi

[tepples]

At least with houghi people will be aware that the name is not one that I have on my passport.

Not necessarily. Jon Houghi sounds just as plausible as Jon Stevens.

Re:So what are you trying to say?

[Z34107]

An "ad hominem" would be "HOSTS files are useless, because APK is a Nazi pedo." That you irritate me more than those other groups is just a simple statement of fact.

3/10, because I responded.

No.

[bmo]

As seen on Facebook, there are a lot of shit comments even under real names.

The real names meme is not about improving comment quality, but rather it is a direct attack on anonymity as a right. There are busybodies, government officials, corporatists, etc, that think that the right to anonymity should be abolished. Doing it online is a quick way of getting people to accept it offline.

And then comes the turnkey police state, whether intended or not.

The US used to be the land of second chances. It is quickly becoming the land of no chance, and people like ESR are helping this along gleefully, because people with the name "sexygirl69" offend him.

--
BMO

Why, hello there!

[bmo]

Hello my friend, how are you today?

--
BMO

Count me out

[Prophilius]

I just deleted my Google+ account because my real name popped up on a really bad review I wrote about a gun shop owned by tea-party types. Those are the last people on the planet I'd want knowing who I am in real life. Forcing people to use their real names is a sure way to fill the internet with mindless posts by teenage girls.

Re:Count me out

[daktari]

Teenage girls? For some reason I'm always tempted to attribute those astonishingly backward comments containing "retard/faggot/nigger/etc" words to the mindset of pimply pubescent BOYS utterly lacking any grace, respect or self worth. Sort of like tagging walls to prove that your existence is not futile, and that you do matter (despite your alcoholic deadbeat parents stating otherwise). Perhaps you're right, and it's been girls spilling their bile all along.

Re:Count me out

[Prophilius]

Teenage boys may be the ones who act disrespectfully now. The point I was making is that in the future, if we all must be nice with our real names, those same pre-pubescent boys simply won't post anything at all and the Internets will be full of teenage girls talking about puppies and sparlkes. In otherwords, a muted form of reality not unlike a Disney movie. The real world isn't like that. I'm sure there are many examples of people attempting to create utopian societies and failing miserably. Ongoing list of things I don't use: 1. Facebook 2. Spell Check

In my experience...

[Ryanrule]

Real name commenting does not improve my comments, it merely increases my regrets.

Real name?

[Dunbal]

OK, Prove that my real name is not Michael Mouse.

One could also look at this from the other side...

[mark-t]

... and see that since requiring real names did not significantly reduce the number of unwanted comments, then it would also seem to follow that requiring real names does not tend to adversely impact the level of anonymity that most people already enjoy online by simple virtue of a level of indifference towards them.

Re:Only if no law exists.

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous comments are particularly useful when we're discussing a controversial issue where customers/employees of a particular vendor really doesn't want to be identified. I can think of several inside sources in the past who have commented here under the Anonymous Coward banner and have been extremely insightful. How many of those people are going to bother signing up for a throwaway email account, signing up for a slashdot account, posting, and then cleaning up their browsing history just for our benefit?

Re:Only if no law exists.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see any reason why every site should allow ACs unless they just wants lots of trolls and flames.

Does it even matter? It's easy enough to ignore the comments, people don't have to go through the trouble of registering or logging in, and their karma can't be modded down into oblivion for having a contrary opinion.

Nutbars in category A, or category B

[phorm]

It's a funny argument. You have nutbars in "category A" who will happily troll on anonymously, posting crazy and hurtful shit just to get attention. Would a real-name requirement reduce these trolls? Perhaps.

However, then let's bring in category B. Somebody makes a perfectly sensical comment, but one that Nutbar B takes personal objection to (perhaps for religious/cultural reasons, or perhaps he's just easily offended). Now in the world of nicknames, Nutbar B's options are pretty much "flame back on the internet" and a little flamewar erupts.
In the world of real names, Nutbar B collates other information with your real-name to figure out just who you really are, and decides that he's going to meet you outside your home one day with a lead pipe or a spiked baseball bat.

So which is a better situation? That I might be able to say something hurtful, that some anonymous jerk might respond to me with hurtful comments, or that somebody might decide to track me down and enact something a little personal vengeance. Or maybe it's not even physical violence.

Perhaps your boss just found out your sexual orientation because you commented on a bulletin board. Or perhaps your insurance provider founds something out that made them decide to cut your coverage. There are a *lot* of reasons to go by a somewhat anonymous pseudoname and not your real-name, and trolling is only a small part of it.

Kim?

[dutchwhizzman]

In Korea, everyone is named Kim! Only the 0.09% of the population that has another name, has stopped from posting bad comments. Or is there another reason why only 0.09% of the people in South Korea maybe didn't change their habits? Causation and Correlation can be strange things.

Re:Only if no law exists.

[AssholeMcGee]

Even if people used there real names you would still have this stuff, people could create fake accounts and still make comments that derail any legit conversation. I know they could block your ISP in a poor attempt to prevent you from creating more accounts, if they suspend your previous or original account for abusive comments. People usually do not want to create accounts for a web site they may visit from time to time to comment on something. Back in the old days of the internet you could go on a site and say something Anonymously, or even add to another good comment, even rate the comment, now you cannot go on PBS's web site and comment on Frontline stories with out logging in. However more and more sites give you the option of using a existing account ie FC, Yahoo, to apply a comment on a story or something else. Using Moderators or automated programs to notice a foul word has been used, then remove the abusive comments would be the only way of limiting this kind of behavior.. Some sites have an automated moderator but the words one uses are in no way offensive and the comment never see the light of day, I have encountered this myself.

Anonymous users will stay anonymous

[rcasha2]

If someone doesn't want to show their real name, they won't use their real name. If the law requires them to use a real name they'll make up a fake name using real first and last names.

Re:One could also look at this from the other side

[TheSeatOfMyPants]

That doesn't follow at all -- most people that post obnoxious crap under their real name do so because they don't care if anybody in real life finds out they said it. A decent percentage of people with no interest in being obnoxious post anonymously because we don't want certain other individuals (employer, abusive ex, etc.) to be able to see what we're up to or find ways to contact us, or alternately because we want to speak out about certain problems or controversies without worrying it will result in a job loss, threats, vandalism of our home, or other real-life trouble. Removing anonymity won't improve the quality of comments because the people like us already weren't being aggressive and the trolls don't care who sees their behavior -- not because both groups don't care either way.

Re:Only if no law exists.

[Requiem18th]

On the other hand account tracking focuses too much on personality and too little on content. It's amazing how relatively civil and directed is conversation in sites like 4chan. Yes, you see a lot of "fucking nigger" comments, but it's up to you to pay them any mention and just ignoring them tends to diffuse them. Plus it's not the model's fault the content is shit if the users are assholes, the real measure of the content quality is how little spam there is, no viagra pill ads on sight anywhere.

Re:Only if no law exists.

[hairyfeet]

But what is to keep them from simply making a BS account for that stuff, hmmm? You can't say it'll be tracked back to them because frankly if the employer is monitoring their net access at work then they are already fucked whether they make an account or not, as the logs will be right there for the employer to see.

I mean you can register and list yourself as a 23 year old Swedish Gymnast, that don't make you one you know. Personally i don't trust any AC that says "He's the employee of company X" anymore than an AC that says he's part of a three letter agency. if he can't even waste 3 whole fucking minutes to stuff some bullshit into a reg form why in the hell should we trust their word on shit? I mean would it really kill him to label himself as John Q Fuckwad from BFE? Its not like he couldn't make up a bullshit Google mail account if a site needs one, hell there are a ton of sites that let you crank out throwaway email addresses, so what's the excuse?

Can be dangerous

[xenobyte]

From personal experience I know that participating in online debates using your real name can be downright dangerous. Some people apparently are too stupid to argue with words online and takes it out into the real world and make it physical - yes, violence.

Here's the background:

A political forum had a debate relating to the Muhammad cartoons. At the same time they changed the forum to show the participants real names, which means that if you have a unique name (as I do), all it takes is a look in a phone book (or similar online) and your address is found. Now, in a heated debate like this one, you're bound to trigger at least one moron who then sends you a letter containing the classic threat: "I know where you live - stop saying XXX". At the time I had my old (and sick) dad living with me and I was afraid he'd get hurt. I'm not afraid myself as I know that if someone shows up, I'll take him out or die trying.

After the first people reported receiving threats, the forum died. Everybody stopped posted because they didn't want to risk their families. So the forced use of real names killed the debates instead of making them better.

What triggered the threat I received? - Comments about Muhammad being a pedophile. This cannot be refuted; it's a historical fact that he married Aisha when she was 6 or 7 and consummated the marriage (had sexual intercourse) when she was 9 or 10. That clearly makes him a pedophile by todays standards, and probably also by some ancient standards.

Re:ac comments are marginally useful

[Johann Lau]

I can't count the times I touched soul anonymously with someone who was anonymous as well.

Kinda like it's nice to be among many people on a summer day, and everybody is treating each other nicely, even though they don't know the full name, usually not even the first name. It just doesn't matter.

ID is the most noble part of a human. But then again it doesn't come into being as easily as a human. The human can come to be anywhere, in the most reckless way and without good reason, but never ID. That is why it is recognized, if it is good, while a human can be as good as they want, and will never be recognized.

You could say, the human is only the mechanical holding appliance for the ID. The ID gets put into his breast pocket, just like stocks get put into a safe, which isn't valuble in and of itself, but contains things of value.

But still, one could say the human is necessary for the ID in some ways. The ID is the most important bit, I tip my hat to ID, but without the human that belongs to it, it wouldn't be possible, or at least not quite.

-- Berthold Brech, "Der Pass", in a shitty ad-hoc translation by me, because I couldn't find one.

Re:Censored Slashdot Post

[Teun]

Ah OK, so the previous post was by someone else.
Does not make the story any more correct.

May I ask, what went wrong in your life?

the net has a very long memory...

[TeddyR]

Unique accounts should be required. But not "real names". The problem is that many HR departments (I know of at least one that does not admit to doing it but I know for a fact does) will as part of their research/vetting of a potential employee actually check for the name/email/phonenumber on resume on MANY online sources (myspace, facebook, google, and USENET) at the very least.

The problem is that once the information is out there, there is no way to control what it is used for. Many poeple that were active on usenet in the 90s would never have thought that their posts would last longer than the longest USENET retention period of the time. Google ended up purchasing dejanews and all their backup spools (http://googlepress.blogspot.com/2001/02/google-acquires-usenet-discussion.html) to be included in googles archives. [BTW; Google also aquired MANY other backups of USENET spools from other sources as well to round out gaps in their archives]

- An innocent comment about "Apple" now for example may cost someone their job in 3-5 years when Apple buys out the company that they work for which is currently competition...

Another problem that I have with Real Name requirement is that it would make it extremely easy for the crooks to impersonate someone and commit identity theft.....

Korea

[crossmr]

it's not quite as simple as that. most websites require a realname for sign-up. you can still use an alias. It only comes into play in the case of legal action. If someone wants to sue you because of a libelous statement, then there is a real record of who made that post. this is a lot more common because South Korea has strong anti-defamation laws. So everyone in Korea can still post with an alias, and unless they make a criminal statement they can still say all kinds of ass hat like things.

Re:Censored Slashdot Post

[b1t r0t]

http://slashdot.org/~Jeremiah+Cornelius

Nobody. Fucking. Cares.

Take your paranoid CONINTELPRO crap to infowars/prisonplanet where they will love it.

slipping away

[blagooly]

A sign that google is slipping. I do not know how people so close to these things, so involved in tech can go so horridly wrong, but it happens a lot. Digg, eg. I have read numerous interviews with Kevin R, never does he admit that selling the front page killed the beast.

Re:Censored Slashdot Post

[flyneye]

Sometimes a Troll is a troll. Sometimes a Troll is just the bearer of unpopular news, opinions or facts.
Best to keep them Anonymous. The public can talk about flowers,lollypops and puppies on full disclosure sites.
The world is a suck ass place with unethical fuckheads running it who don't want Anonymous Trolls spilling their evil doing.
Obama for instance, wul duh, he's got a pain in the ASSange. See how evil triumphs once anonymity goes to shit.
Omama is also the one hot to read all your email, hear all your calls and put you in a data base of suspicious terrorist fuckheads if you oppose his stupid cowardly Repubmocrat ways of farming us all like cattle.
I'll even say it without being anonymous. FUCK THE POWER! Hard and with NO LUBE!

Re:It's a long term policy ... for control freaks

[History's Coming To]

Indeed. I like to think that when I comment on something I generally post something that is reasonable and well argued, even if it's against the general consensus. If I have to post with my real name then I can guarantee there will be times when I simply don't, not because my comment is distasteful or flamebait, but because sometimes I don't want to leave a bunch of data out there which can be traced back to me, I'm one of those weirdos who started using the internet in the early 90s and was taught not to leave too much personal information online.

It may stop a certain amount of troll posting, but it will also stop people posting reasonable and well thought out arguments. As a non-FB user I was looking forward to Google+, but deleted my account as soon as the real name policy came in. Sorry, but if you want my input you have to allow pseudonymous posting. It all depends on the signal to noise ratio at the end of the day.

Re:Censored Slashdot Post

[flyneye]

Say, now that is cool! Most of that stuff was just floatin around in my head like it was my idea or something.
Sometimes it's nice to see someone else out there with some moxie. Good to know I'm not alone on the Planet of the Apes.

Likely to increase ad-hominem arguments

[ET3D]

Using your full name will enable people to easily guess (though they may be wrong) your gender and ethnicity. That's great trolling material.

There are better ways to get rid of trolls

[questionsaddict]

I think that efforts could be spent on troll-filters instead... I remember getting hundreds of mails on my inbox and how nice it was when i got my first decent spam-filter. With current context-detecting software around, i think its not so farfetched to think on something like that..
True, it could mean a risk for free speech, but troll-filters would get better in time and as long as you can easily check the comment you shouldnt be too worried. There could even be a vote mark so the comment 'unhides' itself if the trolling was worth reading...
Look at slashdot.. I dont know how the comments get voted, but the general approach of the site is to hide uninteresting posts, and it works pretty well IMO..

Re:Only if no law exists.

[drinkypoo]

On the other hand account tracking focuses too much on personality and too little on content.

That's cool for a site made up of short blurbs and image posts, but here on Slashdot where you expect people to talk about serious things and have some continuity the existence of anonymous cowards harms, I think, more than it helps. It's not like you need to give your real name when you sign up, just some email address. I happened to use mine (and I expose it) but it's not like it's a requirement.

Re:Censored Slashdot Post

[samzenpus]

Normally we try not to feed the trolls but since this has started to pop up in comments, here's Soulskills response to this tired accusation when it was brought up on Reddit last week. http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/wzmdu/censored_slashdot_post_describes_in_explicit/c5hzate. Or you could read the FAQ about why we don't post a story. The relevant part being:
Could you explain why my submission was declined?

This is harder than it sounds. We try to select the most interesting, timely, and relevant submissions, but can only run a fraction of those submitted; there are probably as many reasons for stories to get declined as there are stories. Think positive: read our submissions guidelines for some hints about increasing the chances that we'll run yours.

Re:One could also look at this from the other side

[mark-t]

A decent percentage of people with no interest in being obnoxious post anonymously because we don't want certain other individuals (employer, abusive ex, etc.) to be able to see what we're up to or find ways to contact us,

Could you be more specific, and cite sources that have performed some studies which can confirm some specific percentage? I'm not saying that the demographic you've described above is necessarily a small number in terms of absolute magnitude, but I'm inclined to think that the overall percentage of people that it consists of is probably pretty tiny. I'd wager that it might even be of the same order of magnitude as that 0.09% figure reduction of obnoxious comments reduction mentioned in the article summary (again, of course, even that tiny a percentage of a large population is still going to be a lot of people... but if the percentage reduction in such comments is too small to be concerned with, then, and please forgive me for playing devil's advocate here, why should a similar percentage of impact on people who actually desire anonymity be of any greater concern?)

What about moderation... by humans?

[braindrainbahrain]

If they really want to reduce the amount of offensive postings, they would moderate their forums. I find that the sites with human-moderated forums are very much clean of the drivel you usually see on other sites. Granted, human moderation brings its own set of issues, such as the prejudices of the moderator, but the results are plain to see. Just compare a human moderated site, such as boargamegeek to an unmoderated one, such as IMDB , or Yahoo News.

Re:Agreed, 110% & why... apk

[Zontar The Mindless]

I would prefer that you not post anything that I might accidentally happen to agree with.

Thanks!

Re:Only if no law exists.

[mcgrew]

It's not like you need to give your real name when you sign up, just some email address. I happened to use mine (and I expose it) but it's not like it's a requirement.

Sorry, but I have a hard time believing your real name is "drinkypoo".

Re:You're Zontar The Mindless, right?

[Zontar The Mindless]

Oooh, colour me butt-hurt, I guess.

Re:Only if no law exists.

[drinkypoo]

Sorry, but I have a hard time believing your real name is "drinkypoo".

by drinkypoo (153816) <martin.espinoza@gmail.com>

HTH, HAND.

if this poppycock keeps up

[KingBenny]

someone's gonna make a ton with 'the first social network where yo don't have to use your real name'

Re:Only if no law exists.

[mcgrew]

Ah, I missed the email address. Very good!

Re:Only if no law exists.

[cavebison]

The simple answer to all this is - look at Reddit or any normal discussion forum that functions well without real names. There are many of them.

Reddit & /. have proven methods of self-regulating with mods, and normal discussion forums are often collections of people with the same interest, so why would they misbehave? They're environments where your online identity is centred around *reputation within the space*, which makes your real identity irrelevant. In fact Reddit is divided into areas of interest (subreddits) where people also tend to want to maintain their status and the general quality of the group.

So the problem with social media is not a problem of identification *of the individual*, it a problem of identification *with the medium*. Reddit and other forums have a high level of investment and identification with the group. If you're on Twitter or FB commenting on other people's pages and stuff, which have little blowback to your own online persona - you don't lose anything in the online space - then there is obviously little incentive to behave.

TL;DR: Everyone cares about the reputation of their online profile, pseudonym or not. Twitter & FB don't have reputation systems, so bad behaviour has no consequence. On forums with a reputation system (ie. most of them), behaviour is generally not a problem. A rep system is a carrot - forcing real names is a stick.