Will Real Name Policies Improve Comments?

It's a long term policy by Tim+Ward · 2012-07-29 07:23 · Score: 5, Insightful

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 by Znork · 2012-07-29 07:52 · Score: 4, Insightful

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 by Jane+Q.+Public · 2012-07-29 08:08 · Score: 4, Insightful

"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 by Gerzel · 2012-07-29 08:33 · Score: 3, Insightful

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 by blue+trane · 2012-07-29 09:54 · Score: 2

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 by jonfr · 2012-07-29 10:04 · Score: 2

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 by assertation · 2012-07-29 10:07 · Score: 3

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.

John Smith by kc9jud · 2012-07-29 07:23 · Score: 2

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

Re:John Smith by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-29 07:51 · Score: 5, Interesting

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.

Slashdot statistics? by punit_r · 2012-07-29 07:27 · Score: 5, Insightful

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? by dustmite · 2012-07-29 08:37 · Score: 2

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? by SuperKendall · 2012-07-29 09:20 · Score: 2

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.

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Betteridge's Law of Headlines by El_Muerte_TDS · 2012-07-29 07:31 · Score: 3, Interesting

So, no.

Link to the TechCrunch article by bwintx · 2012-07-29 07:31 · Score: 4, Interesting

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/

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No. by ildon · 2012-07-29 07:32 · Score: 5, Insightful

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. by Darkness404 · 2012-07-29 07:38 · Score: 2

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.

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won't make a difference by thetoadwarrior · 2012-07-29 07:36 · Score: 4, Insightful

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

Re:won't make a difference by Hentes · 2012-07-29 08:23 · Score: 4, Interesting

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.

Sort of works on Facebook, but: by Hazelfield · 2012-07-29 07:40 · Score: 3, Interesting

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.

Just makes comments less interesting by hawguy · 2012-07-29 07:41 · Score: 5, Insightful

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 by Dachannien · 2012-07-29 08:14 · Score: 4, Funny

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 by IntlHarvester · 2012-07-29 08:40 · Score: 3

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.

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Re:Just makes comments less interesting by cpm99352 · 2012-07-29 17:20 · Score: 2

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.....

"improve" by kenorland · 2012-07-29 07:45 · Score: 2

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.

re important lesson for YouTube, Facebook, Google by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-29 07:50 · Score: 4, Interesting

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.

Re:Yes by Sir_Sri · 2012-07-29 07:55 · Score: 4, Informative

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.

Let's name the subjects: by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-29 08:04 · Score: 3, Interesting

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 by Skapare · 2012-07-29 08:04 · Score: 4, Funny

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

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Rudeness VS Freedom & Truth by RudyHartmann · 2012-07-29 08:19 · Score: 2

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.

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Re:Only if no law exists. by hairyfeet · 2012-07-29 08:23 · Score: 5, Insightful

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.

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Re:Only if no law exists. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-29 08:57 · Score: 4, Informative

> 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/.

Re:Only if no law exists. by drinkypoo · 2012-07-29 09:12 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.

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Re:Maybe "93 Escort Wagon" IS my real name... by DMUTPeregrine · 2012-07-29 09:22 · Score: 2

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).

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Re:Only if no law exists. by gl4ss · 2012-07-29 09:55 · Score: 3, Informative

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).

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This is "If you have nothing to hide" again by cybersquid · 2012-07-29 09:59 · Score: 2

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 by TaoPhoenix · 2012-07-29 10:04 · Score: 2

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.

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Re:Only if no law exists. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-07-29 15:17 · Score: 2, Insightful

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:One could also look at this from the other side by TheSeatOfMyPants · 2012-07-29 18:21 · Score: 2

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.

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the net has a very long memory... by TeddyR · 2012-07-29 21:56 · Score: 2

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.....

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Re:Censored Slashdot Post by samzenpus · 2012-07-30 01:49 · Score: 2

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.

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Will Real Name Policies Improve Comments?

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