Huffington: Trolls Uglier Than Ever, So We're Cutting Off Anonymous Commenting

v3rgEz writes "The days of anonymous commenting on The Huffington Post are numbered. Founder Arianna Huffington said in a question-and-answer session with reporters in Boston Wednesday that the online news site plans to require users to comment on stories under their real names, beginning next month. 'Freedom of expression is given to people who stand up for what they’re saying and not hiding behind anonymity,' Huffington said."

Comments

Re:Awesome

[Archfeld]

Tell that to the founding fathers and the many many anonymously written and distributed pamphlets that stirred public sentiment for the cause of rebellion/revolution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Anonymous_speech

Re:Or down moderation

[bfandreas]

Don't use sarcasm or irony on the internet.
Irony is a very dangerous thing if it isn't backed up by facial expression. There is a reason why professional journalists don't use it outside of polemic opinion pieces. If you want to avoid any misunderstanding you will have to say what you mean.
The same obviously goes for ironic sarcasm.

Humor itsself lives by its context. You will need to make sure everybody has the same context or you will also cause misunderstandings. You'll also have to keep in mind that context might be a cultural one. On the internet you will meet a lot of people in all walks of life, of any creed, of any nationality an presumably a couple of dogs. Don't expect to be funny to everybody no matter how hilarious you are. One person's humor is another person's troll.

Re:Awesome

[Camael]

The problem with moderation systems is that they tend to support the populist view, which is not always the correct one.

The problem with that line is that it presupposes that there is one correct view. Who gets to decide what is correct?

The premise is that posts will be moderated up for correctness and down for incorrectness, but this is not what happens, as the posts ending up at the top usually represent the prevailing ideological belief of the majority of users

I disagree with your premise. Given that every individual invariably believes his own world view to be the correct one, I don't think its even workable. Further, the prevailing ideological belief of the majority is often reflected not just in forums, but in our society at large. Its just the way it works. I think we should strive for the more modest goal of ensuring that views that contradict the prevailing ideological belief of the majority at least get heard, which is achievable.

For sites that want to foster honest discussion, I say strip away the moderation and 'reputation' systems, and leave it anonymous.

I believe that would work counter to your intended effect, since the trolls effectively would have free reign to drown out any message that they deem 'incorrect'. Honest discussion cannot take place when other parties are working actively to prevent it, for example by spam posting, by posting vulgarities or inane comments, by burying posts and many other ways you should be familiar with.

Re:Awesome

[Kjella]

The problem with that line is that it presupposes that there is one correct view. Who gets to decide what is correct?

I think you're twisting the grandparent's words, the point was that truth is not a popularity contest. Moderation often leads to posts towing the party line being modded up and posts contradicting it being modded down, there's lots and lots of examples of groupthink and cliques of people reinforcing each other's opinion in a closed loop. That moderation also tends to "drown out any message they deem incorrect", just in a different way.

I disagree with your premise. Given that every individual invariably believes his own world view to be the correct one, I don't think its even workable.

Just because I overall disagree with your position there's still a difference between a cohoerent argument and incoherent rambling. Decisions are not black and white rather there are pros and cons, we just disagree on how severe and what matters the most. A forum looking to promote a meaningful discussion is looking to bring out informative facts, insightful arguments and relevant interesting subjects while trying to suppress the noise of disruptive trolls, ad hominem flamebait, things going totally off-topic and points that are entirely redundant so there's a good signal-to-noise ratio. It's not supposed to be."+1, Right" and "-1, Wrong", that's what polls are for and the moderation isn't supposed to be a mini-poll. It just gets abused that way.