I was too busy yesterday enjoying beautiful spring weather, a beautiful baby granddaughter and exciting NCAA basketball to join a lively Twitter discussion of anonymous comments.
One of the primary discussants (it wasn’t combat, but it was pretty vigorous) was Mathew Ingram of GigaOm, who blogged about the topic (and has a link to a search string that pulls much of the discussion together). Steve Yelvington also blogged on the topic, noting that an ounce of leadership is worth a pound of management.
They summarize the issue well in detail, so I will summarize more broadly (and, admittedly, oversimplify) here:
One side (led on Twitter yesterday by Howard Owens) argues that anonymous comments inevitably become ugly and you have a more civil, responsible online discussion if you require people to participate by their real, verified names, as newspapers have always done in letters to the editor.
The other side (led by Ingram) embraces the freewheeling discussion of the anonymous comments, noting that responsible moderation of and engagement with the conversation can rein in (or remove) the ugliest exchanges, while keeping debate lively and honest. Without anonymity, whistleblowers are less likely to join the discussion, they rightly note (and the other side will rightly note that the anonymous bigots way outnumber the anonymous whistleblowers in story and blog comments). And besides, don’t we sometimes want to know how ugly people can be?
This is one of the most pressing issues I face as I work on community engagement plans for the metro Washington local news site for Allbritton Communications (we’ll have a name soon, so I can stop using that mouthful, or at least use it as an explainer following the name). And in Washington, we have lots of government workers or workers for government contractors or nonprofit associations who might be actually barred or strongly inhibited from commenting publicly on some issues.
I wonder if we can have it both ways. How would it work to provide an incentive for people submitting to some form of verified identity or registering through Facebook Connect (not verified, but Facebook is a place where most people identify themselves accurately)?
What if those comments appear on the same page as the story or post, and you have to click to another page to read or join the anonymous comments? Or could you put them all on one page, but the anonymous comments go to the bottom while comments from verified users go to the top. Either of these approaches would disrupt the flow of conversation (for instance, an anonymous response to a verified-ID comment would appear on a different page or far below). On the other hand, the real flow of comments is often pretty uneven, with responses appearing several comments apart from the original comment, and with some appearing in chronological order and others posting most recent comments on top.
Would some other incentives work to encourage verified ID? Some gifts or site benefits? Would it be sufficient to require user profiles but allow unverified screen names? So I might reveal something about myself in the user profile, and at the least, you could click to my profile and see all my comments in one place and decide whether you think I’m a sage or a jerk.
Would some user-rating system help sort comments, giving favor to verified users and trusted anonymous users? This would allow the community to identify the trolls and banish them to some sewer where people who wanted to read the ugly stuff could find it but the rest of us wouldn’t happen across it.
When I was at Gazette Communications, I was pleased to work with Rich Gordon’s class at the Medill School at Northwestern University on development of News Mixer (alas, never implemented at the Gazette). We may explore using News Mixer or something like it.
I would appreciate your suggestions. And I’d especially appreciate your name. But for now, I’m not insisting or verifying. (By the way, I’m Steve Buttry.)
I think the ideological divide over this subject suggests that maybe there is not *one* right way to do it. Maybe the better solution is to allow user-level customization. It would be an interesting experiment.
What if the system analyzed each comment for degree of abusiveness (DISQUS pro does this) and each site user could set their threshhold of comfort. They choose the degree of potential offensiveness will they tolerate. They can choose to only see registered/verified users, or see everything.
Each user could star their favorite users and see them elevated, and block users they never want to see again. The aggregate number of favorite and blocks per user could also be the basis for a reputation system for the whole site.
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Also see my elaboration below.
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Steve,
Interesting debate. Here is my two cents, for what they are worth.
I am not convinced that requiring people to register or use their real name curtails the crazies. A troll is a troll is a troll. It doesn’t matter if the person uses his or her real name or a fake name. If a person flouts the societal norms of good taste and civility, I can’t see how requiring them to use their real name will turn that around. (Being a decent person has to come from inside the person.)
Perhaps it may in some cases. Some people might be embarrassed to act like a fool, using their real name. But I suspect most people who I’d consider fools on online comment threads don’t think they are being fools. Hence, the name thing doesn’t matter.
I think requiring registration is more apt to deter the normal folks, and I think unmoderated comments deter the normal folks. I am actually working on a research project on this idea right now, and some of the literature suggests that most people don’t want to comment on a site where they feel like the other commenters are unlike them. (Read “unlike them” as crazy, flamers.)
That seems a powerful argument for Ingram’s point of view — which I agree with — that the answer is responsible moderation and engagment with commentors. I think bloggers need to act sort of a facilitators on the comment stream. I’ve heard this role compared to being the host at a party. You work the room, making sure people are interested and engaged, but you don’t let your guests get attacked.
However, I do like your idea of a user-rating system for commenters. In reading the comments on my local news web site, I quickly learned the names of the trolls and knew to avoid them. I think user ratings could exert some societal pressure on people to act, well, decently.
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I have to say that I find it quite odd seeing Ingram’s name being used in the same sentence as “responsible moderation” and “engagement.” I used to try to participate on his blog many, many years ago – the operative words being “try” and “used to” because I don’t recall ever having a single comment published.
I do make an effort to comment on topics that interest me – these days, that means the odd A-lister’s blog, but mostly those which inspire involvement and community feeling. A few that quickly come to mind are {grow} and auomt8.
In my estimation and experience, having participated in forums, blogs, microblogs, socnets and IM, the best way to handle comments is to publish them. Funny enough (and perhaps much to the chagrin of those who prefer to exercise control over who gets to post a comment), advancements in search, have allowed us to catch unpublished comments from time to time (i.e. example tweet on the matter and reaction).
It’s also worth noting that moderation can also happen spontaneously through crowd wisdom, active commentary and peer review. Participation and engagement have little to do with a persons influence or credentials, and everything to do with allowing everyone an opportunity to share their thoughts and opinions. 2¢
Joseph
@RepuTrack
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I don’t know the answer, but would make a comment. The web has revived a very old practice. It was common in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries for newspapers to print letters without an author’s name. They’d be signed “A taxpayer” or “A faithful reader” or with some name out of Greek or Roman mythology. I don’t know if the newspapers bothered to insist on knowing the true name of the author. Perhaps the practice varied from newspaper to newspaper. Newspapers later forbade correspondents to sign letters with a pseudonym, except in circumstances where the editor was satisfied some real harm might come to the correspondent if his or her name was published and the letter contained information that should be made public. (The editor, of course, would still verify the correspondent’s real identity.) There are good reasons for insisting that real names be put to letters. One is that any coward can snipe from behind a bush, and if you have something to say, sign your name to it. I suppose it could be answered that even cowardly snipers sometimes have something relevant to say. But the 18th century practice of using pseudonyms has been revived for web commentary. I am not sure if this came to be because it was a thought-out decision or was a result of the web commentary software used. If it is a good idea to allow anonymous or pseudonymous comments online, when why not allow them in the printed newspaper too? Yet the majority of newspapers apply the 18th century rule to online comments, and the modern rule to printed letters to the editor. Why?
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Interesting comparison, Tim. I believe the reversion to 18th century norms is/was simply because people believe the internet should be open to all. I use pseudonyms because I don’t want to make it easy for employers and future employers to nose into my private business. (It’s bad enough that in the US they can run your credit report while evaluating you, among other needless invasions of privacy.) When I comment, I’m happy to submit to whatever the prevailing norms are for that community, for example, ratings or having a comment rejected and never appear.
There are many wonderful connections between publishing in the 18th century and publishing today with the internet. I’d not realized fake names were another link.
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Like everyone else,we’ve gone round and round on this topic. You might be interested in our study of this and related issues of online credibility, which we’ve posted at http://www.VictoriaAdvocate.com/survey.
We also are leaning toward creating a two-tiered level of community participation with the top one being some system that rewards those who use their real names and contribute constructively to the community conversation.
That’s easier said than done, however, so we’re eager to see what others come up with in this regard.
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From my (admittedly brief) experience running a community site when I was at the AZ Daily Star in Tucson, we tried a few of the suggestions you mentioned above to varying degrees of success. The best way we found to foster reputation management was that we had everyone register and when they did, they automatically got a user profile page that automatically aggregated all of their commenting activity. So even if they never filled out any personal info, over time the totality of their comments gave a pretty good representation of who they were and how they were likely to behave. What we didn’t expect was that as their site persona developed over time they became less likely to flame because they felt accountable to the reputation of their avatar (of course this was all before Facebook Connect existed, so now you can just let Facebook do all the work for you).
I don’t think spatially separating anonymous and verified comments will work (too disruptive of the flow), but you could make anonymous comments automatically hidden and visitor has to click on “view this comment” to see it. That way everything is in the right chronological order but there’s an incentive to post as yourself and be immediately seen.
Finally, as a former Medill grad I was very impressed with NewsMixer (I wasn’t part of the team that worked on it though) and agree that parts of it could make a good foundation for a robust commenting tool.
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To expand on Jeff’s idea of user customization, you might additionally allow users to set their preferences so they only see registered users. When users must register and log in to post comments, they are typically (but certainly not always) more civilized and have something of value in their offerings.
– Rick Thomason
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[…] and therefore is pretty interested in different approaches to reader comments. Steve’s post is here. John Temple also said he is interested in the discussion — John is the former editor of the […]
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Very important topic.
Here’s one highly unscientific data point in support of some kind of identity protection: Currently I work in this industry, and I do have opinions about how well it’s securing its future and about what its leadership thinks is important. Because of the nature of my current employment and the ever-present possibility that I may need to seek new employment, I feel constrained from participating in any online discussion where my opinion may be contrary to that of industry leadership if the site requires me to reveal my identity (and I even feel as though I’m taking a risk here using just my first name).
I would like to be part of the discussion, I would be willing to include a disclaimer in any comment about why I’ve requested anonymity, and I would be willing for the site owner to verify my identity before I was allowed to post anything, if my identity could be kept private when I comment. Call me chicken, but I need a paycheck, and I’m sure I’m not alone.
I realize that community sites are different from industry-specific ones, but I think the same concerns may apply: people who take unpopular stances in a community do so at some risk, in some cases up to and including property damage and personal injury. I personally would hate to see thoughtful discussion self-censored out of very real fear.
I take all of Howard Owens’ points and I congratulate him on having built a respectful, engaged community. I would love to hear how his policy holds up in the face of a really divisive community issue, where people could start throwing bricks through windows. My fear is that his thoughtful commenters would retreat; I’d love to be wrong.
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Is it a good thing, Jeff, that people not read that which they may find offensive? There might be a diamond or two in all that dung. I suppose the question is whether it should be the role of a human moderator — let us hope not filtering software alone — to make that decision for them in the same manner that the editor decides what letters they get to read in the newspaper whether the contents may offend them or not.
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Free speech has always been a messy thing, Tim. I venture that most of us here are the “defend to my death your right to say it” type of people. But many other people place just as much value on their right not to have to see what they don’t find acceptable. It would be better to give them tools to remain involved in the community than to send them packing.
The broad idea I’m stating is that members of a community are heterogeneous. They don’t all think or act the same, so any time a site tries to push one standard on all of them, someone will have a problem.
Think of this like movies or TV. We could simply say to protect our “standards” nothing vulgar or violent can be shown. Or we can say that each program and film must have a rating that lets each user decide whether it is appropriate for him or her.
I think the latter is clearly better for serving everyone’s entertainment needs, and it could be better for site comments as well. Score the comments on roughly how aggressive, vulgar, verified, credible, etc. they are, and let each user decide how they want to filter.
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Thanks to all for the good suggestions and lively discussion. Thanks also to Mathew Ingram both for linking to this post and for sharing links to others discussing the topic:
John Bracken: http://bracken.wordpress.com/2010/03/20/on-distributed-trust-identity-reputation-and-anonymity/
John Temple: http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/18/more-news-about-omidyars-peer-news/
Chris Garrett: http://www.chrisg.com/put-down-the-mask/
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[…] 2] Mathew pointed to this post by Steve Buttry, who wants it both […]
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I see both points of view. I’m curious as to the effect of ‘real names’ on what some have called the gender imbalance in commenting. Does that mean even more men on the boards and a (greater) chilling effect for women, or does the ”nicer” settling actually encourage more gender balance?
Elaine, in her comment, brings up a good point about honest discussion being thwarted by fear of a differing view even on quotidian topics than supervisors, a somewhat broader category than straight-up whistleblowers.
Reading through the comments, it looks like FB Connect comes across as a tempting, inexpensive solution. “Let them do all the work” solves one problem — but what is the effect of giving away the core of the registration data that is so valued by advertising and analytics in figuring out a site’s audience? (I know FB analytics gives you an overview).
In any event, I’d be interested in the regi, analytics answer from people who have done the integration.
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Steve, regarding the issue of real ID in a DC community, setting aside the idea of other management mechanism for a moment — there is also point to be made about deciding what your business model is. Do you want a community where people can discuss things intelligently and with a degree of civil behavior, or is it more important to get insider information (though unvetted, it might amount to nothing more than rumor and half-truths).
Me, I’d choose real identity because as a credible news source, I would want to diminish the ability of insiders to promote rumor and misinformation. But maybe your organization will have different goals, and that’s fine.
Gina Chen might want to see my comments on Mathew’s post where I discuss using real ID more effectively to ban the crazies.
And to Tim Jaques, there’s a reason newspapers evolved away from anonymous letters. It’s called credibility.
Anonymity on the web is very much an accident of software development, not a planned feature. There is no reason to hold it as a sacred right (as some do) that must be applied to all online communication.
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Truest words spoken, by Howard Owens:
“Anonymity on the web is very much an accident of software development, not a planned feature. There is no reason to hold it as a sacred right (as some do) that must be applied to all online communication.”
You don’t have to require verified names—isn’t that impossible?—but why allow free-form anonymous comments with unverified email addresses? That’s software. If someone wants to use a handle or nickname, fine. As long as only one person is registered to that address and the email account is verified by link-back after registration.
These simple extra steps doesn’t eliminate trolls, but it greatly discourages the knee-jerk posters and special-interest groups that will gang-bang a board on a topic or article they disagree. In Washington, these special- and political-interest groups have staffers coordinating these online responses and igniting their constituencies.
Basically, if you don’t want this element crawling into your house, stop leaving the windows open.
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Steve,
I’m with you on this. I don’t think it’s per se all or nothing, and your ideas for creating incentives for comments with names (or just better comments in general) are great. I’ve been talking with Mark Katches @KatchesCW of California Watch about this – they are looking at creating a system in which users can rate comments. I was surprised at how few mainstream news sites do this as one way to get better comments.
I lean toward Howard’s side in this debate, although I see Mathew’s point that in larger sites it may be hard to verify everyone. However, to me, 100 percent enforcement isn’t per se necessary. What matters is a very clearly stated policy and general awareness in the community that this is something you value and will encourage to the best of your ability. There will always be some trolls no matter what, but I agree with Howard that in the bigger picture the level of discussion will be raised if people post as themselves. If they truly have a legit reason for anonymity, perhaps they could make private arrangement with the site editor, which is how it works at most news orgs for anonymity in news stories.
I also put some stock in the argument that over time the boundaries between public and private continue to fade away in the age of Facebook et. al. I think we will see a gradual move toward using real names as the cultural norm, albeit with some backlash no doubt along the way.
Carrie Brown-Smith
@brizzyc
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Boy, is this a topic I know REALLY well.
I’ve been moderating a very lively and mostly anonymous online community for years now, at our TV station’s Website.
I’d require authentication via JS-Kit, but it doesn’t play well with our current Web platform. We change that in a couple months, and if I can turn it on without squelching ALL conversation, I might.
It’s wonderful and aggravating and inspiring and frustrating. I have critics and trolls who love to push my very large buttons, and I have my defenders who kindly razz the razzers without me having to lift a finger.
I also put MY name and photo on every post, and vow never to fire back anonymously. That makes me a target, but I do get to make those wonderful judgment calls on what’s ‘offensive’ and what’s not – and boy are people clever in their phrasing, at times.
But we’ve gotten many a story tip/idea from those anonymous rabbles, so the abuse of anonymity is something we put up with.
Oh, and about Facebook – I’ve been amazed how many folks will make similar comments to the anonymous masses on our Facebook page where of course their name and often photo show as well. So yes, requiring names doesn’t kill lively debate, or sometimes, the headaches that ensue.
We made the front page of the paper here recently when, under subpoena, we provided the comment file from our comment provider, JS-Kit – with IP addresses – to a couple facing IRS and FBI investigation who had been trashed by many in comments on our series of stories. We were harshly criticized by some for not championing a ‘privacy protection’ court fight, at whatever cost. But these were not sources – they were people abusing anonymity to trash folks who don’t even face a charge (yet?) – don’t they deserve to know who is accusing them? (And yep, they ended up suing one, ugh.) And yet – the comments keep flowing.
I know the ulcers anonymous comments cause. I tell people who complain about what I/we allow, ‘Hey, you didn’t see the ones I DELETED.’ We also have the ability for comments to be banished by five ‘flags’ by fellow site visitors, without my lifting a finger. And of course, a great post for 99 pct. can have one word/line that forces deletion, because we can’t edit comments, for liability reasons.
I tell folks who whine about ‘censorship’ to take it to craigslist. And I try to remember that such discussions always took place – in homes, in bars, at the water cooler – they just are more public now, with all the good and bad that entails.
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As Gina Chen points out, this discussion has been around long enough to inspire dissertations and academic research. A search of findings by people like danah boyd and Fred Stutzman, co-founder of claimID, would help make decisions.
And here’s a snapshot I took in 2008 with lessons from letters to the editor, with a nod to Howard Weaver’s saloon concept:
http://oinnovate.blogspot.com/2008/07/making-readers-opinions-work.html
The comments link to some thoughts by Jack Lail, an early leader in online communities. One point worth investigating further: the idea of enclaves, or different commenting communities, at the same online site. Each blogger, for example, could build their own salon or saloon, with varying standards.
Another comment at that post mentions “opinion as entertainment.” Emerging too is the concept of anonymity as entertainment, illustrated by Ben Folds and Merton performing with Chatroulette. That idea perhaps points to the value of a feature like the Daily Tar Heel’s Kvetching Board, mixing opinion and anonymity:
http://dailytarheel.com/content/kvetching-board-feb-19-2010
One more thought, addressing Elaine’s comment on the chilling effect of a fragile economy and how it causes online self-censorship:
The smartest reporters I know still pick up the phone, or take a walk or a lunch with a source, rather than ask or answer certain questions through typing, anywhere. The sharing by others online, anonymous or not, makes us all want to share too, but self-censorship can be a valuable career and life tool. Anyone who’s been online for awhile can share a story or two about how their online words have come back to haunt them.
Often the most powerful information is shared on the sidewalk. Especially in DC, I suspect, that truth remains.
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Thanks for all the feedback. Lots of things for us to consider here.
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This has been a great discussion, but on Twitter and in Steve’s blog.
A couple notes that I hope help sum up the debate:
Engagement: Much of the discussion has focused on comments, but it’s obvious at this point that a site’s engagement needs to take place everywhere as much off-site — Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. — as on-site. But still worth noting.
Identity: Let anonymity and verified identity play nicely together. We can set up our sites in ways that give the user easy ways to get the experience that they choose. Create a range of tiers based on identity — anonymous; username identity based on external registration like Facebook, Twitter or OpenID; username identity based in email-confirmed site registration; real name identity that’s verified — and let users give more visibility to comments from all tiers by ratings/recommendations. Then, give users the ability to personalize comments by the tier and level of recommendation they choose.
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In my point of view identity is the best way to comments.
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Great topic, and enjoyed shifting through the weekend debate.
If I could design this from scratch, I’d allow users to rate comments up or down, with comments below a certain level hidden from view. I’d allow anonymous comments but start them with a certain penalty, and allow users to hide them with a single setting.
A terrific general idea for ensuring civility that Lisa Williams of Placeblogger advocates: Require that the first X comments from a user be moderated. Part of what makes a troll a troll is poor impulse control; such folks are unlikely to be able to restrain themselves for the required three or five comments.
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The Nestle fan page shows that even if using a “real” identity people often get keyboard rage and still post appropriately http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Nestle/24287259392?ref=ts.
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I believe you need to consider the nature of the site, and even the nature of the specific piece of content. Some simply may not be appropriate for anonymous comments.
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[…] Anonymity or identity:Which is the best way to handle comments?: Speaking of Buttry, he's in a new job as Director for Community Engagement at Albritton Communications, and he recently posted this piece about comments. He asks some questions, poses some solutions that are worth your while, whichever side of this particular fence you stand on. Tagged as: career talk, college newspapers, comments, Flash Journalism, jay rosen, Links, NC State Technician, steve buttry, Twitter […]
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This is a question I have struggled with for years as a community manager for a newspaper web site.
Our system is what many would call an “anonymous” system, though we require a verified email address. We began offering Facebook login integration last year, but it hasn’t really caught on.
From my experience, it doesn’t matter what name they use or even what email – if people want to be hateful, they’ll be hateful. I’ve seen people use their full names with accounts linked to their work email address use racial slurs at will. It’s mind-boggling.
We have many of the same moderator tactics as everyone else: Word filters, 3-strikes removals, staff-moderated abuse reports from users….and the only thing that seems to work in keeping conversation civil in the long term is the one thing most news sites don’t want to do: Human moderator involvement.
It’s the most time and resource-consuming method, but it works. I think anonymous commenters run over news sites because they simply assume nobody’s reading them (and a lot of the time, they’re right).
You have to establish this relationship very early on and maintain a consistent message of what will get a scolding, what will get removed and what will get a user kicked off the site. A human voice (with a photo, even!) of authority inside of a comment thread can keep the conversation on-topic, answer questions and, yes, take the abuse users usually reserve for one another.
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Again, I wonder why newspapers have one rule for the letters to the editor in the printed version, and another for online comments on articles or “sound-off” questions. Sometimes while enforcing the strict rule for letters to the editor in the printed version, a newspaper will also print comments pulled from its website with the comments just signed with pseudonyms. Often the properly verified letter to the editor appearing under the author’s name will appear in the online edition too, where it is either supported or attacked by a faceless mob. It doesn’t make sense to me to have two different rules. The fact that one comment is on dead trees and the other is online strikes me as an ethically irrelevant difference, a “distinction without a difference” as one of my former bosses used to say. We already know that it is legally irrelevant for the purposes of defamation. A letter is a letter and a comment is a comment.
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I’d venture to say there isn’t much of a difference between the rules for letters and comments. This idea of “verification” is something of a misnomer online or in print.
Just as you can create and re-create entire fake identities all over the Internet (including Facebook and OpenID), you can easily put a fake name and phone number on a letter to the editor and answer all the right questions when you’re called for verification. Both systems rely on some inherent trust of the writer.
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Well, I’m not sure how far others go, but I also check against the telephone book or Canada411, and sometimes Google the name. However I live in a small community and chances are I will at least know of the person, if not actually know them, or someone in the office will. As far as I am aware, we’ve never run a letter under a false name — at least, I’ve never got a complaint about it. But your point is well taken. In a city or even a large town, it wouldn’t take much planning to fake a letter.
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Wow! I’ve been too busy to keep up with the comments very well today, but I think this discussion shows just how valuable comments can be and how an engaged community produces positive, thoughtful comments (I haven’t had anything that I didn’t approve).
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[…] Mathew Ingram and Howard Owens. Mathew has written a great post about it, then Steve Buttry added important points on his own blog. I say “timely” because suddenly a lot of people are talking about anonymity. I have […]
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Mix it. Monitor it. Share your standards forr killing. Be flexible.
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Here is another view of the evils of anonymous posts.
http://tinyurl.com/yh84jcu But getting back to my original question, nobody seems to know the answer as to why a newspaper will apply one rule to its online material, and another to printed letters to the editor. If anonymous comments are fine for online, they should be fine for the letters page too. It is illogical to have two different practices, but almost all newspapers do.
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Tim, I respectfully disagree. They are totally different mediums, with different viewer/reader expectations. Consistency to some would be an overly slavish rigidity to others.
But, hey, we ARE talking about respectful debate and differences of opinion here;-)
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What about those newspapers which print anonymous comments plucked from their websites in one part of the print version, while still demanding a rigorous examination of who wrote the letter to the editor for the letters page? Or put the letters from the printed letters page on the on-line version, to be attacked or supported by anonymous posters who couldn’t be bothered to sign their names like the person they are attacking? To what “different viewer/reader expectations” are they appealing there? I’m also not so sure that there is such a fundamental difference in expectations when it comes to things like this anyway. People may make such posts and read such posts simply because they can. I don’t recall any public clamor for the right to do this back in the early days of the Internet. It just happened because that’s the way the software was. They might write anonymously to the letters to the editor pages if they could do that too. In fact I throw away enough unsigned letters and delete enough emails from anonymous hotmail accounts to know that to be the case. If I printed them anyway, I’m sure people would read them, for the same reason they read anonymous posts on the Internet — because they are there in front of their noses to be read. I am wondering if this is precisely one of the situations that Jaron Lanier complains about — where we let the limitations of software design shape our notions of what is right or wrong, or of what people want.
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Point taken. I just hope it’s not, at least in part, a newspaper snobbery about the ‘online anonymous heathens.’ I think discussed in this thread are numerous ways with current technology to rein in the excesses of abuse of anonymity, without requiring a thumbprint and eyescan (overstating to make a point) to comment on an online story.
Even if it WERE due to inherent early software limitations – there is an expectation among at least some online readers now that they should be able to comment without identifying themselves publicly. It’s a judgment call about whether they should be told… ‘tough. Sign here.’
Some of our site’s best AND worst comments are anonymous. I’d hate to lose the former to prevent the latter.
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I think part of the difference Barney and Tim are discussing is control. The newspaper has a culture of control. Editors control the content and hold it to high standards and demanding identification is part of the high standards (a particular standard that is enforced rigidly for letters to the editor but inconsistently when reporters deal with sources). But the Internet has a culture of freedom and anonymity, even if that culture had its roots in the limitations of software. As Barney’s last sentence said, we are hoping to elevate that culture of anonymity without losing its benefits. Easier wished than done.
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True, and there is a whole generation that is familiar with no other way of posting. It goes back a long way, to anonymous BBS and Usenet postings. (Is Usenet still around? Remember the tremendous anonymous flame wars there!) It may well be a lost cause no matter what philosophical arguments can be made to the contrary. Unless, of course, we come up with new forms of software that impose different technical limitations and thus change the way the rising generation views the world. Maybe we should be using software subtly to fashion six-year-old minds into thinking that it is hopelessly old-fashioned not to sign one’s letters. In effect that is how we ended up where we are today with anonymous letters.:)
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Sorry, I wrote “letters” there but I was including postings on the Internet of course. And I was kidding about the software. Maybe…
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To (partially) answer Tim Jaques’ question: When a letter to the editor is published in the paper, the paper owns the content (and the liability). That’s because in order for a letter to be published in the paper, someone has to put it there. Most online sites do not prescreen comments prior to posting for the same reason: If you do, you own the content (and the liability).
The same way of thinking holds for posting stories (or letters) online, and for reverse-publishing vetted comments back into print. The paper owns what is handled (and the liability) because someone within the organization made the decision to put it there.
So yes, some of what we have today is based on software limitations — both in the past and today — but a big piece of the puzzle is the liability.
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Glen — There must be a difference in the law between Canada (where I am) and the US. Here, there is no legal difference. The courts say you can’t wash your hands of defamatory material on your website merely because you can’t be bothered to monitor what is posted by readers. (If you could, it would also be a great way to get around publication bans.) I think identity is usually required to be established for other reasons, such as credibility and fairness.
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The Day, of New London, put together about 15 people in 2008 to hash over how they should handle anonymous comments and I wrote about it at the time:
http://www.newenglandnews.org/anonymity
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[…] turns out that the Post and I aren’t the only ones on this track. Steve Buttry suggested something similar in a post late last month: I wonder if we can have it both ways. How would it work to provide an […]
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[…] Anonymity or identity: Which is the best way to handle comments […]
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[…] (that name was chosen deliberately) of online discussions is one of the most vexing issues facing news organizations. We want the robust discussion of news and issues in the community. But […]
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[…] on the matter I’ve read and participated in (see in particular Steve Buttry‘s blog post on the matter from early March) have convinced me that having “verified users” contribute to the […]
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[…] of Ethics. I wrote about objectivity and humanity in journalism and about plagiarism, accuracy and anonymous comments. I faulted reporters who trade silence for access to sources. I praised the Guardian’s social […]
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[…] from: https://stevebuttry.wordpress.com/2010/03/21/anonymity-or-identity-which-is-the-best-way-to-handle-co… ] This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. ← […]
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[…] A 2010 post jumped into an argument Mathew and others were having on Twitter about the merits of anonymity or identity in website comments. […]
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