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Should RCG Allow Anonymous Comments? February 24, 2006

In my mind, the best thing about Rain City Guide is that the site has grown into a wonderful community with a constant stream of interesting posts and comments. In no way do I want to mess with this!

However, I’m a slightly concerned with the rise in anonymous commenters on Rain City Guide because I’ve seen a few blogs and forums where the discussions degenerate once people start leaving anonymous comments in bunches. So far this hasn’t been a problem on Rain City Guide, but I don’t want to let things slip to the point where anonymous people (like Bob Cat, el nino, Milton Friedman) make others feel uncomfortable posting their comments.

Here are the options I see in dealing with anonymous comments:

  1. No change… Leave all non-spam comments on the site (anonymous or otherwise)
  2. Selectively delete anonymous comments that are clearly meant to antagonize or bait people.
  3. Try to preempt any issues by requiring that all posts be from people with a valid email address. I could check this by emailing anonymous posters after they leave a comment and if they don’t respond in a reasonable amount of time, I would delete their comment.
  4. Require people to register with Rain City Guide before leaving a comment. This would include an automatic email address verification.

If I was going to make a change, the purpose of the change would be to discourage degrading comments (before they start to occur) and to encourage people to leave comments with less chance of harassment. What do you think? Am I making much-to-do about nothing? Should we just assume that only people with a think enough skin are going to leave comments anyway?

I’m definitely interested in your feedback! (and feel free to comment anonymously… for now.) ;)

whale

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Comments»

1. Max - February 24, 2006

Making people to register will lower amount of new readers jumping into discussions. I think requiring valid email would be enough, but then on the other hand do you really need all this trouble emailing people for validation?

2. Heather Morford - February 24, 2006

Dustin, I agree that keeping RCG a dynamic community is important as I am among those who have enjoyed reading all the posts and comments. In my experience however in 2001 when I had a real estate blog (it was the infant stage of the site I now have) with the ability to post anoymous comments that because of the high readership it was a target for people who didn’t really want to add to the community but rather spirl it into chaos and add their links to un-related sites. I eventually ended up only allowing registered users to post and after a few years I took out the commenting ability all together because I didn’t have the time to play gate keeper as sad as that is. We would like to think that everyone that is reading RCG is beneifiting from the great community that you’ve created and want to contribute in a postive way but there are always those out there who want to ruin something good. You might consider only allowing registered users or putting some restrictions on the posts (valid emails) to encourage the good and continuous dialogue that you’ve been experiencing.

3. Jason Yormark - February 25, 2006

Seems like it’s been pretty clean up to this point. I’d say let it be until it becomes a problem. Then at that point, require people to register with a valid email address. Those that contribute regularly and have something valuable to say, won’t mind the 2 minute hassle of registering once.

4. Dustin - February 25, 2006

Thanks for your comments. The three of you represent an excellent slice of the people whose comments I would not want to loose with a registration system!

5. Jim Duncan - February 26, 2006

Dustin -

Two thoughts - require a valid email address (for forgotten password retrieval, if nothing else) and maybe some rules (I have some very basic ones here - http://www.realcentralva.com/the-rules/) and this one may be appropriate:

3. If you choose to write under a nom de plume, please be consistent in that use so that others can track your opinions.

I think that anonymity gives some the freedom to comment where they may not otherwise. Requesting that they do so with the same “handle” doesn’t seem too much to ask.

My two cents.

–Jim

6. 3 cents - March 5, 2006

I do not think there is any doubt that the degree of honesty and number of comments rise with the level of anonymity. Unfortunately, so does spam, personal insult, and the like, which keep filters, human and machine, busy and awake at night. The key is to find that balance.

As a pragmatist, I would say experiment and see what works (happens).