Anonymous comments: allow or disallow?

[jecook]

Since the subject came up, I think it's time to ask the community at large:

should we, your (benevolent) moderator team disable anonymous comments? Currently, all anon comments are screened; only the moderator team and the original poster can see them.

So, What say you?

Edit: the populace has spoken, and with a rather large margin, I might add:

4 votes for keeping status quo (anon comments screened) and 26 for disallowing anon.

As for switching to a fully moderated community (i.e., first post moderated) I'll look into the feasibility of it, but that would add a bit of workload.

I'll also check with the feasibility of making comments membership only as well.

Comments

[gilded_lady]

I'm content with having them screened; it allows for problematic comments to be deleted before they cause wank. That being said, if there has been a noticeable increase in the number of people trolling via anon comments then I'm fine with that too.

[whouseknecht.livejournal.com]

Disallow anonymous comments. If the commentator can't be bothered to register, I can't be bothered to read them.

[anivair.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I don't see a benefit to allowing them.

Well, sort of. I could see a situation wherin I wanted to say something about a company that I worked for but didn't want to do so publicly. Then it might be good.

[ladynisa.livejournal.com]

I agree!

[amberite.livejournal.com]

I agree too. Specifically, I'm trying to remember the last time I've seen a *good* anonymous comment anywhere that wasn't specifically an anonymous fandom thread.

[matgb]

I get them every so often; friends that blog elsewhere, etc. But assuming disallowing anon still allows OpenID users to comment, then blocking them is fine.

Scarily, the most popular OpenID provider is AOL, but I'm sure they won't be that much of a problem...

[zonga.livejournal.com]

I concur - it's ridiculously easy to get an OpenID.

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a weak link in the trust chain to me .. :)

[silveryrose.livejournal.com]

OpenID users are treated the same as anonymous users.

[goose-entity.livejournal.com]

agreed

[kostika.livejournal.com]

Agreed. No balls means no right to comment.

[ravenshrinkery.livejournal.com]

I don't see any good reason for them. I am absolutely in favor of this change.

I would also be in favor of changing the community to request to join to slow people down and maybe convince them to read the rules rather than speedpost their stupid "i'm a luser plz help me" and not read the rules. An alternative to this would be first post moderation, since that's when most of the garbage hits the list. Of course, we tend to like our garbage...

[jon787.livejournal.com]

But I like "helping" the morons that wander in here. Its that little chance to say what we all really want to say to our lusers but can't cause we'll get fired.

[ravenshrinkery.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Here's a thought - still do first post moderation. That way the mods can release it at their whim when we're good and ready for it, and also archive it if the coward deletes and we're not done (the mods can repost it for our amusement).

Don't post that we do this in the community profile, though. We might want to be even more explicit about what the community does to newbies who post OT here.

[phrogg.livejournal.com]

It would be nice to have input from people that don't have LJ's...however, it's not really that difficult to get one set up, even if you only use your account for posting comments in communities/other journals.

So in an effort to circumvent the anonymous trolling, i would support turning off anonymous comments.

[garpu.livejournal.com]

If someone wants to snark, then they can own up to what they write. I hate anonymous commenting.

[insaint.livejournal.com]

I all for turning them off.

[abstrak-tokatl.livejournal.com]

have we been having an Anon problem?

Personally, i see anonymous posting as a good way for people on the fence about joining this community or not. But i think that they should be screened.

[azurelunatic]

Last I heard, livejournal users who weren't members of techsupport could comment here.

[abstrak-tokatl.livejournal.com]

yeah, after writing that post and thinking about it, i agree with the group. We don't get very many anon posts, but we get a lot of ass-wipes posting superfluous posts. So i'm down for membership only posts.

[major-error.livejournal.com]

Turn 'em off.

If the poster doesn't have enough courage to put his/her name to a submission, then they can go take a flyin' leap. We don't need that sort butting in to our diatribes...

[xforge.livejournal.com]

Well, most anonymous commenters can rot in Hell whilst being buttraped by Satan Himself, so I say go for it. = )

If somebody wants to join in, let 'em get an account; it's not like it isn't FREE and fairly EASY TO DO.

[peace873.livejournal.com]

There's really no reason for allowing anonymous comments in a community like this. It's nice of the moderators to allow them, and nice of you to screen them so we don't all have to see the crap, but unnecessary.

[whitefootwolf.livejournal.com]

Eh, I say leave it on and moderate them. Assuming, of course, it's not to much of a strain on the mods to moderate the comments.

[celyste.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm a bit on the fence. I don't see a reason to change something that is working (ain't broke don't fix!). That being said, I'm not the one dealing with those posts, and so I don't know if they are getting out of control.

[ex-deliveryboy.livejournal.com]

turn 'em off please

[the-ninja-style.livejournal.com]

I am against LJ allowing Anom. postings anyway. Turn 'em off!

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

Why? If I want to allow anonymous commenting in my journal, presumably I should have the right to decide for myself?

I do it semi-regularly, when I have a post related to a mailing list I belong to. Not everyone wants to register for the sake of posting a 30 word comment once or twice a year.

I'm happy for this comm to disable them tho' - who needs trolls?

[abstrak-tokatl.livejournal.com]

yeah, my journal is set up that way, so that friends and family could comment and not have to sign up. And the only problem i have are a few shit hole trolls/stalkers that come around and complain that i don't let them post to my journal.

[usekh.livejournal.com]

Turn them off, we really don't need gutless trolls ruining our fun.

[kuang.livejournal.com]

Anonymous posts mean the mods are having to do what we do everyday, ie. constantly babysit muppets who couldn't find their arse with an atlas. If people don't have the balls to put their name behind their opinions then they don't deserve the voice.

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

Agreed. IMHO, if a commenter isn'f comfortable signing their name to their opinion, it's probably not an opinion that's going to contribute much that's meaningful to the conversation. There are **rare** exceptions, but I don't think blocking anonymous comments throws the baby out with the bathwater in that respect.

[vaxhacker.livejournal.com]

I don't see much of a need in this community to post anonymously. It's not that hard to get a sock puppet if you don't want a comment tied to your other well-known persona, really.

[brothersterno.livejournal.com]

Exactly. sockpuppet if you're gonna talk shit, sign up for a free account if you got something to say. Welcome to the spam and troll filled inter-web-tron.

[vaxhacker.livejournal.com]

Oh, for the days of alt.sysadmin.recovery. "If you can't figure out how to post here, you don't deserve to." (and then they moderate the newsgroup to /dev/null).

[lihan161051.livejournal.com]

The few anonymous comments I've seen (in any community or in my own LJ) have been either trolls or spam, and at the very least, disruptive and/or annoying. The few times I've seen relevant anonymous comments, they've been followed almost immediately by a reply saying "oops, that was me".

The spam seems to be mostly fishing for traffic to dating-service-style soft porn sites, with URL's for people to click through (usually embedded in a text comment that's vague enough to fit into just about any community or journal discussion, at least marginally). I've also seen some issues with hostile sites that hit clients with malware, combined with anonymous posters tagging comment threads with the URL's of those sites. Screening, at a minimum, will make it impossible for anonymous commenters to get their URL's out in front of your readers without giving you a chance to trap them first, and quite honestly, I'd be OK with blocking them completely. As several folks here have said, it's not exactly hard to create an LJ user account, and registration also provides a convenient filter for banned users ..

(and yes, I'm a mod on some other communities, and owner/mod of several Y!G email lists, and a firm believer in putting a human-based decision in the way of every possible avenue of anonymous bot-posting ..)

[snarl817.livejournal.com]

Turn them off. This is NOT 4chan.

[combat-taco.livejournal.com]

Anon comments on my posts are all completely retard trolls. voted disable.

[torkell]

Leave anonymous comments enabled. That way, people who for whatever reason don't or won't have a journal (e.g. someone who's wandered in from off-site, or has no intention of keeping a journal) can still comment.

Screening them is I think the best solution.

[valkyrwench.livejournal.com]

I cast my vote for turning them off. I see no reason to allow anonymous comments in this community. As several people have already pointed out, it's not like it's hard to get a LiveJournal account, and it's not like they'd have to pay for it.

[mouser.livejournal.com]

I don't care either way since as the Original Poster, I can delete comments by asshats.

[irishmasms.livejournal.com]

What thread did the subject come up?

I'm a mod on a handful of LJ communities, and I shut off anon comments. In communities they just attract spammers & trolls, or someone who forgot to log in.

[kizayaen.livejournal.com]

I vote for disabling them entirely.

If you aren't willing to back what you're saying by linking it to your name, it probably doesn't need to be said.

[hiroe.livejournal.com]

Off with their heads!

[kerberos.livejournal.com]

Disable Anon comments.

If you can't stand for your opinion then don't post it.

Simple.