We seem to be entering the second age of online commenting. The first age brought up commenting networks like Disqus and IntenseDebate. Those networks standardized commenting between websites, encouraging users to leave their thoughts.
Now, we have seen two recent developments in the world of commenting that seem to point to a new future: a push for the end of anonymous posting, and a pay to play model that is radically different than anything we have seen before. Websites in the past have usually worked to encourage their readers to leave comments as they drive discussion and enrich content.
Not so for everyone anymore. The Sun Chronicle, a newspaper in Massachusetts, is reopening their commenting section of their website, but with two twists. Everyone must use their real name, and pay a $1 fee to turn on their accounts. In short, the newspaper is ferreting out the trolls and making the rest jump over a hoop to get in on the commenting action.
If you are active in the world of gaming, you will know about the wildly negative feedback that Blizzard, makers of the upcoming Starcraft 2, have received for announcing a similar move to end anonymous commenting on their forums. Users are not happy at all with the idea.
Now that content production and consumption on the internet have matured, it seems that the publications are asking the same of their readers, and that the readers want nothing to do with it. Whether the Sun Chronicle succeeds or not in its bid to clean up its previously defunct comment section remains to be seen, but we have to applaud them for taking a move to make things sane, whether the move seems extreme or not.
In the future all commenting may be exposing, much to the chagrin of trolls everywhere. What do you think?
I wouldn’t even pay for music (which is one of my basic necessities of life)!
Besides… I never heard of the newspaper before 2 minutes ago and all the other newspapers don’t have something like this.
They’re just stabbing themselves with it.
Seriously, they want me to pay to generate content for them, that they sell ads against, that improves the overall draw of their site? No thanks.
I don’t mind using my real name at all (although I can understand why people would value privacy). However, the truth is that I already pay to comment: I pay my internet bill, I pay with the time it takes to read the article, I pay with the time it takes to comment.
I can see their line of thinking; the community and type of commenters MIGHT be improved with a paywall. Unfortunately, and I don’t think I’m alone in this, I’m not interested in paying money to comment.
Switching cost is too low on the internet… I’ll just find someplace else to go.
No, that’s bloody ridiculous
Think this is a horrible idea. I understand comment trolls are a nuisance, however a paywall is not the answer. Simply restrict anonymous posting and if your comments dwindle, so be it, but asking user to pay to comment is outlandish.
At $1, I’ve bought the right to troll a forum. The fee removes the intrinsic motivation to behave well, and allows users to justify their negative behavior, because they have in fact paid for it (there’s a great example of this kind of thing in Clay Shirky’s new book, Cognitive Surplus). To top it off, giving away credit card info is still something a lot of people are nervous about (I think this is dumb, but I know it worries people), which will probably prevent a lot of everyday users from commenting, which seems to be counter to the goal of this change.
Requiring users to login and enforcing comment rules are a much better approach.
I completely agree. I feel like paying $1 actually gives them the right to leave bad and spammy comments. In addition, if I paid the money and they deleted my comment, I would be very upset. How will they curate these comments?
IMO all this will do is move the conversation away from their site. It won’t stop people from sharing their opinion, it will just make them leave their thoughts on another page that the company can’t monitor.
Having to pay might weed out mindless trolls, but it will lead to the loss of average people sharing their views to those who are obsessed that everybody must know their view. On a news website, this basically means we’ll be left with those with agendas, the conspiracy nuts and loonies. The normal person will stop commenting and probably stop reading them.
DUde that is totally absurd! No way that will ever fly!
Lou
http://www.web-anonymity.au.tc
I can’t see this catching on. There are much better ways of restricting anonymous comments e.g. Verify commenters profiles with Opengraph, Disqus or similar.
Jenna is right – conversations will just move elsewhere.
My first thought was; no way jose, but to be fair it does make a bit sense to me.
Maybe they should allow only their subscribers to comment if the ultimate goal is to get rid of spammers and trolls. By sending them log in credentials to an account with their real name?
Paying $1 so you have their credit card credentials is also a possibility for non subscribers.
I don’t know, this won’t work everywhere but for a newspaper it might just do the trick, you will get more a sense of a community that way.
Do you really think paying $1 will make people feel like they are part of a community? I would rather be involved in a community that valued my ideas, not that required me to make a CC payment to share my views.
I agree that using real names and adding credentials will help, but charging $ isn’t going to increase the quality of the conversation.
no way! that’s ridiculous!
Maybe some consolation for the majority of people out there – Blizzard gave in last night after over 100000 complaints and scrapped the idea. Maybe this will happen elsewhere, probably with less complaints as Blizzard us a notoriously stubborn company.
As other people have said here, it would make more sense to verify trolls. Maybe store IPs and check which IPs keep getting comments highly downrated?
I’m annoyed that the actions of a few have ruined commenting for the masses. I never comment anonymously and am always happy to state my identity. I would be put off commenting if I had to pay. That’s ridiculous: paying to express ones views. Comment counts will drop for sure if this method is widely adopted.
In my book posting a comment add value to a website so I don’t really see why someone would work for free…
Of course by reducing the number of people able to comment on the other hand you can get more exposure as your comment is not drown in the pile of other commentators. Still the” pay to play” model is not a good solution as it can tear apart your community so why don’t simply put some articles under a freemium model …
That said the “end of anonymity” is really needed, if people want to keep their privacy the answer is simple, simply do not comment, anonymity most of the time give people that mob mentality you don’t want to see on any website. Plus as a publisher you can be responsible for the comments left on your website so it can have legal repercussions .
like that music,