Anonymous posting

Deleted member 1074 · Jul 20, 2011

Re: ANONYMOUS trolls

Sal Kramer said:
Whenever I go to the posts for Morrissey's tour dates, most of what I see are trolls, posting as "ANONYMOUS". Can't this site only allow registered members post in that section? I'm sick & tired of cowards who talk sh*t about Moz, but do so under anonymity.

You almost make it sound like it's difficult to create a gmail account and register a username...

Stephen · Jul 20, 2011

Re: ANONYMOUS trolls

I agree. I'm all for freedom of speech but it is pathetic right now and means that any fan that is genuinely looking for news has no chance of doing that, due to endless mounds of crap that these trolls are posting.

Freedom of speech isn't killing this site - twats with way too much time on their hands are. Give people freedom of speech, just don't let them be anonymous.

Stephen · Jul 20, 2011

Re: ANONYMOUS trolls

!Viva Hate! said:
You almost make it sound like it's difficult to create a gmail account and register a username...

It does stop a lot of people, though. You'd be surprised.

Of course, it doesn't stop you

Helen Bach · Jul 24, 2011

Interesting article on this topic.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jul/24/internet-anonymity-trolling-tim-adams

billybu69 · Jul 24, 2011

from the Guardian item.

The psychologists call it "deindividuation". It's what happens when social norms are withdrawn because identities are concealed. The classic deindividuation experiment concerned American children at Halloween. Trick-or-treaters were invited to take sweets left in the hall of a house on a table on which there was also a sum of money. When children arrived singly, and not wearing masks, only 8% of them stole any of the money. When they were in larger groups, with their identities concealed by fancy dress, that number rose to 80%. The combination of a faceless crowd and personal anonymity provoked individuals into breaking rules that under "normal" circumstances they would not have considered.

Seems obvious to me, and examples can be seen everyday on the main page.

Dave2006 · Jul 24, 2011

Very few of us post using our real names (at least in full) so most of us use the cloak of anonymity (for all you know my real name is Simon

)- so why do we need to keep an anonymous option - at least if everyone is forced to register all the knob heads, and their IP addresses, would be banned before long.

Dave

davidt · Jul 24, 2011

billybu69 said:
Seems obvious to me, and examples can be seen everyday on the main page.

The article suggests people should use their real names in posting. That doesn't seem like something you chose to do. As some others have suggested, using a pseudonym is similar to anonymous posting. It's just a little less hassle.

I still fall into the camp where little moderation is better, for example what this comment stated:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/discussion/comment-permalink/11698613

hazehead
24 July 2011 11:47AM

Pretty clueless piece. What year is it?

Communities police themselves ultimately and if they don't they fail. In all honesty if you expect to contribute to an online community with any kind of credibility in the long run you end up becoming somewhat less anonymous by it's very nature.
This doesn't mean using your real name, a stupid thing to do in many circumstances, it usually means revealing parts of your life/personality to make a consistent picture and demonstrating your genuine commitment to the subject at hand.

People mostly just post what they think at the time. if you don't want to read what they think, don't. It's not really difficult.... It's still what they think though. They're still out there!

I find the whole thing endlessly fascinating just because it's chaotic and it would be a sorry soul indeed that didn't at least find at least some of the attempts at order only of value for their unintended comedy.

Best forum I ever used had no moderation at all and only basic functionality, it was absolutely hilarious and far more intelligent and honest than what passes for communication here and just about anywhere else online.

The main problem I have with removing anonymous comments on the main page is the case of the casual fan. For example someone that just went to a concert and wanted to give valuable details but not necessarily a regular site visitor. They see they have to register and don't want to bother, their comment is left unsaid. Let's look at the latest concert Krakow. A couple anonymous comments were informative and one corrected a setlist posted by a logged-in user. Many are off-topic but still may be amusing to some. If anonymous comments were not allowed, we'd have an informative perspective from one person (mhicks) and a setlist that is incorrect.

I don't believe removing anonymous posting is a good solution, I think better filtering in the comment display software is. The site took a step back in that regard with the move from the previous Slash system to vBulletin but in most other areas it's been much better. The software is evolving and supported, unlike the old Slash system so we will see improvements down the road.

bored · Jul 25, 2011

Re: ANONYMOUS trolls

Stephen said:
It does stop a lot of people, though. You'd be surprised.

Of course, it doesn't stop you

There are countless times I wanted to chime in on other websites and was interested in the topic at hand but not the site as a whole so the idea of registering was too much of a hassle. My comments were left to die in my mind.

nugz · Jul 30, 2011

Re: ANONYMOUS trolls

why is it that before the site got revamped, anonymous posting was only on the main page, but now, its in the forum too? I didn't care before cuz I just didn't visit the main page. But on the forum, I'd like to know who I'm talking to. Obviously most people arent going to use their real names/pictures, but it's annoying to see three pages worth of "anonymous's" going back and forth. I'd like to at least have a user name and silly picture so I can sorta feel like I'm talking to a real person. It just looks tacky seeing pages and pages of anonymous comments. I'm just curious as to why it changed. Sorry if that's been addressed, I might have missed it somewhere since I'm not around as much.

what if we were to do something like this? ...say you just wanna comment on a certain news story, you know you're not gonna be a regular poster here, but still wanna put in your two cents. What if you get up to 15 or 20 anonymous postings, and then after you reach a certain amount, you must create a real account. Not sure if that's possible, but just something that came to mind.

Kewpie · Jul 30, 2011

Unregistered users are unable to make a post in the forums

Forums and chatroom are registered users only.

Due to software replacement mainpage setting is very similar to the forums except unregistered users are able to post there.

Unfortunately the latest mainpage vBulletin software does not have a tool to block / ignore anonymous comments.
Hopefully it will be added sometime soon.

nugz · Jul 30, 2011