Washingtonpost.com Wants Identities of Posters

mytrip recommends a News.com account of a panel discussion in which the Washington Post's online executive editor Jim Brady argued against anonymity on his site. He's welcome to try to carve out a space for civilized discourse, but it seems that he can't help alienating the Net-savvy whenever he opens his mouth to speak of it. "... he would like to see a technology that could identify people who violate site standards — and if need be — automatically kick them off for good. ... Brady also lamented that closing user accounts doesn't keep bad eggs off a site. They just come back and create new ones ... Brady believes that in the next five years people will be required to identify themselves in some way at many sites. 'I don't know whether we do it with a credit card number, a driver's license or passport ...'"

Yeah, great

We all know that the best Slashdot comments come from anonymous cowards, right? This guy is nuts to require registration!

Re:Yeah, great

he's not wanting just registration, he's after complete identification of the person, so that you can't just keep registering new names, something that shouldn't happen, since the only way to do it would basically require people to have a license to use the internet (or at least post on it). [note that this doesn't really require a license, but registration with a central authority where you'd give some kind of personally identifying information, which as we know could NEVER be abused].

Re:Yeah, great

What my concern is with sites which demand so many registration details... what happens with that info, and where is it stored?

If this guy wants paid registration, he should just say so and have that, where people cough up $10 a year or something for access to the site's contents.

Instead, perhaps he should do what a lot of websites do -- require either a "non-free" E-mail address, or manual approving for a user account if its a Yahoo/Hotmail/Gmail account. This is not a 100% measure, as there are lots of people who pay for their Yahoo or Hotmail accounts, but its a measure good enough to do what this guy wants. Should a non-free provider start having abuse problems, add that domain on the "manual approve" list, and call it done.

Re:Yeah, great

Does he think he has no competition? If they require "real id" and other sites don't, then that's where the traffic will go. I'm already skipping news sites that require registration. I'm sure he remembers what that transition was like. Maybe he thinks he can wear us down with incremental changes. That is truly clueless, because he'll never get to where he wants to go. You were right about charging a fee,. That would identify most people, and it would probably be more successful than just asking for my CC number and not charging it, which seems damn suspicious. Just say, "we need $5 a year", and see how many people bite without thinking of privacy.... oh, and good luck with that ;-)

BTW, those bastards are letting the googlebot freely roam their pages, but when a user follows the resulting link, he's slapped with the registration page. It's dishonest if you ask me. I don't even click on a New York Times link anymore. Mind you, I know I can just select the googlebot in my User Agent Switcher and get right in, but I don't need them to get the news, and I want them to know that.

Re:Yeah, great

BTW, those bastards are letting the googlebot freely roam their pages, but when a user follows the resulting link, he's slapped with the registration page. It's dishonest if you ask me. I don't even click on a New York Times link anymore.

A) The newspaper under discussion here is the Washington Post, not the New York Times.
 
B) The Times dropped their registration required policy some time ago.

Re:Yeah, great

Does he think he has no competition? If they require "real id" and other sites don't, then that's where the traffic will go. I'm already skipping news sites that require registration. I'm sure he remembers what that transition was like. Maybe he thinks he can wear us down with incremental changes

I worked at washingtonpost.com a decade ago, and knew Brady before he left the company and later returned. Back then we scoffed at The New York Times and their registration, flatly declaring that The Post would never require registration to
view articles. Of course, they implemented required registration after I left, and I've stopped reading the site on principle for that reason.

It was also said that we didn't want unmoderated user comments on the site because of (a) the liability, (b) the lack of credibility and (c) the troll factor. But users wanted it, so The Post is simply trying to balance the desires of its readers with its distaste for unmoderated comments. The things that keep the traffic up are the things The Post will swallow, no matter how distasteful. There was a time when The Post tried to prevent Matt Drudge from linking to its articles, but it couldn't get around the fact that he sent a huge amount of traffic to the site in those days, so it gave in.

Will authenticated posts happen in the next few years? Who can say? They'll probably try it, and if it's ineffective at addressing their concerns or traffic drops, they'll switch back. I don't really see it becoming an industry-wide norm unless someone loses a high-profile/high-dollar court case because of unauthenticated posts.

In any case, I can assure you that Brady is no fool, he knows he has competition (heck, he's from NY originally, and left The Post to work for one of its major competitors) and his intentions here are not "evil."
 
Signed, Anonymous
(Pun Intended)

Re:Yeah, great

Wrong!

Anonymity begets freedom. What you and the other guy are championing is the internet equivalent of an ID tattoo from birth.

You guys need to think about the consequences of what you are suggesting.

Weigh up the benefits of an internet "with less asshats" vs an internet with "complete government and corporate control"

Which one do you choose?

Re:Yeah, great

Sure i hate the GNAA & the rest of the trolls as much as anybody else,

Nope, sorry. I don't hate them. I just don't care and skip over them.

Freedom of speech is freedom of speech even when you don't care for what you are hearing.

If you think GNAA, goatse, etc. are the worst of slashdot, you haven't brought a brain to the table.

if it there were no consequences id require that you have to give you name & address to post just so I could go round and shut those stupid little twats up, but what hes talking about would stop 90% of posts and its just not worth it.

The point is that there *are* consequences to full identification. Lines being drawn now on what constitutes "hate" speech are frightening.

To name a silly but sad example, I was participating in a discussion on a games board regarding `Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness' and this particular discussion related to the pronunciation of `Disgaea'. I tried to post something which contained the phonetic spelling `Dis-gay-uh', and got a warning message that my text contained something probably offensive and probably violating the TOS and would probably get me banned and would definitely be forwarded to someone for review. (The same idiotic software bans the word `wakarimashita' - Japanese for `understand', presumably for the bolded section). I chose the only reasonable alternative and self-censored my would-be comment.

Fuck censorship. I read slashdot at -1. If that means I have to occasionally skip past the really offensive trolls, whatever. I've been reading netnews, etc. for over two decades. The ratio of noise is roughly constant (once advertising SPAM is removed), so it's not like it's a growing problem. I don't consider it a "problem" at all.

Free speech is still free speech even^H^H^H^Hespecially when you don't agree with it. Asshats are entitled to their opinion even when they do not choose to sign their name. The unique feature of the internet is that with anonymity, we can rise beyond distinctions of race, gender, physical appearance, etc. That's much too important to throw away.

On the Internet noone knows you're a dog. Woof Woof. http://www.xemacs.org/People/steve.baur/ [xemacs.org]

Good for the gander

So I guess the Wapo won't be quoting anonymous sources anymore.

Re:Good for the gander

So I guess the Wapo won't be quoting anonymous sources anymore.

Sure they will! But from now on everything will be attributed to "DeepThroat69".

Re:Good for the gander

When did they stop making shit up?

I disagree

It would be like a librarian asking for censorship.

No, it would be like the librarian asking for quiet in the reading room. It's not the dissemination of ideas or the idea of anonymous communication that bothers him. It's the disruption of discourse by people who refuse to adhere to simple rules.

It would make Slashdot polls scientific finally!

One user = one login. It is the stuff of internet legend.

trust him with my details?

this is the death blow for any forum, NO ONE is going to give you their CC or drivers license (atleast their real one)

No Problem

He can simply require anyone who wants an account on his site to present themselves at his office with three pieces of photo ID and a completed application form. He can then interview them, check their references, and decide whether or not they are acceptable.

What the hell does he expect?

"Brady also lamented that closing user accounts doesn't keep bad eggs off a site. They just come back and create new ones..."

Hey, that's life. I wish I could figure out a way to keep every kook and asshole from coming near me but it's impossible. Why is it any different on the internet?

Not everyone has figured out user moderation

Oddly, this guy has a point. Most reasonably popular unmoderated forums quickly degrade into meaningless flames, trolls, and drivel. All it takes is a few bad apples to turn the rest of the barrel rotten, as the saying goes. Funny enough, I think Slashdot has the most effective and elegant user-moderation system I've seen. Sure, it's not 100% perfect, but more times than not, the random trolls and other crap are already modded out of my viewing range by the time I get to an article.

Most people associate bad Internet behavior with anonymity. That's true to some extent - obviously people are much less civil when dealing remotely and dispassionately with other people. Put a random Internet troll in a biker bar, and I guarantee you he'll be *much* more polite to his fellow patrons. But Slashdot has proven that you don't need to lose anonymity to create an effective flame and troll filter. Let your most trusted users do it.

I'm always surprised that more sites don't copy this system. Or maybe someone has, and I just haven't heard of it?

Re:Not everyone has figured out user moderation

I disagree that the Slashdot system works very well. Sure, it has kept the site going, but is it working well? I would argue no, because the problem with the Slashdot system is that too many people get modded up or down for "political" reasons: "I disagree with you, therefore I will mod you". Or because the modder did not understand the post: I have seen many satirical posts modded down as "troll" and "flamebait", simply because the modder did not get the joke.

We should distinguish between something that works, and something that works well. Slashdot works.

Re:Not everyone has figured out user moderation

I disagree that the Slashdot system works very well. Sure, it has kept the site going, but is it working well? I would argue no, because the problem with the Slashdot system is that too many people get modded up or down for "political" reasons: "I disagree with you, therefore I will mod you".

You haven't read digg recently, have you? Slashdot is in Valhalla compared to digg's moderation system, and that's because moderation merits in Slashdot are hierarchical - the first moderators were wisemen chosen by the Mighty Taco Himself. Besides, anyone can metamoderate. If they don't it's their problem.

In contrast, digg is open to hordes of uncontrollable moderation, and this is specially true when a scientology article gets modded down by the Hubbard hordes.

Re:Not everyone has figured out user moderation

Having been unfairly modded down a few times myself by people who merely disagree with me (and conversely, occasionally modded up for no reason I can figure) I agree, it's not perfect. But it's good enough for everyday use, and that's good enough for the average blog-comment. We're not writing Great Literature here; we're yakking in the local coffeehouse or bar. And that means we'll have the odd spilled cuppa-joe or obstreperous drunk. It keeps the bouncers off the streets. ;)

Won't work as intended

Sadly, sites that adopt this will still be cesspools of hateful comments. Because, ultimately, they don't have the courage to edit fairly and won't adopt ./-style moderation.

So... newspaper cite will still be cesspool of hate. Fair-minded users who value privacy will still ditch. Phhht.

The real lesson is that old-media sites still haven't learned what makes internet comment boards successful, and they revert to old-school control tactics that won't help and will harm.

Being an Online Editor seems Impossible

"I think part of the problem is that people aren't held accountable on the Web," Brady said. "People say things online they would never say when disagreeing with someone at the dinner table. I think heated debate is fine, but when there are (flame wars), many people won't take part for fear they will be attacked and bashed over the head with the (Internet-equivalent) of a steel pipe."

My experience goes, the reason people don't some things at the dinner table is fear they well be attacked and bashed over the head with the (real-life-equivalent) of a steel pipe. In real life, people can't readily speak their mind at times. Now, perhaps this can be viewed as a good because it keeps descenting views quiet. Me? I'd rather hear the KKK and neo-Nazi members speak. Sure, there's the risk that they'll be able to recruit more members. But, history has shown that desegregation and other *real-world* things are what have life-changing effects on people's opinions on things.

Now, maybe the internet is really so revolutionarily different that there is no history to extrapolate from. But, if that's the case, it still seems the case that the good would intrinsically outweight the bad. Will people's feelings be hurt? Will there be trolls and flamers who are more interested in creating dischord than having actual discussions? Sure. That's the reason for things like moderation, editors, etc. The only thing attaching real-world identification to a username will do is either (a) keep the threat of steel pipes to the head from other users running so high that we're back to the self-censorship that leads nowhere (and open up places the Washington Post to wrongful death suits) or (b) keep the threat of editors and their reign of power so high that some people will stop posting entirely.

In short, being an online editor against a seemingly endless flow of trolls, spam, etc seems impossible. But, instead of trying to revert back to the comfortable and easy, perhaps more consideration should be done on tackling the problem by engaging it the hard way? Ie, hire more editors and stop treating online posting as some quirky, cheap add-on that you can control with a few lowly staff or some magical technological fix.

Ever read washingtonpost.com's comments?

Ever read washingtonpost.com's comments?

Guess what they're anonymous and they're basically worthless, consider the lack of any meaningful moderation system ala Slashdot. Comments in articles quickly become long, barely threaded and filled with idotic or worse comments.

It's the rule of internet forums, without some party moderating the debate, the troll wins and the comments suck.

Slashdot's answer is to allow the mob (users) to moderate, but Brady, since he's from the more traditional media, is wary of the mob. The mob has all sorts of biases and tends to reinforce its beliefs. It may be interesting discourse, but it can be difficult to get a balanced discourse -- and this is something the Post is committed to, for better or/and worse.

End result: The Post has moved slowly on user moderation and tried to keep moderation in the hands of a limited number of editors, which becomes overwhelming with so many posts and so many trolls.

His answer, is to require require people's ID to post on his company's web site. Throw in a little potential shame of trolling and see worthless comments decrease -- certainly people will think about them more.

Honestly, I think Brady's wrong on this point, I think the right answer is closer to Slashdot than what he envisions, but it's silly to try to slur the man as an enemy of free speech. Remember he's talking about the policies of the Washington Post on the Washington Post web site, not for the internet as a whole.

The biggest enemy to free speech can sometimes simply be too much noise.

Oh, and on a related note, you may be interested in reading an article Brady wrote on the event that CNET describes as a "notable history." It's available here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/11/AR2006021100840.html [washingtonpost.com]

Re:Ummm....

"requiring registration, logging IPs and banning abusers?"

none of the above does anything to stop abusers.

Re:Solution: only PAID subscribers can post.

But that's just it... For the same reason that paid registrations are not common, all of his proposed authentication schemes won't become common. Registration is onerous and invasive. At a minimum, it's a hassle to have to provide information. Worse, you have to pay a price, whether it's with dollars or personal details (which, as we all know, have great value to companies). Even people who are not privacy nuts dislike having to give out their name and email address just to view some online content or post a comment.

So what will happen? Sites are welcome to create more complex authentication and registration schemes... but as long as other sites don't have such schemes, online participants will naturally gravitate to the sites that have the lowest barriers to entry. So the successful sites will be those that make it very easy to participate.

Of course, we already see this online. Wikipedia and Slashdot are two examples of sites that don't try to prevent anonymous contributions... instead they rely on community self-policing to filter the useful contributions from the trolls. Ultimately, that's the solution: it keeps the barrier to participation low (so you can build up a thriving community), and the mechanism of burying crappy contributions inherently highlights better contributions.

The reason that many sites don't like this answer is that it is hard to generate a useful community (for one thing, you can't treat your users as merely cattle to squeeze money out of--you have to actually build value to keep them visiting your site).