Editor’s Note
Back in the old days — that’s less than a decade and before there were such things as blogs and interactive conversations with readers — editors used to respond to their newspaper readers with an “editor’s note.” Sometimes it clarified a point made in a letter to the editor. Sometimes it offered a correction. Sometimes it was just a simple explanation. An editor’s note was a handful of sentences; maybe a four or five paragraphs. It was always a personal link between the editor and the reader. Only difference between it and today’s blog is the immediacy and the platform. Welcome to Editor’s Note.

Anonymous comments or registered for real

October 6th, 2009 at 09:20pm Linda Grist Cunningham

We’re doing — unintentionally — an experiment here in the News Tower: Does requiring full online registration put the kibosh on comments and what we call “community conversation”?

Nope. If anything, the quality of the comments and the civility of the conversation goes way up. We didn’t set out to experiment; it was an unintended consequence of how we manage the status update posts (aka social networking) on our RockfordWoman.com Web site.

Comments on rrstar.com can be posted anonymously. All you need is an active e-mail account and a screen name. You can call yourself John Smith or “goofer” and post away as long as you stay just this side of overtly offensive.

On RockfordWoman.com, you can’t post a “hello” without fully identifying yourself.  You can’t read anything except the original posts without full identification. You can’t post a response. If you want to be part of the RockfordWoman.com site, you’ll share name, addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses and assorted other identification — and even after all that, you’ll hear from us directly confirming who you are. If you pass all that, you must post with your real name.

The full registration annoys the heck out of some rrstar.com anonymous posters. They’re irritable because they can’t post comments and we have severely restricted access to the site — unless they register. (I get angry e-mails about how I am censoring their free speech, etc.)

There is no anonymity on RockfordWoman.com. So, did all that Draconian registration scare folks away? Quite the contrary. There are more than 600 registered users of the site and the number grows steadily.  The number of anonymous posters who load up the story comments can be counted on a handful of fingers and toes.

RW users post regularly, comment on their lives and share information. The conversation is civil, civic, supportive, smart and frequently important.  Coming to RockfordWoman.com is like walking into someone’s welcoming, safe kitchen or office, kicking off your shoes and talking over the news of the day with friends.

Dropping in on story comments at rrstar.com is, well, not like that. So, will I finally make the decision to require full registration at rrstar.com? I don’t have the technology to do it. But, when I do? Yep, full registration. I’m just tired of the anonymous posts.

Entry Filed under: Uncategorized

5 Comments Add your own

  • 1. Mark Winterland  |  October 7th, 2009 at 12:00 am

    I would very much like to see the anonymous comments go. If you truly believe what you are posting then your name would not be an issue. There are more than a few anonymous posters that simply like to foment anger toward a race, political group or belief. If you truly believe in free speech then you should have no problem attaching your name to your bigotry.

  • 2. Curtis Newport  |  October 7th, 2009 at 6:23 am

    Posting anonymous comments just gives people a tree to hide behind while they sling mud. Nothing useful comes of it.

    I don’t quite understand your comment about not having the technology to do on one site what you’re doing on another. But I’m eager for the day when everyone’s identity is verified, just like letters to the editor.

  • 3. Juice  |  October 7th, 2009 at 7:42 pm

    Unfortunately, speaking ones mind, regardless of the facts, can be held against them these days by employers, automatically being called un-ethical at a minimum. Free speech is no longer free and companies are sometimes looking at any reason to get rid of people.

  • 4. Jon Murray  |  October 8th, 2009 at 3:16 pm

    I never really did understand why some think it\’s necessary to go by a screen name. I think posting comments by one\’s genuine name makes good sense. I\’m proud of my comments and have no reason to hide my identity.

  • 5. Paul  |  October 9th, 2009 at 11:19 pm

    Juice is correct in that many bloggers could be in trouble with employer’s and other’s if their real name were required. Sometimes the information presented in blogs is derived from sources or people who are in delicate positions. Do a little better at controlling the content rather than requiring the names.

    It’s interesting that in the same edition there is an article about the President watering down or making the federal shield law useless. Maybe he should do away with it all together so the media cannot allow any of their sources to remain ananymous.

Leave a Comment

Required

Required, hidden

Security Code:

Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>

Trackback this post  |  Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed