New commenting rule
By adamg - Tue, 07/15/2008 - 6:34pm.
Actually, I've been trying it out for a couple weeks now, but, anyhoo ...
If your comment is just a flame of another poster (to the point of not having anything at all to do with the original discussion), out it goes. Extra demerits for attempting to embed stupid Star Trek fanfic pseudo-porn images.
And, yes, loyal readers, I need to finally crack down and implement an account requirement for commenting before things get totally out of hand.
equal protection
Do the new rules apply equally to all who post here including Kaz and Garth?
Not me
The new rule doesn't apply to me because I have pictures of Adam searching for more Star Trek pseudo-porn.
even-handedly
There you go. The new rule won't work unless it's applied even-handedly. I personally did not find the Spock picture pornographic or erotic but whatever, that's your problem.
Course Not
Adam's only protecting "free speech" as he chooses to interpret it.
In any event, it's blog, and he's a private entity. He can do whatever he wants. Doesn't mean that you can't start your own (potentially bigger, better) sandbox. Might be better without his self-appointed comment police, actually.
By all means
Let a thousand flowers bloom and all that.
Both Blogger and WordPress.com let you blog for free, and there are some very good blogs on both sites.
Hear Hear, Chairman
And I do have one (for as long as you've had a site, may I add). I just choose to keep my identity hidden now, as I don't need blowback based on the record of my sparring with your blogfriends. For that matter, would love to, but can't see how to off your RSS feed which leads to the occasional intiguing cut and pastes that send cranks over to my site.
I'd ask you to delete my link, but previous requests from others have resulted in snarky posts from you and nasty commentary from the usual suspects.
Easy enough to fix
I really don't want to link to anybody who doesn't want me to link to them. So send me e-mail with the name of your blog and I'll stop linking to you.
The rules will apply equally
The sanctions are unlikely to.
I knew there was a reason you post with impunity.
Are you guys related/dating/friends?
Do I really have to walk you through this?
Okay, here goes:
If this rule is applied equally, the sanctions will be distributed unequally. Few of Kaz's or my posts will be deleted. Many more posts by anonymous people will be deleted. Why? Because we rarely post comments that are just flames of another poster without having anything to do with the original discussion.
And, to answer your question, we are neither related, nor dating, nor friends. I wouldn't know him from Adam.
I post with impunity because I usually have something relevant and intelligible to say. So does Kaz, and so do most of the regular commenters here. I highly recommend being relevant and intelligible.
Do I really have to walk you
Do I really have to walk you through this?
By Gareth | Wed, 07/16/2008 - 12:41pm
I know that guy is SO stupid.
It was a joke.
Nevertheless, thanks for the thoughtful reply.
It was a joke
but it seems to have served a secondary purpose, testing, which seems to work best with the already testy.
I post with impunity because I usually have something relevant, intelligible and funny to say.
Uh, this is a joke too.
Oh all right....
I guess I need an account then.....
talking about iPhones
oops, wrong thread
But what if...
My UH account doesn't match my blogging moniker b/c I created it too early in my blogging career? :) Can I get a new account name???
It is the will of Landru.
It is the will of Landru.
Maybe it's a good thing ToS only lasted three years
Because a lot of the plots involved well meaning madmen who managed to bend entire planets to their well only to watch the planets collapse into anarchy or tyranny until James T. Kirk arrived (like the one with the Star Fleet commander who thought it might be good for one planet to emulate Nazi Germany).
If I have to register I will go elsewhere
I, for one, don't mind you deleting spam, "me-tos", or outright flame posts. People who do stuff like that deserve it.
But if you make me register to post I will not be back. Too many blogs hide behind registration as a way of keeping people they don't like -- meaning people who disagree with them, or who point out their logic flaws -- from commenting. It's bull****. What's wrong with Captcha?
I'm not going to create an account with you or your blog host, subjecting myself to a lifetime of spam, just to comment one time. I've done that before to my everlasting regret, including on some of the blogs you regularly highlight.
Uh, if Adam was the sort of
Uh, if Adam was the sort of person who'd be inclined to spam his users, don't you think his site would also have more of an ad presence than the little one you see on this page?
(oh-oh, I just began a post with "uh"; wasn't someone complaining about that just the other day?)
um bad - uh good
um, the complaint was about um. I think you're ok with uh. But you might want to check those paragraphs (not for me but someone was complaining about those too.)
Testing 1 2 3
Don't you know the period has to go outside the parenthesis?
This is a test of the flame deletion system.
This is only a test.
In the case of a real flame, disparaging epithets would be used.
Beeep.
real flame, disparaging epithets
What?
punctuation police
Don't you know the period has to go outside the parenthesis?
Don't you know people who post here don't want to have their punctuation and grammar critiqued by you?
Dude, it's a joke
It was a joke, but it seems to have served its secondary purpose (testing -- which seems to work best with the already testy).
I am wondering at what point Adam will cut off this thread. If you would be so kind as to call me a name and post some juvenile clip art next, you would make the spectrum complete and allow a more precise selection.
Testing or Joking?
Provoking is more like it. It's as if Garth is oblivious to the fact that commenting on people's punctuation and grammar, rather than their assertions, has contributed to the problem Adam is trying to fix.
Oh, Come On
He's not oblivious. It was a joke. If some folks didn't get it, that's because humor is one of the most subjective things there is, and you can't make everybody laugh at the same time. Sometimes, you even piss off people when you try to make then laugh. Imagine that!
The postings concerning grammar and punctuation have mostly been an attempt to get some otherwise well-meaning folk to write more clearly. That would cause their messages to be read by more people. It's a win for them, if they do.
(Granted, some of it has been snarky. No argument there. But the overall intent is one of goodness.)
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Seems kinda paranoid to me
I don't get spam from the email address I used at UHub. Of course, I've got hundreds of different addresses, and sieve scripts to filter them all...
But it seems a bit paranoid, based on my experience, to refuse to register here just because you think you'll be damned to an eternity of spam.
Hey, have you heard about this thing called hotmail? You could create an email account you have no intention of checking in the future and use that to sign up. That way, if spam went to that address, you'd never see it.
captcha is annoying
I'd take my name off a site that required that before I'd take myself off a site that required registration
I've never rented my user database
And never will. I get too much spam myself to want to subject others to it. Yes, it's a matter of faith for somebody outside my immediate family to believe that. But as somebody mentioned here, you can get a HotMail or Yahoo account if you don't trust me. The object isn't to create a new database for spam but to deal with some issues here:
One is that there are now hit-and-run comment spammers, call 'em collectively Spam 3.0, who, instead of just blasting "classic" spam, actually hire people (no doubt in India, because the English is often just a bit off, and no offense to Indians who are far more educated than I) to post comments that are sort of on topic and which have only one or two links, with the goal of increasing the spam site's Google Ranking. I'm seeing more of that; registration would at least slow them down.
As the site has grown more popular, discussions get longer and we get more than one anon, sometimes arguing with each other, and it becomes harder to tell who's saying what. Somebody suggested something like appending IP numbers to "anons" as a way to keep them apart. Technically, could probably be done by somebody a bit more competent in PHP than me, but would still leave the problem of people changing IP numbers (say, posting from home and from work).
And as the site has grown more popular, we're seeing more discussions devolve into you suck/no you suck more ranting. Just seems to be something about being anonymous that contributes to that (not that it hasn't stopped some folks with accounts from not counting to 10).
I would hate to see anybody leave because of registration, but at the same time, I'd hate to see UH become a mini-Usenet or even another Wicked Good Conference, where it's just the same five or six people endlessly yelling at each other.
regarding page rank
you can add a rel="nofollow" attribute to links in comments--search engines will then ignore those links when calculating page rank. requiring registration will not prevent spam any more than captcha does, anyway.
if you are concerned with too many anons, why not just make the name field required? people could still type in "anon," but i suspect most of the anons here aren't so because they choose to be, but because it is faster to not have to type a name.
nofollow
I've resisted that because the least I can do for people whose sites I excerpt and link to is provide them a little bit of Googlejuice.
The anon name thing? Hmm, that's an idea. There's also a Drupal module that would drop a cookie so that anon users could have their name info retained.
to clarify
i was thinking you'd only use "nofollow" for links in your comments, and not in the posts themselves.
Too many blogs hide behind
Too many blogs hide behind registration as a way of keeping people they don't like -- meaning people who disagree with them, or who point out their logic flaws -- from commenting.
This is a silly argument. It is just as easy to RULE WITH AN IRON FIST!!1 and delete posts which disagree with a benevolent dictator's status quo, be they from anonymous posters or from registered members.
And we're not talking about registration into a Secret Club that has to be approved by 2/3 of the Guild Members here, we're talking about signing up for posting with an username that's all yours (and that no one else can take), plus some contact information if you wish -- just give a throwaway Hotmail account, fercryig out loud -- but most importantly, actually taking responsibility for the words you post.
The spam argument aside, what are you really afraid of? Not being able to sock puppet anymore? Not being able to obfuscate Anonymous threads? Not being able to hide anonymously when you want to post something that will stir things up?
It doesn't really matter, ultimately; your paranoia is not Adam's concern. So farewell, adieu, and don't let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya.
registration
I am done also. F registration.
Amen
Anyone who has been reading UH for a while should be able to tell that there is no danger here in providing a wee bit of info about oneself in exchange for easier commenting and ability to distinguish between commenters. I say 'Hallelujah' to the new policy, and sayonara to anyone who isn't willing to complete the free and simple registration. (Hey Adam, do I get a kickback for my endorsement?!)
bravo
I support this move 103.6%.
Thanks for running such a
Thanks for running such a great site. I'm disappointed to see that you may need to go to registration, since in my experience the commenters on this site have been abnormally decent to eachother. I always figured there was something unique about this site that made people behave, but I guess it's just your careful watch over commenters and deletion of baddies. I for one wouldn't mind you going to registration. It keeps the tenor of conversations civil, and leads to better discussions overall. (I'm only posting anon out of laziness)
Sounds wise
Sounds as if it is a good idea. Obviously, some blog moderators do a bad job of editing, but why would anyone think this site would suffer the same way? I say, ignore the naysayers.
Better to have the policy, and infrequently use it, then not have the policy and then be stuck in a bad situation, should something arise.
The only comment I ever deleted on my blog was when someone made a vulgar comment about oral sex that made even me blush. I considered just editing out the offensive part of the post, but it ended up reading "The ."
Blogs do have a way of attracting a couple of obsessive commenters, which ends up ruining the "fun" for everyone else. The Boston Globe real estate blog was ruined by one such person who responds to every single blog entry, even though he has nothing to add. What happens is it ruins the thread; it cuts off free-wheeling conversations.
Well, what is being suggested here won't necessarily counter that, of course.
But, glad you're doing it. I would assume one or two of my previous comments would be deleted; so be it. (Oh, and the ones that wouldn't be deleted? Can you delete them, anyway. God knows I regret one or two ...)
Go for it, Adam!
Re: praise, etc.: yay, I love U'Hub!
Re: requiring login: a fine idea.. Should reduce a significant level of nastier/offtopic comments. Will result in some subset of non-login-ing users leaving. May reduce the overall number of simple comments, since even thoughtful new readers are less likely to add "hey have ya seen" comments if they can't do it super-easily (hence can slightly slow community growth).
If you do want to start with a gentler approach, tracking and displaying a partial IP address for non-logged in users is a good idea. Yes, people can post from work/home, but still, it usually becomes obvious if there's a serial annoyer. I'm sure there's Drupal module that does this, although I still lack the Drupal-fu to help, sadly.
Re: privacy advocates: I'm one too. But if you fundamentally don't trust Adam, then you probably should be commenting elsewhere. Otherwise just get a throwaway email account.
Re: actual guidelines: just post a brief version of the guidelines somewhere and be done with it. I always try to over-wordsmith them, and it never really makes a difference (other than resulting in long-winded wordsmithing discussions). Just keep being honest, and try to be consistent, and not worry about it too much.
Re: who sets da rules: Some guy named Gaffin from Rozzie.
Hey, Tammy, sure, just create a new username to match; unless Adam objects.
Hey, Adam, I think you might be shortsighted about demeriting TOS postings, given the geek level hereabouts. But I'll try to keep my comments under the Warp 5 speed limit.
Register, you'll like it!
I was one of those too lazy to register (although I did always change anon to my id). But now that I have, I love not having to enter the 5th word of a nonsense sentence before I post.
I love this site and if Adam wants something he thinks will make it better or easier on him, then I'm all for it!
More Benefits To Registering
You can easily track your comments and any replies to them, via the "track" tab at your "My acct" page.
You can post stuff, via the "Post!" tab.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
2+2=5?
Forget captcha and nonsense sentences, I miss the math problems!
Seriously though, perhaps some people, even those already registered, would like the freedom to comment in a public forum without it being traced back to them personally, and with Adam being pressured to give up such information to others. Perhaps the answer could be found in a hushmail account?
P.S. - I can't believe I got the login "Jenn" so easily. Did anyone score the even more valuable "Anon"? ;-)
Not that I know of,
Jenn.
The potential for loss
I'm aware that going to registration will potentially mean the loss of some interesting anonymous comments. I've gotten to the point, though, where I'm thinking that's outweighed by the potential for this whole thing to collapse into a morass of unintelligible hatred.
The reason "anon" is the default name is because some weisenheimer registered the old default, "anonymous." :-). I've put anon on a "prohibited" list so nobody can register that.
Fark you. NO adult
Fark you. NO adult supervision. Byte me. --->getting guts ripped out<--- FREEDOM!!!!!!