Comment Policy And Multiple Aliases
Nov 1, 2009 17:11 - 6 Comments
Dear >Rockville Central readers:
As many of you know, our comment volume has been going up and up, and with the volume we have had a number of challenges as we try to balance openness with the necessity of keeping a civil forum. Cindy Cotte Griffiths and I have felt that we have reached a good equilibrium where, for the most part, we have no completely anonymous commenting and relatively few over-the-line instances of bad behavior. There have been a few judgment calls, and recently we decided to get a little stricter with what we approve, as people’s emotions began to run higher. But by and large it’s been working.
We have a new issue and a new policy we want to draw your attention to.
We recently discovered through looking at our log files that we may have had instances where people have logged comments under multiple pseudonyms. These are called “sock puppets” in the online world, and there is no online forum where they are tolerated. Rockville Central is no exception.
The best way to make sure sock puppetry is not going on is to ban the IP address on comments where we detect what appear to be intentional multiple comment logins (after first looking to make sure it is not multiple people logging in at one place of business, or some other obvious legitimate reason).
We are posting this note to let the community know that, from now on, that is what we are going to do. We have added a warning to the brief instructions above the comment-entry box, and we will not allow comments from IP addresses where there is evidence of multiple comment logins. IP addresses where that is happening will be banned from commenting.
Thank you for your ongoing support.
Wow. As the guy who previously said he thought you were too worried about bad behavior I humbly retract my statement. That’s just amazing behavior.
Does the Rockville Central statistics cover these “multiple pseudonyms (sock puppets)?The blog managers have the right to implement their policy. Keeping the tone appropriate is key for me. Once it is inappropriate, I will discontinue reading and posting comments.Thank you.
Brigitta, that’s a good question. Thanks for asking it. The commenting and the visitor statistics are different. We do not know who is visiting, we just know that someone did visit. So, if someone visits multiple times in order to leave sock puppet comments, our traffic statistics will indicate just one visitor. In other words, the traffic statistics are not artificially inflated.
In case folks wonder, MY OWN visits to the site are not counted, so I can’t manipulate traffic by visiting repeatedly.
Hopefully, with this policy clearly stated, we won’t have any more offenders. I’d like to add that my visits are also not counted in the stats.
Who are the “sock puppets?You’ll recall that I previously encouraged Rockville Central to implement the full name requirement. I’d also require home address. People who choose to be anonymous probably are trying to unfairly influence the debate that takes place here. Especially during an election. If someone is using multiple aliases, odds are they are up to no good. We ought to know who can’t be trusted.So, I think Rockville Central should out the culprits.Art Stigile312 W Edmonston Dr
Although it is true that “sock puppets” may have been unfairly attempting to influence the debates on Rockville Central, we are not going to disclose their identities. Brad and I are in agreement that we will not release this information. Since we are checking all commenters and requiring the use of first and last names, we hope to prevent this situation in the future. We would rather look forward than back. I will add that the discoveries were made rather quickly and we are not aware of any long-term occurrences of this problem.Personally, I am quite pleased about requiring the names. However, I don’t think street addresses should be required. This would be an unnecessary deterrent to participating on Rockville Central. Often in “real life” public forums people don’t give their address, even when it is requested.