Sigh. No Anonymous comments for now
Due to the immature ravings of some miscreants, we've felt obliged to turn off the ability to make anonymous comments. I do this with great regret, having been open to them for 10 months and gotten good responses by being that open.
It's puzzling how the comments that are made by the vandals can be seen as promoting their supposed cause, and it's gone on long enough to suggest they are not going to stop.
We may revisit this decision from time to time, but I'm tired of playing cat-and-mouse.
We sincerely regret the inconvenience this will pose on the many responsible parties who make comments, from all viewpoints. To post comments, you have to create a Google account and be logged in to it.
TBV
21 comments:
I wondered when this would happen. Bummer for all the wasted time trying to stay on top of these.
I have been following for sometime now and never really posted anything. Thanks for all of the hard work keeping us upto date. I hope this solves that problem, and I hope that the interesting posts that were anonymous don't stop just because they have to have an account.
There may be a next wave, where he/they acquire blogger ids. As soon as one is reported and canceled, they just go out and get another.
Like I said, they're hard to beat.
They love to know they're getting under somebody's skin. Don't let them.
Can't leave them up, snake. Some are legally actionable and while recent caselaw favors TBV, why risk it?
We won't edit or respond. We will just delete them
One way to ease the game of cat and mouse while still allowing anonymous comments is to moderate comments and manually approve them. In your Blogger control panel go to "Settings" --> "Comments" and set "Enable comment moderation" to "yes" and provide an email address to email comments to. This will send comments to the designated address and the emails will have links to either approve or reject the comment.
I have found this highly effective at keeping trolls at bay on my blog. It also brings comments to you so that you don't have to go digging for comments that need to be deleted.
After awhile once the trolls give up and go elsewhere you can always turn the moderation off. It would be a real shame to lose all the really good anonymous comments (both for and against Floyd) just because of a few juvenile delinquents. Really all this is doing is allowing the trolls to claim victory in silencing the robust discussions going on here.
Bummer you guys had to do that.
I guess Roid didn't get the memo that France finally surrendered to Lance.
Well, the good news is, it's almost Friday. I hear cocktails calling . . . ;o)
I think moderation slows down communication unnecessarily; given the choice, I prefer to try registered users first. We'll see.
TBV
Not just anonymous, but even those who are actually using our names (but not our Google or Blogger account) are also locked out.
I actually think that only folks who are willing to put their real name next to their comment should be allowed to post any where.
I appreciate what you do, and am testing my new google account to see it I can post.
I think it's sad that you had to turn moderation on, especially at this point in the discussion. Good, bad or ugly, I think this conversation--along with DPF--has really opened a lot of doors. It's also shown that there's an angry division amongst some cycling fans, but I think this discussion has been important.
Now, too bad I'll be without a newspaper or Internet access for a week while I travel. Who wants to call me if the arbs actually speak next week? Who is the head of the call chain? Was that Rant or Strbuk?
I am sorry I was gone all day yesterday, it seems sad that it comes to this, but it's very necessary.
str
Gary,
Not to worry. If you're only gone for the next week, they probably won't have even gotten the official transcripts before you get back. Then both sides have another 2 weeks to craft more legal briefs. After that's all done, the arbs will have to wait -- no, I meant "take" -- a respectable amount of time before announcing their decision. ;-)
I'm sure that means we won't be hearing a peep out of the arbs until the decision is final and the ink is dry on the paper.
Now, when I go on vacation in a few weeks time, what do you bet the chances are that a decision gets announced? ;-)
- Rant
I seem to have inherited some of the idiots over at Quickrelease TV. Somebody posted a link about the hearing videos at Floydlandisdotcom, with a pingback to Quickrelease and then I got a flood of stupid comments.
To date I've left them alone.
Oh gosh, you guys, it's a real shame with all of your hard work that you have had to spend time on dealing with these idiots.
Two or three weeks ago after I had covered another controversial topic I started getting trolls on my blog. While their posts never make it to my bog because I moderate comments as I describe in my post above, it was annoying. To resolve the problem I added the following notice right below the "post a comment" link:
"NOTICE: Comments with profanity (mild or explicit) or are otherwise offensive will NOT be posted. Dissent and disagreement is welcome, abusiveness is not."
I haven't seen any trolling posts since I added this note. I do, however, still get dissenting comments, which I do post.
I participate in a lot of forums and am constantly reading blogs. What I have learned over the years is that trolls are everywhere and they must be dealt with in an aggressive manner if one is to promote civil discourse. Those forums, blogs, etc. that do not swiftly deal with trolls will quickly lose the good posters who actually contribute to a civil discourse. The object is to implement measures that silence the trolls without placing an undue burden on other participants.
I defer to chemical Ken's advice.
I've never "won" myself. I just adopted a healthy attitude of partial resignation, and learned not to let it get the best of me.
But, I'd rather have won.
Too bad to have to add the extra level for access. I hope that it does not deter serious commenters. I have to admit that the trolls and flamers drove me off DPF, I just didn't have the time to waste on scrolling through crap, personal disputes and exchanges.
I probably missed some important stuff, but that's the way it goes. I sympathize with tbv, as a volunteer who is (hopefully) otherwise employed, the time needed to moderate effectively would be excessive and would slow down the commentary which has often been valuable.
Continued accolades to the TBV crew.
An aside: Always have wondered why folks with something serious and worth listenting to post anonymously/without signature. For those who are interested pcrosby is for Peter Crosby.
pcrosby
Well, I posted for the most part anonymouslsy, mostly because it was easier. But I went ahead and created a blogger account. I had been thinking of starting a blog (on a totally unrelated subject) and this was sort of the spark that got me to commit.
It is a shame that after months of mostly civil discourse here that all the flamers and trolls crawled out of the woodwork.
William Schart
>>Now, too bad I'll be without a newspaper or Internet access for a week while I travel. Who wants to call me if the arbs actually speak next week? Who is the head of the call chain? Was that Rant or Strbuk?<<
Gary, leave a number and I'll put you on the "calling tree." (teachers, does this sound familiar?)
str
Been there, done that. But now I are retired:-)
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