The price of annonymity

Commenting options have become all the rage over the past couple of years on hundreds of websites from blogs to news organizations' sites. The Internet provides people a screen to hide behind and a forum on which to comment. While many people enjoy commenting on blogs, message boards and especially news organizations' sites (as of lately), it can pose problems and brings up many issues. Should people be allowed to remain annonymous even when their comments can be hurtful? And if people are allowed some annonymity, how annonymous is too annonymous?

Although nearly every blog has allowed comments since they were created, news organizations' commenting options are fairly new. The majority of news organizations allow it to bring in more readers and to spark discussion. According to a NY Times article, "News Sites Rethink Anonymous Online Comments" many news organizations are now requiring their commenters to log in. The article can be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/technology/12comments.html. According to the article, some of those requiring people to register are The NY Times and Washington Post and other organizations are changing their commenting policies.

I couldn't agree more with what these website moderators are doing. They should require information from all commenters who choose to post. Although annonymity can bring in more commenters, it also allows some commenters to make offensive comments more than they would if their names were listed beside their opinions. Allowing readers to comment on articles on news websites has caused many organizations to shut off the commenting option on specific articles. Many readers also don't want to see comments along with the unbiased articles.

Allowing annonymous comments, especially on news organizations' sites are a slippery slope. By requiring names, emails and even locations, moderators are able to discourage people from making such offensive comments because their names are known by moderators. People should be free to voice their opinions, but in a way that is respectful. By requiring at least some information, moderators are able to discourage readers from being offensive, and that's something we all can appreciate.