I had a brief discusion with a friend of mine that got around to blogging and how we handle comments. This person believes it's better not to have comments saying it cuts down on crap or hate comments by people bent on abusing the system and forcing them to become known entities in order to participate in a discussion. As for me, I believe there is always a choice for a blogger to have.
That discussion reminded me of what happened last year when a few state bills (see bill one and bill two) were drawn up in the New York state assembly by a few overly zealous and controlling Senators on advocating for the ban of anonymous comments by people in social networks, blog forums, message boards, or any other discussion site. From Tech Dirt:
Last fall, we were absolutely amazed at a paper written by some NY state politicians arguing that we have too much free speech, and that we need a "more refined" interpretation of the First Amendment, that outlaws things like "leaving improper messages on online message boards." Well... as covered by Dave Kravets at Wired, some NY state politicians have introduced the same bill, in both houses of the legislature, that would outlaw anonymous speech online. The actual bill is not particularly subtle.A rather incredible thing to see on the attempt to regulate the internet and free speech.
Either you have a lot of enemies and don't have the skins for it to put up with anonymous comments, can't handle the truth, cannot debate effectively, orjust plain lazy. Or maybe they just drive themselves nuts on the need to know who is doing the commenting. Then again there are good reasons to not put up with anonymous comments, too, but I just believe in choices here. I believe in the freedom of choice and free speech (there's always a certain limit like you cannot make threats online) on both ends, the moderator/blogger and the people doing the commenting with the choice to comment anonymously or not. I can simply not allow comments to go through. A pretty simple concept there.
I've actually had one former moderator of a formerly popular discussion forum come to my blog and actually abused her posting privledge by violating one of my firmly esstablished rules on posting comments (slightly modificated from an earlier posting rules back in 2007). Ironic if you ask me.
Not all comments left are for discussion. Sometimes I get important anonymous tips through my comments as a way for some of my readers to communicate with me, whoever they are, and that's fine.
I think some bloggers actually pay more attention to the person behind the comment rather than the context of the comment itself. And instead would want to focus on certain individual's name rather than allow anonymous comments go through. Which is probably why some bloggers want to know who is doing the commenting due to perhaps an insecurity issue of their own. They *must* know who is leaving comments behind. This is true among some bloggers who cannot debate effectively and are usually left with "no recourse" but to do ad hominems instead as a way to retaliate back. A psychological sign of an internet bully. All talk, thin skin, must know who is doing the talking.
Overall, I rarely ever delete anonymous comments. Or for that matter, even rarer, delete known person leaving a comment. I only delete a comment if it violates one of my, again, firmly established rules on posting coments. Whenever one is about to comment by clicking on "post a comment" link, a comment box pops up with a link "*****Rules on commenting click here!*****." People can read. The rules are simple even a deaf caveman can follow them.
Only a very few, clueless people actually think I delete comments on a regular basis because I don't like them. Actually, that is not the case. It's a very rare occurance that I delete comments because the idiots didn't follow my rules. Kind of like the same kind of people who don't pay attention to rules on playing Monopoly and that Monopoly money is actually fake money and the money doesn't automatically belong to any particular group by fiat.
Sometimes I let anonymous comments left by cowards go through with the intent to show the world exactly how brain dead some of these folks are with no common sense at all when they are intent on making personal attacks towards me. But these are a very small group of people who cannot effectively debate, discuss or argue on the merits itself. So, what do they do? They call you names in the book, make fun of you, and so on as if doing that they are making cogent arguments. They are not. The moment they do that is a sign they cannot argue effectively to make a case. And they are left with "no recourse" but to lob ad hominems over the fence just so they can make themselves feel better. A sign of immaturity. Weak-mindedness they are. I just hope one day they can learn how to argue correctly instead of throwing temper tantums and have that potty mouth.
My blog has always allowed anonymous comments since the day I started blogging Kokonut Pundit almost 9 years ago. I'm not about to change this approach. As always I reserve my right to moderate comments that come through. They will go through as long as they do not violate my posting rules.
Enjoy your day. Spring is almost here!