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The proposal to enforce AC posting for logged in members only on the main page was promulgated to all staff and members of the board 7 days ago. Thank you to all those who contributed to the earlier discussions and clearly expressed their own views, suggestions and potential enhancements. All are being studied for implementation, if feasible, when staffing and resources permit.
There has been unanimous agreement from all responses received in favour of the proposed restriction. However, it was also apparent that there was a wish that this will be only until other alternative methods of restricting spamming, abuse and other disruptions to discussions can be identified and implemented. This is unlikely to be achievable in the short to medium term; other sites are struggling unsuccessfully with the same problem. The long-term aim remains to include AC posting in all discussions if at all possible
Therefore, beginning immediately, all AC posting on the main site will be limited to registered members who have logged in to their account. We regret that this leaves a number of AC community members unable to contribute as they once did, but anonymity remains a personal choice.
This will not affect discussions in journals which will have no limits and will be open to all.
If there is a demand for it, I will look at alternative methods of publishing a small number of stories each day into a journal.
On a more positive note, there is evidence that because of the recent restrictions on AC posting a significant number of existing accounts have returned and are commenting in the discussions. The quality of discussions (i.e. signal-to-noise ratio) is significantly better than it was several weeks ago. Although we have lost overall numbers of comments, the value of many of those lost comments appears to have been quite low. There has also been a noticeable improvement in moderations being awarded with more positive moderations being given when compared to negative ones. It is too early yet to draw any firm conclusions from other site statistics.
janrinok
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HammeredGlass on Tuesday July 26 2022, @03:55PM (21 children)
The are so few places left on the net to say what you will into the void
I hope that AC posting returns in some manner soon.
(Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Tuesday July 26 2022, @03:57PM
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Gaaark on Tuesday July 26 2022, @04:08PM (7 children)
Too many AC's (Asshole Cunts) posted too much irrelevancy: just shit and toxicity. Do. not. miss. it.
You should have been around at the beginning when proper discussions occurred. I. miss. that.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Tuesday July 26 2022, @04:19PM (1 child)
The same astroturfers that caused trouble as ACs can still cause trouble, it's just that there is a slight barrier for them now.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Tuesday July 26 2022, @05:35PM
Maybe a good solution would be to have a central government hosted registry of Anonymous Coward accounts.
Bad mods would cause the government to DO SOMETHING!
One thing British schools lack that American schools have is active shooter drills so we are prepared.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 26 2022, @06:35PM
A precise mirror image of our politics in general, timing and everything. Let's thank the Clintons and the Trumps, since they're joined at the hips anyway, why not? It is their followers that did this
(Score: 4, Interesting) by dx3bydt3 on Tuesday July 26 2022, @08:20PM (3 children)
I agree things are looking more like the old days here again. I'll happily deal with the fact that there are fewer comments overall, when those comments we do get are ones worth reading and engaging with. I'm one of those who have rarely engaged in recent years, and I will endeavour to start doing so more, now that the atmosphere has improved. I was getting so discouraged with the quality of discourse, I was contemplating allowing my subscription to lapse. The only reason I hadn't done so already is that this site is one of the places I get to see viewpoints that differ from my own, held by people intelligent and articulate enough to be worth reflecting on.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday July 27 2022, @01:09AM (2 children)
I DID let my subscription lapse because of all the shit:
I, like you, may reconsider and renew now.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday July 27 2022, @04:16AM (1 child)
And both I, and more importantly MDC, would appreciate it :-) However, we will be more than grateful if you just stick with us and continue to comment as you do.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday July 27 2022, @01:37PM
Oh, i'll be here... now.
This is a good choice, excepting that it eliminates those who cannot be but AC for whatever personal safety reasons they have. THAT'S too bad.
Maybe today i'll subscribe... for MDC :)
Some day, when i retire, maybe i'll start posting stories again! Someday. Just don't burn out, man. Keep calm and edit on!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Opportunist on Tuesday July 26 2022, @04:48PM (4 children)
Quite frankly, I neither miss the racism nor the spam.
In the end, either solution will cost SN users. If you disallow AC postings, you will use the people who will not, under any circumstances, create an account. If you allow it, you will eventually turn away people who don't want to wade through a swamp of spam and noise to sieve out an occasional nugget of information and move over to greener pastures (that have about the same stories, and about the same spam...).
(Score: 3, Insightful) by cmdrklarg on Tuesday July 26 2022, @06:59PM (3 children)
I will happily approve of the "cost" of turning away unrepentant trolls and spammers. The less I have to do with that nonsense the better.
If a user is paranoid enough to never create an account under any circumstances then I'm not certain I want to hear from them either. If it's NOT paranoia then they have larger issues than not being able to post on this sleepy little website.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Opportunist on Tuesday July 26 2022, @08:54PM
I AM NOT PARANOID!
Because if you are, THEY notice!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Magic Oddball on Tuesday July 26 2022, @09:22PM
Same feeling here, speaking as someone who has needed to keep her online & real-life identities totally separate in order to avoid being tracked down online by an abusive, obsessed dude I dated long ago.
If the ACs were sharing sensitive governmental, corporate, military, or personal information that is so important that it would lead to a shadowy group hacking into SN's servers to find out which outwardly-anonymous logged-in user was responsible in order to unmask and persecute the person, then I'd understand some AC's refusal to create an account in order to post anonymously...but I've never actually seen an AC post anything of that nature, just the same kind of mundane comments the rest of us make.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Wednesday July 27 2022, @02:58AM
Yeah, the conversations have been a lot more enjoyable.
I will say though that I suspect lazyness plays a roll - there are a LOT of times on other forums that I just pass through occasionally that I'd love to leave a comment, maybe offer some missing information in passing, but if they don't offer anonymous posting it's just not worth the effort of setting up an account.
The "across-the-internet" identities from Google, Facebook, etc. are an interesting concept, but I'm dubious of the wisdom of voluntarily providing that much more information about you to such voracious data compiling corporations.
(Score: 3, Touché) by DannyB on Tuesday July 26 2022, @05:26PM (6 children)
There is still /dev/nul
Which is roughly equivalent to posting to your journal.
One thing British schools lack that American schools have is active shooter drills so we are prepared.
(Score: 4, Touché) by coolgopher on Wednesday July 27 2022, @03:42AM (5 children)
You're originally a Windows user, aren't you ;)
(Score: 5, Funny) by Gaaark on Wednesday July 27 2022, @01:45PM
He posted correctly, it's just the second 'l' went prematurely into /dev/null. Better known as C: drive on Windows.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday July 27 2022, @03:12PM (3 children)
I use Windows at work. Where I am not responsible for maintaining it.
I have personally never ever not once owned a Windows PC. (I've bought two Windows PCs at separate times many years ago which then immediately got Linux installed.)
I was a long time classic Mac developer. Co-author of Timbuktu 1.0 and author of Timbuktu/Remote. I was a card carrying classic Mac fanboy. Until Jobs and OS X.
At about that same time (June 1999) I got my first Linux machine and have never looked back.
So please forgive the /dev/nul, I just typed it without thinking. It didn't mean anything.
One thing British schools lack that American schools have is active shooter drills so we are prepared.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Thursday July 28 2022, @12:52AM (2 children)
Ah, sorry if my comment was interpreted as an attack - I was genuinely aiming for Funny, or a counter-post saying "takes one to know one!"
I, sadly, have had more exposure exposure to Windows than one might consider ideal. Even if FreeBSD and by now Linux are my preferred choices, I still run Windows (for gaming) and a Mac laptop (for work - it makes an excellent "thin" client to SSH into real systems from).
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday July 28 2022, @02:12PM (1 child)
No big deal. I just wanted to be clear that the /dev/nul with one "l" wasn't meant to be offensive as it could easily be perceived.
One thing British schools lack that American schools have is active shooter drills so we are prepared.
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Friday July 29 2022, @12:29AM
Eh, I was reaching for it with that one, and it fell flat. Definitely not on you :)