What do you think? Is it generally copacetic to speculate on the identity of anonymous users? Or is anonymity to be held in sacrosanctity? Are anonymous users responsible for not leaving clues that might allow others to identify them?

What should the rest of us do when anonymous users give clues to their identity? Should we just ignore it and give the desired anonymity its presumed respectful space?

Should anonymity be challenged? On what basis?

I understand that anonymity gives people who might not be able to contribute the opportunity to do so, that is, to more safely share their thoughts, opinions and ideas.

But, on another slant, anonymity can also allow for abuse - for example, harassment and attacks, for hurtful, harmful or destructive behavior - without normal consequences.

This is a major issue on the Internet. Should anonymous users be held to a different standard? For example, does the opinion of an anonymous user count for less?

What do you think? Is it okay to speculate on the identity of anonymous users? What's your opinion? And, why?

On The Media did a piece on internet comment threads.

There's been a bit of a backlash recently against the angry commenter on newspaper websites. Some are calling for newspapers to stop allowing comments sections all together. But what about democracy on the web? Bob, with the help of "This American Life"'s Ira Glass, ruminates on the dark side of the comments section.

Listen here:

I particularly like the part of this piece that describes how a new hierarchy is being created on the internet that favors those who can be the most ugly and abusive over the thoughtful and careful.

One of the changes I'm going to roll out today is the ability for folks to promote their own stuff to the front page (what I'm calling an "autonomous user"). This addresses one of the problems with the docent model ("Hey -- why didn't you guys promote my post!!"), allows people more control over the process, and takes the burden off of me. This system will rely heavily on trust, however. In order to make sure that contributors are promoting hyperlocal material that appeals to a wider audience, only those who have a track record of producing relevant content will have this ability. If you'd like to be able to self-promote, drop me a note. I'll also be keeping an eye out for folks that are blogging responsibly and adding this feature to their accounts.

Because if I don't start, it won't happen.... Here's a huge batch of articles on online community:

• Some community tips for 2007
• The Crunchland Method (Scroll down a bit)
• Design for Community (out of print book)
• Yahoo! Design Patterns: Reputation
• Building an Online Community
• Community: from little things big things grow
• Develop Effective Forum Leadership (check the related articles?)
• Got any stats on lurkers vs contributors?
• Common pitfalls of building social web applications (see also parts II & III)

These come from some folks who have run or are running fairly large online communities, some of which have been going for quite a long time.

The point being that I think OlyBlog as a community could stand to do some learning from these sources. (I almost jumped into the anonymity question but never did get my thoughts together.) After almost 10 years of web communities, there actually is some best practice available. :)

More to come, hopefully. I am notoriously lousy about following up on these sorts of vague big ideas, so no promises.

I immediately wanted to solve this problem, so I asked of them (sometimes they offered without my asking): What is something we could do about that? What can we change that would make you feel safe contributing to OlyBlog? Hands down the number one answer has been: Anonymity.

This cartoon captures perfectly one of the reasons why comments get out of hand. I wish more people could say their piece, and then let it go.

I am a docent at OlyBlog, which is dedicated to hyperlocal news and discussion of topics related to life in and around Olympia, Washington. OlyBlog's mission is to promote citizen journalism and to provide a resource for sharing knowledge and discussion about Olympia (and immediately surrounding areas.)

OlyBlog is awesome and fun. However, throughout much of the history of OlyBlog (over 2 and 1/2 years now) there have been users of the site who participate in a way that is disruptive and discourages participation by a broader audience. Personally it has been aggravating and frustrating to deal with some of these individuals, there are about 10 or so of them, who bring an attitude of prejudice, of combativeness, of aggression and intolerance for any ideas but their own. Some users' behavior is downright nasty, hostile, provocative, antagonistic, hostile and dishonest. (sorry, yes I realize this isn't a thesaurus.)

From OMUG:

6:00 PM - 9:00 PM OMUG General Meeting @ 7pm:

Chris Brownell, a local blogger, will tell us about blogging and chat room participation. Blogging with your sweetie. (Olympia Community Center)

Mix and Meet: 6 pm
General Meeting: Business and then program: 7 pm
February 14 Program Valentine'

Hola OlyBlog, I was wondering if you are ever gonna have a public workshop on "blogging" & how to use all the cool OlyBlog features?

We're not alone here on OlyBlog in dealing with the issue of how to moderate discussion.

Calculated Risk:

I cannot make anyone stop responding to pointless or nuisance comments. You have to want to restrain yourself, because you understand that the only way to get rid of them is to fail to give them the attention they want. A "troll" is not just someone whose comments you disagree with, or even just a nasty or badly-worded comment. A troll is someone who does not, under any possible set of circumstances, care what you think about him or his comments. He merely wants attention. Negative attention will do. The more you disagree with him, the more he is able to tell himself that he is persecuted and victimized or the only voice of reason or one of the elite few who has the God's-eye view of the world or whatever his current delusion is. If he isn't merely a narcissist who thrives on feeling attacked, he's just some putz who enjoys irritating other people. Therefore, you "feed" the troll by paying any attention to him at all. It does not matter what you say in response. Any response to a troll just encourages the troll.