Next week an experiment with the comments
Next week I am going to try another experiment with the comments for two or three days. As with the last experiment, I do not intend to change my commenting policy in the near future, so don’t worry overly. Any future changes will be well signalled and discussed.
What I am interested in is seeing what happens, when I try different things.
For three days next week (Monday 28 to Wednesday 30 September), comments will only be allowed under people’s real names – except in the general debate.
I will give people a one comment warning in case they forget.
Now, if you do not want to post under your real name, then just don’t comment outside the general debates for three days.
If you do want to comment during those three days and are not already commenting under your own name, then there are two easy ways to do so:
- Login as normal and go to your Profile Page. Enter your first name and last name and click Update Profile. Then go up to “Display name publicly as” and select your name and click Update Profile again.
Note that it probably will be possible for people to link your previous comments, to your name (as it shows no of comments for the user) , so do not do this option if this is undesirable
- Just register a new username. Normally the system will not allow you to use the same e-mail address, but I have turned that off, so just set up a new user account under your name. You will then have two accounts you can use in the future as you wish to.
The reason I am doing this experiment is to examine two things:
- Is there a reduction in trolling, abuse and flaming if people are commenting under their own name.
- How much of a reduction in number of comments occurs
Again this is for just three days, and general debates during that time will remain open to all.
And before someone asks, no obviously I won’t know in some cases if you are using a fake name. But on the other hand, I may know!