Due to recent problems with trolls, I have decided to require user registration and login before posting comments. I checked with key players on IPR and the consensus was to give this a try.
This may only be temporary. We will see how it goes. If anyone has any complaints or concerns please e-mail me at wredlich@gmail.com.
120 thoughts on “Comments now limited to registered users”
Rod Stern
It’s not asking me for a login. If it did, how would I go about registering? For a few minutes it did require a login, but I didn’t see in any way to sign up, just a way to log in if I was already signed up.
Caryn Ann Harlos
This post is begging for a troll image.
Thane Eichenauer
I seem to remember user registration being mentioned before but. My guess as to how was to click on the Log in link under the meta subsection in the bottom right hand column of the page. Tried in before, tried it now, unsuccessfull in the end. I am presuming instructions on how to complete user registration will be posted.
Works for me. IMO it’s a good idea. Most of our readers are probably (hopefully) not aware of all the X-rated material that the editors delete from the comments daily.
However, that comment and all the comments were going to an old thread from 2008, so registration has been suspended at least until the technical issues are resolved. As far as I know there is still a plan to implement comment registration if and when we can do it without the glitches.
langa
Bad idea. This substantially reduces the chances of new people commenting. I virtually never go to the trouble of registering just to comment, and I’m sure many others feel the same way.
Of course, I’ve never understood the whole obsession with deleting “troll” comments anyway.
If it’s something like Ogle that clogs up threads and makes them unreadable, sure. But if it’s just “stupid” or “offensive” comments, just leave them, either refute them or ignore them, and let people draw their own conclusions.
langa
Also, if I don’t get the chance to post again before the registration kicks in, I just want to say that I have gotten a lot of enjoyment out of this site, so thanks to all the people (posters and commenters) who have contributed to IPR, and kept me entertained for the last seven years.
The problem with trolls here has been much worse than most people here realize. I think only two people here outside of myself understand the extent of the problem (I don’t think even Warren fully knows the scope of the problem).
So I welcome the change. I’d even take it a step further, where only people who post under a real, verified name could post here.
If a person wants to post things that are critical of other posters that is fine, but have some courage and take some responsibility by posting under your real, verifiable name.
Didn’t NF and langa both comment here in 2008, when IPR did require comment registration?
Incidentally, I was against it at the time and asked repeatedly to have it removed. I also expected we would get a lot more people to comment. When it was finally removed at the start of 2009, the comment volume remained about the same, and the only thing that increased substantially was spam and – not right away, but eventually – trolling.
I hope our commenters stick with us if and when we get comment registration again.
I agree with Langa. I virtually never register at sites where it is required in order to comment. I do not support this move.
I have not decided for sure, but I may take this opportunity to step away from IPR. I need a break anyway, and I may take one as a protest against this move.
Thane Eichenauer
For any registration system there is the likely effect of reducing new commenters. Establishing a bar can well and likely will have the effect of improving the quality of comments.
I have 100% faith that when Andy relates that 99% (e.g. everybody minus two people) of people here have any idea of the dreck that has been avoided and deleted in the article threads that his claim is accurate.
No comment system in this day and age can be all things for all people. Trade offs are a absolutely unavoidable consequence.
And I’ll also second Langa’s other comment. I’ve enjoyed IPR quite a bit, for quite a while. Thanks to all (especially Paulie) who’ve put so much into it.
Caryn Ann Harlos
Having seen some of the comments being referred to, I think you guys might have a different POV. I don’t come here for porn… even if deleted, I was exposed to it, and I choose to avoid that.
I’m with langa, NewFederalist, and Matt Cholko. The comments are the lifeblood of IPR. Registering for comments may not completely destroy the site, but it would make it substantially worse. Some particular implementations for commenting being discussed behind the scenes would completely destroy IPR, not just make it substantially worse.
I’ll go a step further: If Warren and Paulie and others decide to completely destroy IPR by making the comment section unreadable and unusable by our longtime fans, I will create a new website for alternate party (especially Libertarian Party) news and comments.
Incidentally, I have seen a lot of the troll comments. They are quite horrible. However, I think throwing the baby out with the bathwater is a terrible idea. I’ve seen nothing to indicate the troll is anything other than one lone asshole. That one lone asshole should be identified, publicly shamed, and banned from the website through legal means (such a restraining order) if technological means are not a sufficient solution/deterrent. If it turns out that one lone asshole is a Libertarian Party activist and he/she shows up at the national convention, I call dibs to be first in line to punch him/her in the stomach.
“If Warren and Paulie and others decide to completely destroy IPR by making the comment section unreadable and unusable by our longtime fans, I will create a new website for alternate party (especially Libertarian Party) news and comments.”
First of all, this is me, not Paulie. The request came from others and Paulie has not pushed either way.
Second, I don’t see how this would make anything “unreadable and unusable.”
Third … Dude!!
I’m trying to deal with multiple viewpoints. There are a lot of people frustrated with the way it is, and some frustrated with the idea of change.
Of course this kind of argument never occurs in a group that’s purely libertarian. Libertarians are known for getting along so well with each other and agreeing on everything. But I digress.
I’m trying. I want to make it better, or at least as good as possible for the most. Do you really have to go to “I’m going to take my ball and go home” that fast?
Andy
People can make a new site if they want, but the IPR trolls have actually caused some major problems that only 2 or 3 people here probably know about, I am talking criminal territory.
Agreed with Andy. The trolls we are talking about are not just childish mischief makers, these are very serious threats. If you would rather let people who hack into IPR (and possibly our email accounts and phones), make threats against our lives, and harass political candidates to the point where they issue restraining orders, among other offences, run wild on this blog rather than suffer a very minor inconvenience, go elsewhere. Please.
Andy
It is hard to ignore them when they engage in criminal acts.
Andy
Jed, as if what you said was not bad enough, worse has happened.
Second, I don’t see how this would make anything “unreadable and unusable.”
Nested comments make things unreadable. It makes it impossible for people who follow every comment to find the newest comments. Also, often nested comments have a limit (e.g., 5 levels deep). As they nest they indent more and get scrunched together, harder to follow at times. If you hit the limit and want to reply further, you need to start a new thread, which makes it hard to follow for those used to actually following the nests.
Several schemes discussed would forbid anonymity (e.g., demand real names). This makes the site unusable for people who value their privacy enough that they refuse to comment with real names… which is 1/3 to 1/2 of commenters here. I use my real name, so that wouldn’t personally affect me; however, it would chase away many commenters whose participation I appreciate.
Other schemes discussed would require access to some other services (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc.). Some people have declined to use those services. Others do not want their Internet history to be trackable from a single location (e.g., all comments ever made across many websites available through a Disqus account). These are real concerns of many people and it is no surprise that libertarians are especially privacy conscious.
wredlich wrote:
Third … Dude!!
I’m trying to deal with multiple viewpoints. There are a lot of people frustrated with the way it is, and some frustrated with the idea of change. […]
I’m trying. I want to make it better, or at least as good as possible for the most. Do you really have to go to “I’m going to take my ball and go home” that fast?
Over the years I have learned the hard way that it is better to state concerns beforehand than afterward. I could wait until the site changes to the point that it is useless to me, then take my ball and go home. I prefer to state changes that would make the site useless to me in advance, then hope my input helps prevent those bad changes from happening.
As I always do when this subject comes up, I recommend switching to Disqus. It’s better in every particular than native WordPress commenting. But others disagree preferring to constantly wrestle with ugly commenting that’s a pain in the ass to police. And since some of the ones expressing a preference for ugly spam/troll-ridden commenting are the ones who do the actual policing, their opinions do, and should, carry more weight than mine. I’m willing to put up with the ugliness.
There is a fuzzy border, way way beyond which lie death threats. I have actually had one, once upon a time, related to my Presidential campaign, etc. I had a direct solution. Notify ISP. The genius signed his work account. Notify employer. Notify joint counterterrorism task force. Notify Secret Service. I have no idea if any of them did anything, but they knew where to look if my body turned up.
As far as providing real examples, Paul, Andy, Jill, etc. would be best at this. I will say that the problem is much worse than non contributors realize, and if left unchecked would completely kill the IPR commenting community.
One example, and in all honesty one of the more minor ones, was one troll saying revolting sexual things about an independent candidate. This reflected poorly on the site and cost us opportunities for interviews.
Then there’s trolls impersonating users and admins. How would letting that go unchecked be good for the site?
I’m not sure exactly how we’ll address this, bit the current system is not working. We’re trying to just catch them as they come in, bit there’s just so damn many. Solving this problem is a necessity for the site. You have to trust us on this.
Caryn Ann Harlos
The impersonation of admins is a problem that I have seen. The porn is the next biggest. It isn’t random porn, it is much more personal.
Matt Cholko, there has been at least one incident from a troll here that is worse than anything which you and most of the other regulars here are aware.
Andy
I am talking criminal territory stuff, as in things that would be crimes even in a libertarian society.
So, it sounds to me like the problem is that trolls say nasty stuff, and admins have to take it down. Is that the gist of it?
Andy, you’ve repeated several times that there has been something worse than we know about. If you’re not going to explain beyond that, you’re really not contributing anything of value.
Anyway, I trust the judgement of the admins. I’m just saying, I don’t like the idea of registration in order to comment. I can think of only one website (outside of Facebook and Myspace), where I’ve registered. I’ve actually typed out long comments before, then deleted them, rather than register with the site. I may or may not stick with IPR if this site goes that way. But, even if I do stick around, I’d prefer that registration not be required.
I haven’t seen any pornographic comments at IPR before, but that’s just me. I do remember several years ago someone linked to something called the Lemon Party which is a pornographic website. That was one of the few comments I’ve ever removed.
langa
I have, over the years, seen many comments before they were removed, and virtually none of them were even remotely close to being “criminal” (at least in the libertarian sense). I can remember maybe one or two, that, if you really stretched it, could have been interpreted as some sort of threat of violence. Virtually all the others fell into one of two groups: bigoted remarks directed toward various groups (blacks, Jews, etc.), and personal comments about posters and/or readers (e.g. suggesting that Paulie and Andy were lovers).
While these sorts of comments are often crude and childish, they are far from criminal, and I say again that I see no reason why they should be removed. If there are comments that cross the line (death threats, revealing private information, and so forth), then those can be removed, without deleting comments just because they express unpopular sentiments.
As for the idea that commenters should have to reveal their “real” name, why stop there? Why not require them to reveal their home address, phone number, social security number, income, credit rating, medical history, and every other piece of personal information anyone else might be curious about? Only those people “with something to hide” care about privacy, right?
langa
And now my last comment (which didn’t include any links, let any multiple ones) is awaiting moderation. Well, it’s pretty obvious which way the wind is blowing around here.
Fuck this shit [let me guess, profanity will soon be banned, too]. I’m out of here. Probably won’t be back, unless Warren pulls his head out of his ass.
Andy
Matt Cholko, I don’t know if I should say more or not, since there is a criminal investigation on going.
It is serious stuff that goes far beyond name calling.
Andy
Matt, be thankful that you have yet to be targeted in any of these criminal attacks from the trolls.
Andy
langa does not know the full story of all of the stuff that has gone on here. Few people do.
Thane Eichenauer
langa,
I hope you will read this last comment before you leave.
2. Don’t Take Anything Personally
Nothing others do is because of you. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.
From Don Miguel Ruiz’s Four Agreements (now Five Agreements)
There has been a lot of work on the commenting system here and one of my comments was moderated for a time earlier today.
I strongly urge you to put aside any assumptions that you are targeted for the next 24 hours. Certainly there are elves in the eaves tweaking this, that and the other IPR comment under-structure for at least the 12 hours (in my opinion).
Andy
Knowing a person’s real name, so you know who is saying what, so they can be held accountable for their words, is not the same thing as knowing their SSN or bank account number or blood type or home address or etc… A lot of the posters here have already met in person or at least seen each other in person at various political functions over the years, and I don’t think any of us have that kind of information on people here.
sff
About F’n time! Glad to see that you are dealing with the trolling issue and the elimination of people who hide behind fake names or pretend to be others.
I just checked, and langa and NF were indeed both here in 2008, when comment registration was in fact required. Somehow they were willing to put up with it then. Also, no one is requiring real names, despite what Andy J and a few other people who are not IPR editors want.
For the people who are saying that what is being removed is innocuous, what you don’t understand is that you are not seeing all the comments that are being removed, that many others are caught by the spam filters or removed before you see them. A lot of the times the trolls start out relatively innocuous and get worse and worse the longer they are allowed to stay. That’s why we learned to recognize the patterns and shut them down before they get to that stage. Racism alone, or strongly disliking me or anyone else alone, is not a reason to have a comment removed unless we recognize it as part of a pattern.
As for how bad it gets: yes, it has included threats of death, torture, mutilation and rape, revealing of personal information including what hotel rooms we were staying at, revealing of information that they could have only gotten by hacking our emails and listening in on our calls, not just IP anonymizing but actual IP spoofing, phone number spoofing – at one point they were calling Andy J and me in the middle of the night repeatedly and making it look like we were both calling each other … somehow the troll(s) knew when Andy J was arrested in Arkansas before anyone else, including me, did; and they did something else which was much worse in Arkansas which I am not sure whether I should even mention but it was seriously criminal. Also, Nathan Norman at one point posted what he claimed was a restraining order from Marianne Williamson, whom he was stalking. They have repeatedly accused me and several of my friends of all kinds of serious crimes and written to hundreds of people in the petition business with these accusations telling them not to hire us. They have tried to set us up for serious crimes we did not commit.
I don’t want to give out the link, but if you go to Vernon’s blog and do a search for, say, my name or Andy J’s you will see some of this stuff, including death threats and personal information, still posted. It clearly violates wordpress terms of service, and wordpress was informed of this several times, but has not removed it. Which is rather odd, because they did remove one of Nathan Norman’s blogs for hosting hardcore porn – which I guess is a bigger violation to wordpress than death threats and doxing.
Working on it. Not sure yet that we will go that way
Aside from people leaving and threatening to leave and the lack of an easily visible registration link the biggest problem so far is that both times you briefly implemented it all the comments from every post were going to a post from the first day IPR was online (May 20, 2008 – but oddly not the first post that day). That definitely has to be fixed if you are going to go ahead with comment registration, obviously.
Andy: “I welcome the change. I’d even take it a step further, where only people who post under a real, verified name could post here.
If a person wants to post things that are critical of other posters that is fine, but have some courage and take some responsibility by posting under your real, verifiable name.
That’s an odd suggestion, coming from someone who only posts under his first name, and a common one at that.
There are valid reasons to post under a handle. Some of us have lives outside of politics, and don’t care to be Googled by employers, neighbors, and such. We don’t care to vilified by mainstream people for posting outside-the-mainstream political views.
Writing anonymously has a long and proud tradition. Ben Franklin sometimes wrote under pseudonyms. So did other American Founding Fathers. The Federalist Papers were written under the name “Publius.” Political philosophers in monarchies and dictatorships often wrote under pseudonyms.
I want to put my ideas out there. I don’t care about credit for them. And I don’t care to be hounded in mainstream society by people who think libertarians are extremists.
Andy
The comment above is either not “Root’s Teeth Are Awesome,” or “Root’s Teeth Are Awesome” is one of the people who troll here.
I am not hiding regardless of whether I always have a last name posted here or not, and it has been posted multiple times, and multiple people here have met me in person or at least seen me in person.
Starchild has posted here a bunch of times over the years, and I do not know if Starchild had his name legally changed to Starchild or not, but lots of people here have met him in person so it is not like he is hiding behind a fake name.
It is one thing to post comments that are critical of somebody, but making death threats, falsely accusing people of crimes, making comments under other people’s names (including death threats), and some of the other things referred to above, crosses the line.
Root's Teeth Are Awesome
Andy: It is one thing to post comments that are critical of somebody, but making death threats, falsely accusing people of crimes, making comments under other people’s names (including death threats), and some of the other things referred to above, crosses the line.
Which are not topics that I was addressing. I was responding to your opposition to anonymous handles.
If death threats are the issue, then moderators can simply delete those post.
Despite occasionally posting your last name (if I ever knew it, I’ve forgotten it), you still frequently post as “Andy,” which is anonymous enough to protect you from Googling by employers, customers, clients, etc.
It is not just a matter of death threats, there have been death threats and threats of other criminal acts made by trolls assuming the identities of real people, as in trolls making it look like people made criminal threats they never made.
The situation has gotten very ugly.
Andy
Starchild may have had his name legally changed to Starchild at some point, but even if so, this is not his birth name.
“I welcome the change. I’d even take it a step further, where only people who post under a real, verified name could post here.
If a person wants to post things that are critical of other posters that is fine, but have some courage and take some responsibility by posting under your real, verifiable name.
That’s an odd suggestion, coming from someone who only posts under his first name, and a common one at that.
There are valid reasons to post under a handle. Some of us have lives outside of politics, and don’t care to be Googled by employers, neighbors, and such. We don’t care to vilified by mainstream people for posting outside-the-mainstream political views.
Writing anonymously has a long and proud tradition. Ben Franklin sometimes wrote under pseudonyms. So did other American Founding Fathers. The Federalist Papers were written under the name “Publius.” Political philosophers in monarchies and dictatorships often wrote under pseudonyms.
I want to put my ideas out there. I don’t care about credit for them. And I don’t care to be hounded in mainstream society by people who think libertarians are extremists.
I agree completely with RTAA. There are a variety of other legitimate reasons to want to be anonymous online.
The comment above is either not “Root’s Teeth Are Awesome,” or “Root’s Teeth Are Awesome” is one of the people who troll here.
As far as I can tell it is the real RTAA and I have no reason to believe RTAA has been trolling here. I happen to know who RTAA is and it does not arouse any suspicions of trolling to have that knowledge.
I am not hiding regardless of whether I always have a last name posted here or not, and it has been posted multiple times, and multiple people here have met me in person or at least seen me in person.
People’s individual circumstances are different. You don’t have a wife and kids, don’t have a career outside of politics, are not seeking employment or dating opportunities from people who may not want to hire or date you because of your political views. In the petition business hiring is of a temporary independent contract nature and you are generally working either with people who agree with your views or those who only care that you can get the job done. Other people’s circumstances are different and you should be more tolerant and respectful of them. I went for years without posting my real last name here, and I had good reason not to post it.
It is one thing to post comments that are critical of somebody, but making death threats, falsely accusing people of crimes, making comments under other people’s names (including death threats), and some of the other things referred to above, crosses the line.
I agree. And the fact that those kinds of “games” get played is one of the legitimate reasons to post under an internet handle rather than a full legal name. The latter can lead to serious offline harassment of the type we have experienced and worse. Granted that happens rarely but it does happen. And other things happen more often, such as ad hominem attacks, actual and would be employers and dating partners looking someone up online, and so on.
Jeremy
Since the editors are volunteers, I support their doing whatever they need to to make this problem go away. I will be happy to register, although I’d prefer to no longer use my full name for professional reasons.
If death threats are the issue, then moderators can simply delete those post.
Yes, but we have also decided to not allow the people who engage in this crap to post here at all, because they tend to show a pattern of escalation whenever they are allowed to do so.
Despite occasionally posting your last name (if I ever knew it, I’ve forgotten it), you still frequently post as “Andy,” which is anonymous enough to protect you from Googling by employers, customers, clients, etc.
It is not just a matter of death threats, there have been death threats and threats of other criminal acts made by trolls assuming the identities of real people, as in trolls making it look like people made criminal threats they never made.
I post under a pen name, and I would prefer to continue doing so.
Andy J is trying to make it an issue but it really isn’t. Comment registration is a separate matter.
NewFederalist
Nobody would believe my real name anyway.
Tylor Reinhardt
I mostly just read when I can. Registration isn’t too hard, for anyone who’s new and wants to post. I’m not sure if I’ve even ever posted before.
Tylor Reinhardt
Btw, I think you should give people the option to blow up their full name to a larger size, and pull a John Hancock, so people viewing posts on small screens can see their name more clearly. 😉 Not that I would do that.
However, as far as I know we still haven’t solved the issue of all the comments going to an old 2008 post when we require comment registration, so it still has not been implemented yet.
tylor reinhardt
test test, is it going to the right place now?
tylor reinhardt
I just signed in with some kind of wordpress acccount, I think….
You can log out for now. If/when the required log-in is enabled you will see a log-in link instead of a comment box and the comment box will not show up until you log in.
I ran a test of switching to required comment registration and posted a test comment. It was not doing the odd thing with putting it on a 2008 thread this time.
Count me among those who had no idea the trolls here were engaging in some of the behavior described (e.g. what paulie writes November 18, 2015 at 08:08).
Evidently there are problems that need addressing — but it also sounds like the worst of it is being addressed via other means (Andy writes of a “criminal investigation ongoing”, November 18, 2015 at 02:16).
Most of the worst stuff mentioned also sounds like stuff that wouldn’t be stopped by an IPR registration scheme. If someone knows who you are, and is willing to go to the effort (i.e. has nothing better to do with their time), kicking them off a website can’t stop them from writing to your employers or co-workers, spoofing phone numbers, making death threats, etc.
Personally I don’t see the need to censor offensive or hateful speech. I think the best responses to such speech are to attack or mock it just enough to sufficiently call out and expose the posters as the idiots and/or assholes they are, and the rest of the time just ignore it. The only cases I can think of in which it seems to me a person ought to be censored, or (if the issue persists despite warnings) kicked off the site are for fraud, harassment, commercial spam, or posts containing credible threats of violence against another individual.
As far as problem of trolls pretending to be administrators or other users, here’s one possible partial solution [caveat: I’m not a coder or web designer and am unfamiliar with the details of IPR’s internal workings now, so I don’t know for sure that this could be readily implemented, but it doesn’t seem on the face of it like it ought to be too difficult]:
The first time a handle is used, issue a password to the person who creates it — not by emailing it to them, since that would require users to disclose an actual email address and thus compromise privacy, but simply by displaying it on the screen to that user. Thereafter, don’t allow any logins using that handle (or any very similar handle?) without typing in the password.
If the “Email” field on the login form were replaced by a “Password” field as described above, logging into IPR shouldn’t be any more privacy-compromising or time-consuming than it is now, but it could provide somewhat better protection against fraudulent attempts to impersonate other users. Of course the downside is that it would be very important to remember your password, if you wanted to maintain a consistent identity on IPR, and if you ever forgot it, you’d have to create a brand new identity, and might even be blocked from using a handle very similar to your old one. But it seems to me this could be a worthwhile tradeoff.
The current login form actually says Email is required, but unless I’m wrong there’s nothing to stop someone from just making up any address to put in that field, which means it’s not an enforceable requirement — nor should it be, in my opinion. Even though I always post under my own name, I agree with the various comments about the importance of preserving anonymity here for those who wish to post anonymously.
Speaking of the importance of preserving anonymity for controversial free speech in Internet forums like this one, has the possibility been considered that the trolling (or at least some of it) may be precisely intended to pressure IPR administrators into curtailing the ability to post anonymously?
I’m not trying to feed paranoia, but given the sophistication and level of escalation of some of the things the troll(s) are described as doing, it seems to me that the possibility of government involvement should not be ruled out.
We know that the following are true:
• A lot of people who comment on IPR are essentially political dissidents of one stripe or another (i.e. serious and determined opponents of the status quo)
• The U.S. federal government has a documented history of spying on, harassing, seeking to discredit, etc., individuals and groups associated with dissident political views, using all manner of dirty tricks and underhanded behavior
If the current level of posting anonymity is preventing some agency like the FBI from clearly identifying who in our community is saying what, and that is something they want to know, they would have a clear motive for seeking to abolish anonymous posting. At the same time, pressuring a website like this one to take such a course of action is probably not something they would want to have their fingerprints on. Thus it seems not impossible that offensive trolling could be a tactic designed to raise the costs to the site of allowing anonymity in the hopes of getting administrators to eliminate it of their own accord.
“The first time a handle is used, issue a password to the person who creates it — not by emailing it to them, since that would require users to disclose a actual email address and thus compromise privacy, but simply by displaying it on the screen to that user. Thereafter, don’t allow any logins using that handle (or any very similar handle?) without typing in the password.”
That’s basically what comment registration does, although it does email it to them. I don’t know any way to technically implement it without emailing, and if we could, what would happen when someone lost their password? Also, if the password was tied to an IP rather than an email, it would create annoyances for someone like me who regularly logs in from many different wifi networks, for those whose ISPs distribute IPs interchangeably within their network and don’t maintain a constant IP for a particular user/machine, etc. If it was tied to a cookie, it would easily be defeated by clearing cache, and would be a problem for anyone who does not enable cookies. So tying it to an email address is probably most logical, as well as the only technical implementation that is readily apparent in wordpress. The good and bad news there is that it takes at most a minute or two to set up a free email account with any of many online services such as gmail, yahoo, hushmail, etc., including many that offer privacy options. It’s good news from the standpoint of protecting privacy but bad news from the standpoint of stopping trolls. However it did seem to cut down on trolls quite a bit when we had it in 2008 – comment volume was high, troll volume was low. Perhaps they just hadn’t discovered the site yet, I don’t know.
The current login form actually says Email is required, but unless I’m wrong there’s nothing to stop someone from just making up any address to put in that field, which means it’s not an enforceable requirement — nor should it be, in my opinion.
Yes, that’s the only difference between the current system and the mandatory comment registration system – registration does require a working email address and verification in the form of entering a password when you log in from a different machine or clear cache or if you log out and log back in. OTOH it is very easy to set up an email account. With the system as it is now you can make up any email address, but it will hold your comment for moderation if there is not a previous approved comment with that name and email address, if it has multiple links, if it contains certain words, etc. With registration, it would have to be an actual working email address, but it’s very easy to create one.
My suggestion was not to tie passwords to email addresses, IP addresses, cookies, or anything related to a person’s identity or the identity of their device, but rather to assign a password to each particular handle, at the time the handle is first created, by displaying a password briefly on the screen at that time.
Regarding cookies, perhaps they could be enabled only for those who want them? Or for more security, just require everyone to supply the password for their desired handle whenever they log in. For current users with longstanding handles, passwords could potentially be retroactively issued in cases where a user’s identity can be reasonably determined to be non-fraudulent.
I’m not trying to feed paranoia, but given the sophistication and level of escalation of some of the things the troll(s) are described as doing, it seems to me that the possibility of government involvement should not be ruled out.
I agree. In fact it seems pretty likely. For example, how would they possibly know when Andy J was arrested when no one else, other than Andy, the arresting officers and some onlookers who are highly unlikely to have ever heard of IPR on a campus that was a couple of hours drive from where the rest of us were working knew about it? I didn’t even know about it until, in fact, the trolls posted about it. Andy did not know he was about to be arrested and once he was arrested he was not able to use his cell phone. I think he did try to call me from a jail phone but it was some 800 number which I assumed was either telemarketers or more troll harassment and did not take the call. So I actually learned about it from the trolls…but how did they know?
My suggestion was not to tie passwords to email addresses, IP addresses, cookies, or anything related to a person’s identity or the identity of their device, but rather to assign a password to each particular handle, at the time the handle is first created, by displaying a password briefly on the screen at that time.
I would have no idea how to set something like that up, and how would you recover a password if you forgot it?
Email addresses don’t have to be tied to your identity. They can be created with false info quickly and easily, and some of them also have IP anonymity, encryption, and so on.
As noted in my original message, if you lost or forgot your password under the system I’m proposing, you’d pretty much have to create a new identity if you wanted to post.
I suppose there could be a way for known and trusted users to phone in and get a new password over the phone or something in such cases, but that could be a lot of work for admins.
If the current level of posting anonymity is preventing some agency like the FBI from clearly identifying who in our community is saying what,
That seems way, way less likely. Their methods for cracking anonymity are much more technologically sophisticated than that. And even with comment registration there would be ways to combat their tracking.
It seems more likely that the trolls may want to discourage participation here in general through the use and abuse of crude sexual references, crude racism, personal attacks, and other things which a lot of people find offensive, shocking or annoying, including the inevitable debates over moderation, flame wars, etc. One of their favorite themes is that myself and other people who do a lot of ballot access petitioning for the LP and actually are LP members and activists are some sort of criminal conspiracy that regularly engages in all sorts of heinous crimes. Another is to conflate libertarianism with racism.
As I envision it, when someone first logged in with a new handle, entering it would take them to a screen with a message such as:
“Your password for the handle JoeSmith is POET3595. Due to abuse of the website by people impersonating other users, you will not be able to log in again as JoeSmith without it!
If you forget or lose your password, THERE IS NO WAY TO RETRIEVE IT, and you will need to create a new identity in order to post again.
So if you want to continue posting as JoeSmith after today, be sure to commit your password to memory or keep it in a safe place!”
I used “POET3595” as an example because passwords should probably be relatively easy to remember (e.g. not something like “Yp68qR2o”), yet long enough and containing both letters and numbers or other characters so as to make them somewhat difficult to hack.
As noted in my original message, if you lost or forgot your password under the system I’m proposing, you’d pretty much have to create a new identity if you wanted to post.
Personally I would find that more annoying than email registration. Some people actually want to post under their actual legal names or a handle that they use consistently on many sites. And that’s if I even knew how to implement such a thing, and I don’t.
I suppose there could be a way for known and trusted users to phone in and get a new password over the phone or something in such cases, but that could be a lot of work for admins.
Yes, it could be, and we are all volunteers.
But before you even get to all that, you’d have to let me know what plugin or option in wordpress would even make what you suggest possible, since I have no idea. We don’t write code from scratch here, it’s all a wordpress forum. There’s a link to wordpress under the login links at the bottom of the sidebar if you or anyone wants to explore and suggest wordpress plugins or options we should try.
As also noted in my original message, I don’t know anything about how this might be technically implemented, I’m just putting it out there as a theoretical partial solution.
BTW, it’s been working, without the comment registration implemented, so we may not need it. I’d rather not discuss the technical details, but I’ve seen a lot of the spam it is catching and it never even shows up here for anyone except admins looking at the spam file… which has been a lot of the same stuff we were having to catch after the fact earlier. At this rate, registration may be superfluous.
Glad to hear both that the problem is abating, that the ability to post anonymously is not at stake, and that the plan to have people register may be dropped altogether.
It’s not asking me for a login. If it did, how would I go about registering? For a few minutes it did require a login, but I didn’t see in any way to sign up, just a way to log in if I was already signed up.
This post is begging for a troll image.
I seem to remember user registration being mentioned before but. My guess as to how was to click on the Log in link under the meta subsection in the bottom right hand column of the page. Tried in before, tried it now, unsuccessfull in the end. I am presuming instructions on how to complete user registration will be posted.
Image added.
Love the purple hair!
Before the technical glitches Joe Buchman posted
However, that comment and all the comments were going to an old thread from 2008, so registration has been suspended at least until the technical issues are resolved. As far as I know there is still a plan to implement comment registration if and when we can do it without the glitches.
Bad idea. This substantially reduces the chances of new people commenting. I virtually never go to the trouble of registering just to comment, and I’m sure many others feel the same way.
Of course, I’ve never understood the whole obsession with deleting “troll” comments anyway.
If it’s something like Ogle that clogs up threads and makes them unreadable, sure. But if it’s just “stupid” or “offensive” comments, just leave them, either refute them or ignore them, and let people draw their own conclusions.
Also, if I don’t get the chance to post again before the registration kicks in, I just want to say that I have gotten a lot of enjoyment out of this site, so thanks to all the people (posters and commenters) who have contributed to IPR, and kept me entertained for the last seven years.
Just testing.
Same here, langa.
I agree with langa at 5:44 pm.
The problem with trolls here has been much worse than most people here realize. I think only two people here outside of myself understand the extent of the problem (I don’t think even Warren fully knows the scope of the problem).
So I welcome the change. I’d even take it a step further, where only people who post under a real, verified name could post here.
If a person wants to post things that are critical of other posters that is fine, but have some courage and take some responsibility by posting under your real, verifiable name.
Didn’t NF and langa both comment here in 2008, when IPR did require comment registration?
Incidentally, I was against it at the time and asked repeatedly to have it removed. I also expected we would get a lot more people to comment. When it was finally removed at the start of 2009, the comment volume remained about the same, and the only thing that increased substantially was spam and – not right away, but eventually – trolling.
I hope our commenters stick with us if and when we get comment registration again.
I agree with Langa. I virtually never register at sites where it is required in order to comment. I do not support this move.
I have not decided for sure, but I may take this opportunity to step away from IPR. I need a break anyway, and I may take one as a protest against this move.
For any registration system there is the likely effect of reducing new commenters. Establishing a bar can well and likely will have the effect of improving the quality of comments.
I have 100% faith that when Andy relates that 99% (e.g. everybody minus two people) of people here have any idea of the dreck that has been avoided and deleted in the article threads that his claim is accurate.
No comment system in this day and age can be all things for all people. Trade offs are a absolutely unavoidable consequence.
And I’ll also second Langa’s other comment. I’ve enjoyed IPR quite a bit, for quite a while. Thanks to all (especially Paulie) who’ve put so much into it.
Having seen some of the comments being referred to, I think you guys might have a different POV. I don’t come here for porn… even if deleted, I was exposed to it, and I choose to avoid that.
I’m with langa, NewFederalist, and Matt Cholko. The comments are the lifeblood of IPR. Registering for comments may not completely destroy the site, but it would make it substantially worse. Some particular implementations for commenting being discussed behind the scenes would completely destroy IPR, not just make it substantially worse.
I’ll go a step further: If Warren and Paulie and others decide to completely destroy IPR by making the comment section unreadable and unusable by our longtime fans, I will create a new website for alternate party (especially Libertarian Party) news and comments.
Incidentally, I have seen a lot of the troll comments. They are quite horrible. However, I think throwing the baby out with the bathwater is a terrible idea. I’ve seen nothing to indicate the troll is anything other than one lone asshole. That one lone asshole should be identified, publicly shamed, and banned from the website through legal means (such a restraining order) if technological means are not a sufficient solution/deterrent. If it turns out that one lone asshole is a Libertarian Party activist and he/she shows up at the national convention, I call dibs to be first in line to punch him/her in the stomach.
“If Warren and Paulie and others decide to completely destroy IPR by making the comment section unreadable and unusable by our longtime fans, I will create a new website for alternate party (especially Libertarian Party) news and comments.”
First of all, this is me, not Paulie. The request came from others and Paulie has not pushed either way.
Second, I don’t see how this would make anything “unreadable and unusable.”
Third … Dude!!
I’m trying to deal with multiple viewpoints. There are a lot of people frustrated with the way it is, and some frustrated with the idea of change.
Of course this kind of argument never occurs in a group that’s purely libertarian. Libertarians are known for getting along so well with each other and agreeing on everything. But I digress.
I’m trying. I want to make it better, or at least as good as possible for the most. Do you really have to go to “I’m going to take my ball and go home” that fast?
People can make a new site if they want, but the IPR trolls have actually caused some major problems that only 2 or 3 people here probably know about, I am talking criminal territory.
It is a lot worse than most of you realize.
Just ignore the trolls.
Agreed with Andy. The trolls we are talking about are not just childish mischief makers, these are very serious threats. If you would rather let people who hack into IPR (and possibly our email accounts and phones), make threats against our lives, and harass political candidates to the point where they issue restraining orders, among other offences, run wild on this blog rather than suffer a very minor inconvenience, go elsewhere. Please.
It is hard to ignore them when they engage in criminal acts.
Jed, as if what you said was not bad enough, worse has happened.
Yep.
wredlich wrote:
Nested comments make things unreadable. It makes it impossible for people who follow every comment to find the newest comments. Also, often nested comments have a limit (e.g., 5 levels deep). As they nest they indent more and get scrunched together, harder to follow at times. If you hit the limit and want to reply further, you need to start a new thread, which makes it hard to follow for those used to actually following the nests.
Several schemes discussed would forbid anonymity (e.g., demand real names). This makes the site unusable for people who value their privacy enough that they refuse to comment with real names… which is 1/3 to 1/2 of commenters here. I use my real name, so that wouldn’t personally affect me; however, it would chase away many commenters whose participation I appreciate.
Other schemes discussed would require access to some other services (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc.). Some people have declined to use those services. Others do not want their Internet history to be trackable from a single location (e.g., all comments ever made across many websites available through a Disqus account). These are real concerns of many people and it is no surprise that libertarians are especially privacy conscious.
wredlich wrote:
Over the years I have learned the hard way that it is better to state concerns beforehand than afterward. I could wait until the site changes to the point that it is useless to me, then take my ball and go home. I prefer to state changes that would make the site useless to me in advance, then hope my input helps prevent those bad changes from happening.
I argued against those proposals on the email list.
Seems a reasonable test….
So far we’ve experienced some technical difficulties, but I’m sure we’ll get something figured out.
As I always do when this subject comes up, I recommend switching to Disqus. It’s better in every particular than native WordPress commenting. But others disagree preferring to constantly wrestle with ugly commenting that’s a pain in the ass to police. And since some of the ones expressing a preference for ugly spam/troll-ridden commenting are the ones who do the actual policing, their opinions do, and should, carry more weight than mine. I’m willing to put up with the ugliness.
There is a fuzzy border, way way beyond which lie death threats. I have actually had one, once upon a time, related to my Presidential campaign, etc. I had a direct solution. Notify ISP. The genius signed his work account. Notify employer. Notify joint counterterrorism task force. Notify Secret Service. I have no idea if any of them did anything, but they knew where to look if my body turned up.
Can someone please explain to me how it is that trolls cause such terrible problems, that this change is necessary?
This is a serious question. I would like to better understand the situation.
No one is talking about nested comments. We are talking about trolls, and to a lesser extent numbering.
No one is taking about requiring a real identity either.
As far as providing real examples, Paul, Andy, Jill, etc. would be best at this. I will say that the problem is much worse than non contributors realize, and if left unchecked would completely kill the IPR commenting community.
One example, and in all honesty one of the more minor ones, was one troll saying revolting sexual things about an independent candidate. This reflected poorly on the site and cost us opportunities for interviews.
Then there’s trolls impersonating users and admins. How would letting that go unchecked be good for the site?
I’m not sure exactly how we’ll address this, bit the current system is not working. We’re trying to just catch them as they come in, bit there’s just so damn many. Solving this problem is a necessity for the site. You have to trust us on this.
The impersonation of admins is a problem that I have seen. The porn is the next biggest. It isn’t random porn, it is much more personal.
Numbering sure would help.
How is porn being put in comments? Links to porn?
No. Free verse.
Matt Cholko, there has been at least one incident from a troll here that is worse than anything which you and most of the other regulars here are aware.
I am talking criminal territory stuff, as in things that would be crimes even in a libertarian society.
So, it sounds to me like the problem is that trolls say nasty stuff, and admins have to take it down. Is that the gist of it?
Andy, you’ve repeated several times that there has been something worse than we know about. If you’re not going to explain beyond that, you’re really not contributing anything of value.
Anyway, I trust the judgement of the admins. I’m just saying, I don’t like the idea of registration in order to comment. I can think of only one website (outside of Facebook and Myspace), where I’ve registered. I’ve actually typed out long comments before, then deleted them, rather than register with the site. I may or may not stick with IPR if this site goes that way. But, even if I do stick around, I’d prefer that registration not be required.
I haven’t seen any pornographic comments at IPR before, but that’s just me. I do remember several years ago someone linked to something called the Lemon Party which is a pornographic website. That was one of the few comments I’ve ever removed.
I have, over the years, seen many comments before they were removed, and virtually none of them were even remotely close to being “criminal” (at least in the libertarian sense). I can remember maybe one or two, that, if you really stretched it, could have been interpreted as some sort of threat of violence. Virtually all the others fell into one of two groups: bigoted remarks directed toward various groups (blacks, Jews, etc.), and personal comments about posters and/or readers (e.g. suggesting that Paulie and Andy were lovers).
While these sorts of comments are often crude and childish, they are far from criminal, and I say again that I see no reason why they should be removed. If there are comments that cross the line (death threats, revealing private information, and so forth), then those can be removed, without deleting comments just because they express unpopular sentiments.
As for the idea that commenters should have to reveal their “real” name, why stop there? Why not require them to reveal their home address, phone number, social security number, income, credit rating, medical history, and every other piece of personal information anyone else might be curious about? Only those people “with something to hide” care about privacy, right?
And now my last comment (which didn’t include any links, let any multiple ones) is awaiting moderation. Well, it’s pretty obvious which way the wind is blowing around here.
Fuck this shit [let me guess, profanity will soon be banned, too]. I’m out of here. Probably won’t be back, unless Warren pulls his head out of his ass.
Matt Cholko, I don’t know if I should say more or not, since there is a criminal investigation on going.
It is serious stuff that goes far beyond name calling.
Matt, be thankful that you have yet to be targeted in any of these criminal attacks from the trolls.
langa does not know the full story of all of the stuff that has gone on here. Few people do.
langa,
I hope you will read this last comment before you leave.
2. Don’t Take Anything Personally
Nothing others do is because of you. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.
From Don Miguel Ruiz’s Four Agreements (now Five Agreements)
There has been a lot of work on the commenting system here and one of my comments was moderated for a time earlier today.
I strongly urge you to put aside any assumptions that you are targeted for the next 24 hours. Certainly there are elves in the eaves tweaking this, that and the other IPR comment under-structure for at least the 12 hours (in my opinion).
Knowing a person’s real name, so you know who is saying what, so they can be held accountable for their words, is not the same thing as knowing their SSN or bank account number or blood type or home address or etc… A lot of the posters here have already met in person or at least seen each other in person at various political functions over the years, and I don’t think any of us have that kind of information on people here.
About F’n time! Glad to see that you are dealing with the trolling issue and the elimination of people who hide behind fake names or pretend to be others.
IPR will not be hurt by this change.
No one is talking about real names.
Regarding langa’s last comment, it is no wonder that third parties never get anywhere. They are filled with impatient whiners.
He (or she?) shows zero respect for the concerns of others. This discussion had been going on for less than 24 hours and he’s out.
Well when I push something people don’t like ….I know it, almost instantly! When people post things I don’t like, THEY know it…
I think what we’re talking about here is reasonable, and it’s not going to stop spirited discourse.
Sincerely,
Steve Scheetz
BTW, real name here. I am not going to hide who I am or what I am about.
There are people who have good reason to keep their names private. We all respect that.
But we should all be aware that is part of the reason the trolls are such a problem.
I left once before for a considerable period. I do not plan to depart due to registration unless it is onerous.
So how does one register?
I don’t think that has been set up yet. Warren is working on it.
I just checked, and langa and NF were indeed both here in 2008, when comment registration was in fact required. Somehow they were willing to put up with it then. Also, no one is requiring real names, despite what Andy J and a few other people who are not IPR editors want.
Working on it. Not sure yet that we will go that way
For the people who are saying that what is being removed is innocuous, what you don’t understand is that you are not seeing all the comments that are being removed, that many others are caught by the spam filters or removed before you see them. A lot of the times the trolls start out relatively innocuous and get worse and worse the longer they are allowed to stay. That’s why we learned to recognize the patterns and shut them down before they get to that stage. Racism alone, or strongly disliking me or anyone else alone, is not a reason to have a comment removed unless we recognize it as part of a pattern.
As for how bad it gets: yes, it has included threats of death, torture, mutilation and rape, revealing of personal information including what hotel rooms we were staying at, revealing of information that they could have only gotten by hacking our emails and listening in on our calls, not just IP anonymizing but actual IP spoofing, phone number spoofing – at one point they were calling Andy J and me in the middle of the night repeatedly and making it look like we were both calling each other … somehow the troll(s) knew when Andy J was arrested in Arkansas before anyone else, including me, did; and they did something else which was much worse in Arkansas which I am not sure whether I should even mention but it was seriously criminal. Also, Nathan Norman at one point posted what he claimed was a restraining order from Marianne Williamson, whom he was stalking. They have repeatedly accused me and several of my friends of all kinds of serious crimes and written to hundreds of people in the petition business with these accusations telling them not to hire us. They have tried to set us up for serious crimes we did not commit.
I don’t want to give out the link, but if you go to Vernon’s blog and do a search for, say, my name or Andy J’s you will see some of this stuff, including death threats and personal information, still posted. It clearly violates wordpress terms of service, and wordpress was informed of this several times, but has not removed it. Which is rather odd, because they did remove one of Nathan Norman’s blogs for hosting hardcore porn – which I guess is a bigger violation to wordpress than death threats and doxing.
Aside from people leaving and threatening to leave and the lack of an easily visible registration link the biggest problem so far is that both times you briefly implemented it all the comments from every post were going to a post from the first day IPR was online (May 20, 2008 – but oddly not the first post that day). That definitely has to be fixed if you are going to go ahead with comment registration, obviously.
That’s why I suggested a plugin in our emails.
You can test it, I guess. Just make sure you have recent backups 🙂
Site backs up daily.
Andy: “I welcome the change. I’d even take it a step further, where only people who post under a real, verified name could post here.
If a person wants to post things that are critical of other posters that is fine, but have some courage and take some responsibility by posting under your real, verifiable name.
That’s an odd suggestion, coming from someone who only posts under his first name, and a common one at that.
There are valid reasons to post under a handle. Some of us have lives outside of politics, and don’t care to be Googled by employers, neighbors, and such. We don’t care to vilified by mainstream people for posting outside-the-mainstream political views.
Writing anonymously has a long and proud tradition. Ben Franklin sometimes wrote under pseudonyms. So did other American Founding Fathers. The Federalist Papers were written under the name “Publius.” Political philosophers in monarchies and dictatorships often wrote under pseudonyms.
I want to put my ideas out there. I don’t care about credit for them. And I don’t care to be hounded in mainstream society by people who think libertarians are extremists.
The comment above is either not “Root’s Teeth Are Awesome,” or “Root’s Teeth Are Awesome” is one of the people who troll here.
I am not hiding regardless of whether I always have a last name posted here or not, and it has been posted multiple times, and multiple people here have met me in person or at least seen me in person.
Starchild has posted here a bunch of times over the years, and I do not know if Starchild had his name legally changed to Starchild or not, but lots of people here have met him in person so it is not like he is hiding behind a fake name.
It is one thing to post comments that are critical of somebody, but making death threats, falsely accusing people of crimes, making comments under other people’s names (including death threats), and some of the other things referred to above, crosses the line.
Andy: It is one thing to post comments that are critical of somebody, but making death threats, falsely accusing people of crimes, making comments under other people’s names (including death threats), and some of the other things referred to above, crosses the line.
Which are not topics that I was addressing. I was responding to your opposition to anonymous handles.
If death threats are the issue, then moderators can simply delete those post.
Despite occasionally posting your last name (if I ever knew it, I’ve forgotten it), you still frequently post as “Andy,” which is anonymous enough to protect you from Googling by employers, customers, clients, etc.
Pseudonyms can appear to be a real name as well.
“Starchild” is the gentleman’s legal name.
It is not just a matter of death threats, there have been death threats and threats of other criminal acts made by trolls assuming the identities of real people, as in trolls making it look like people made criminal threats they never made.
The situation has gotten very ugly.
Starchild may have had his name legally changed to Starchild at some point, but even if so, this is not his birth name.
My political views are no secret to anyone.
I post under a pen name, and I would prefer to continue doing so.
If this was facebook, I’d give that a like.
I agree completely with RTAA. There are a variety of other legitimate reasons to want to be anonymous online.
As far as I can tell it is the real RTAA and I have no reason to believe RTAA has been trolling here. I happen to know who RTAA is and it does not arouse any suspicions of trolling to have that knowledge.
People’s individual circumstances are different. You don’t have a wife and kids, don’t have a career outside of politics, are not seeking employment or dating opportunities from people who may not want to hire or date you because of your political views. In the petition business hiring is of a temporary independent contract nature and you are generally working either with people who agree with your views or those who only care that you can get the job done. Other people’s circumstances are different and you should be more tolerant and respectful of them. I went for years without posting my real last name here, and I had good reason not to post it.
I agree. And the fact that those kinds of “games” get played is one of the legitimate reasons to post under an internet handle rather than a full legal name. The latter can lead to serious offline harassment of the type we have experienced and worse. Granted that happens rarely but it does happen. And other things happen more often, such as ad hominem attacks, actual and would be employers and dating partners looking someone up online, and so on.
Since the editors are volunteers, I support their doing whatever they need to to make this problem go away. I will be happy to register, although I’d prefer to no longer use my full name for professional reasons.
Yes, but we have also decided to not allow the people who engage in this crap to post here at all, because they tend to show a pattern of escalation whenever they are allowed to do so.
Also true.
Another good point.
I can verify this as well.
Andy J is trying to make it an issue but it really isn’t. Comment registration is a separate matter.
Nobody would believe my real name anyway.
I mostly just read when I can. Registration isn’t too hard, for anyone who’s new and wants to post. I’m not sure if I’ve even ever posted before.
Btw, I think you should give people the option to blow up their full name to a larger size, and pull a John Hancock, so people viewing posts on small screens can see their name more clearly. 😉 Not that I would do that.
Wouldn’t know how to do that whether I want to or not.
lol
There is now a registration link
https://independentpoliticalreport.com/wp-login.php?action=register
However, as far as I know we still haven’t solved the issue of all the comments going to an old 2008 post when we require comment registration, so it still has not been implemented yet.
test test, is it going to the right place now?
I just signed in with some kind of wordpress acccount, I think….
The required comment registration is not enabled yet so there’s nothing to test at the moment.
ok
You can log out for now. If/when the required log-in is enabled you will see a log-in link instead of a comment box and the comment box will not show up until you log in.
“Nobody would believe my real name anyway.”
Let the baseless speculation begin!
Dick Cheney, is that you?
Jack Knauff 🙂
If that’s your name I have a hard time (pun not intended) believing you would go by Jack rather than, say, John.
Greatest name since Dick Trickle.
Believe it or not, Rod Stern is my real name.
That’s quite a coincidence. Wang Tang-Fu is my real name as well!
I don’t really have a problem with people knowing my real name anymore, I just prefer to write using pen names.
I ran a test of switching to required comment registration and posted a test comment. It was not doing the odd thing with putting it on a 2008 thread this time.
Count me among those who had no idea the trolls here were engaging in some of the behavior described (e.g. what paulie writes November 18, 2015 at 08:08).
Evidently there are problems that need addressing — but it also sounds like the worst of it is being addressed via other means (Andy writes of a “criminal investigation ongoing”, November 18, 2015 at 02:16).
Most of the worst stuff mentioned also sounds like stuff that wouldn’t be stopped by an IPR registration scheme. If someone knows who you are, and is willing to go to the effort (i.e. has nothing better to do with their time), kicking them off a website can’t stop them from writing to your employers or co-workers, spoofing phone numbers, making death threats, etc.
Personally I don’t see the need to censor offensive or hateful speech. I think the best responses to such speech are to attack or mock it just enough to sufficiently call out and expose the posters as the idiots and/or assholes they are, and the rest of the time just ignore it. The only cases I can think of in which it seems to me a person ought to be censored, or (if the issue persists despite warnings) kicked off the site are for fraud, harassment, commercial spam, or posts containing credible threats of violence against another individual.
As far as problem of trolls pretending to be administrators or other users, here’s one possible partial solution [caveat: I’m not a coder or web designer and am unfamiliar with the details of IPR’s internal workings now, so I don’t know for sure that this could be readily implemented, but it doesn’t seem on the face of it like it ought to be too difficult]:
The first time a handle is used, issue a password to the person who creates it — not by emailing it to them, since that would require users to disclose an actual email address and thus compromise privacy, but simply by displaying it on the screen to that user. Thereafter, don’t allow any logins using that handle (or any very similar handle?) without typing in the password.
If the “Email” field on the login form were replaced by a “Password” field as described above, logging into IPR shouldn’t be any more privacy-compromising or time-consuming than it is now, but it could provide somewhat better protection against fraudulent attempts to impersonate other users. Of course the downside is that it would be very important to remember your password, if you wanted to maintain a consistent identity on IPR, and if you ever forgot it, you’d have to create a brand new identity, and might even be blocked from using a handle very similar to your old one. But it seems to me this could be a worthwhile tradeoff.
The current login form actually says Email is required, but unless I’m wrong there’s nothing to stop someone from just making up any address to put in that field, which means it’s not an enforceable requirement — nor should it be, in my opinion. Even though I always post under my own name, I agree with the various comments about the importance of preserving anonymity here for those who wish to post anonymously.
Speaking of the importance of preserving anonymity for controversial free speech in Internet forums like this one, has the possibility been considered that the trolling (or at least some of it) may be precisely intended to pressure IPR administrators into curtailing the ability to post anonymously?
I’m not trying to feed paranoia, but given the sophistication and level of escalation of some of the things the troll(s) are described as doing, it seems to me that the possibility of government involvement should not be ruled out.
We know that the following are true:
• A lot of people who comment on IPR are essentially political dissidents of one stripe or another (i.e. serious and determined opponents of the status quo)
• The U.S. federal government has a documented history of spying on, harassing, seeking to discredit, etc., individuals and groups associated with dissident political views, using all manner of dirty tricks and underhanded behavior
If the current level of posting anonymity is preventing some agency like the FBI from clearly identifying who in our community is saying what, and that is something they want to know, they would have a clear motive for seeking to abolish anonymous posting. At the same time, pressuring a website like this one to take such a course of action is probably not something they would want to have their fingerprints on. Thus it seems not impossible that offensive trolling could be a tactic designed to raise the costs to the site of allowing anonymity in the hopes of getting administrators to eliminate it of their own accord.
That’s basically what comment registration does, although it does email it to them. I don’t know any way to technically implement it without emailing, and if we could, what would happen when someone lost their password? Also, if the password was tied to an IP rather than an email, it would create annoyances for someone like me who regularly logs in from many different wifi networks, for those whose ISPs distribute IPs interchangeably within their network and don’t maintain a constant IP for a particular user/machine, etc. If it was tied to a cookie, it would easily be defeated by clearing cache, and would be a problem for anyone who does not enable cookies. So tying it to an email address is probably most logical, as well as the only technical implementation that is readily apparent in wordpress. The good and bad news there is that it takes at most a minute or two to set up a free email account with any of many online services such as gmail, yahoo, hushmail, etc., including many that offer privacy options. It’s good news from the standpoint of protecting privacy but bad news from the standpoint of stopping trolls. However it did seem to cut down on trolls quite a bit when we had it in 2008 – comment volume was high, troll volume was low. Perhaps they just hadn’t discovered the site yet, I don’t know.
Yes, that’s the only difference between the current system and the mandatory comment registration system – registration does require a working email address and verification in the form of entering a password when you log in from a different machine or clear cache or if you log out and log back in. OTOH it is very easy to set up an email account. With the system as it is now you can make up any email address, but it will hold your comment for moderation if there is not a previous approved comment with that name and email address, if it has multiple links, if it contains certain words, etc. With registration, it would have to be an actual working email address, but it’s very easy to create one.
My suggestion was not to tie passwords to email addresses, IP addresses, cookies, or anything related to a person’s identity or the identity of their device, but rather to assign a password to each particular handle, at the time the handle is first created, by displaying a password briefly on the screen at that time.
Regarding cookies, perhaps they could be enabled only for those who want them? Or for more security, just require everyone to supply the password for their desired handle whenever they log in. For current users with longstanding handles, passwords could potentially be retroactively issued in cases where a user’s identity can be reasonably determined to be non-fraudulent.
I agree. In fact it seems pretty likely. For example, how would they possibly know when Andy J was arrested when no one else, other than Andy, the arresting officers and some onlookers who are highly unlikely to have ever heard of IPR on a campus that was a couple of hours drive from where the rest of us were working knew about it? I didn’t even know about it until, in fact, the trolls posted about it. Andy did not know he was about to be arrested and once he was arrested he was not able to use his cell phone. I think he did try to call me from a jail phone but it was some 800 number which I assumed was either telemarketers or more troll harassment and did not take the call. So I actually learned about it from the trolls…but how did they know?
I would have no idea how to set something like that up, and how would you recover a password if you forgot it?
Email addresses don’t have to be tied to your identity. They can be created with false info quickly and easily, and some of them also have IP anonymity, encryption, and so on.
As noted in my original message, if you lost or forgot your password under the system I’m proposing, you’d pretty much have to create a new identity if you wanted to post.
I suppose there could be a way for known and trusted users to phone in and get a new password over the phone or something in such cases, but that could be a lot of work for admins.
That seems way, way less likely. Their methods for cracking anonymity are much more technologically sophisticated than that. And even with comment registration there would be ways to combat their tracking.
It seems more likely that the trolls may want to discourage participation here in general through the use and abuse of crude sexual references, crude racism, personal attacks, and other things which a lot of people find offensive, shocking or annoying, including the inevitable debates over moderation, flame wars, etc. One of their favorite themes is that myself and other people who do a lot of ballot access petitioning for the LP and actually are LP members and activists are some sort of criminal conspiracy that regularly engages in all sorts of heinous crimes. Another is to conflate libertarianism with racism.
As I envision it, when someone first logged in with a new handle, entering it would take them to a screen with a message such as:
“Your password for the handle JoeSmith is POET3595. Due to abuse of the website by people impersonating other users, you will not be able to log in again as JoeSmith without it!
If you forget or lose your password, THERE IS NO WAY TO RETRIEVE IT, and you will need to create a new identity in order to post again.
So if you want to continue posting as JoeSmith after today, be sure to commit your password to memory or keep it in a safe place!”
I used “POET3595” as an example because passwords should probably be relatively easy to remember (e.g. not something like “Yp68qR2o”), yet long enough and containing both letters and numbers or other characters so as to make them somewhat difficult to hack.
Personally I would find that more annoying than email registration. Some people actually want to post under their actual legal names or a handle that they use consistently on many sites. And that’s if I even knew how to implement such a thing, and I don’t.
Yes, it could be, and we are all volunteers.
But before you even get to all that, you’d have to let me know what plugin or option in wordpress would even make what you suggest possible, since I have no idea. We don’t write code from scratch here, it’s all a wordpress forum. There’s a link to wordpress under the login links at the bottom of the sidebar if you or anyone wants to explore and suggest wordpress plugins or options we should try.
Easier said than done, both on the personal and technical level.
As also noted in my original message, I don’t know anything about how this might be technically implemented, I’m just putting it out there as a theoretical partial solution.
Well, thanks, but I don’t know anything about how this might be technically implemented either, in addition to the other issues.
I don’t think removing the ability to use an anonymous name is the issue. We’re just trying to slow down the repeat offenders.
Jill,
Exactly.
BTW, it’s been working, without the comment registration implemented, so we may not need it. I’d rather not discuss the technical details, but I’ve seen a lot of the spam it is catching and it never even shows up here for anyone except admins looking at the spam file… which has been a lot of the same stuff we were having to catch after the fact earlier. At this rate, registration may be superfluous.
Glad to hear both that the problem is abating, that the ability to post anonymously is not at stake, and that the plan to have people register may be dropped altogether.
I think it’s dropped. At least, there has been no further discussion of it.