Sure they are. And they have all the time in the world to read it all, all those dozens and dozens of strung on, mostly anonymous comments, smart, dumb, nutty and irrelevant, and nowhere else on the web to go.

Readers are also smart enough to distinguish well-run sites from digital mental health wards run by the inmates. So, I think, are advertisers, if you give them a chance.

Readers and commenters are fully capable of distinguishing between specious posts and more thoughtful ones.

In terms of the defense offered for anonymous posting:
http://blog.topix.com/archives/000190.html
I can do no better than recommend that people read the comments about the policy posted on the blog.topix.com site regarding how this works out in practice, including case histories from Indianapolis, Akron & etc. Maybe they just need better AI. These are extremely eloquent.

There is also the ‘let them be heard!” issue:
We are told that requirements for real id are somehow elitist, that the unruly commentators are, I quote, “not barbarians that appeared one day the net went up. They

In contrast, NYT, for example, does not open all articles for comments and moderates ALL comments before posting for topicality as well as courtesy.

What I think is real important is comparing comments on blog to “letters to the editor” in print newspapers and online letters section, which are always vetted, checking to make sure the writer is who he/she says he she is, phone number to check etc, and these letters to editor as always shortened, edited, and monitored to make sure there are no flames wars or attacks on people etc…..so you are right, comments sections need to be monitored by PEOPLE, by editors trained in editing and fact-checking and checking to make sure the person is who she he says she he is…….if we start treating comment sections in blogs like letters to the editor of print newspapers, there would be a much better conversation here. Let’s get working on this. Robert, your article is an important wake uo call to the news and blogging community worldwide. I hope the New York Times interviews you on this important story.

– Danny

For the record, the forums on the Chicago Tribune *are* moderated — both preprocessed to get rid of true horror, and the folks at the Tribune actually have staff which take a look at the commentary, and ectively edit things which are violations of the terms of service.

I disagree that doing away with anonymous comments does any good besides getting rid of 4/5 of yoru commentary, and I have the numbers on my side:

http://blog.topix.com/archives/000190.html

We know as much about the anonymous people as we do about the registered users, when it really comes down to where you live — and we have some pretty good tools to deal with problem folks.

But – again – I think the interesting opportunity for a news organization is to get involved in the discussions to a much greater degree — that would uplevel things a lot in my opinion, and its a shame that the culture of the newsroom is still pretty uncomfortable with the reporters and ediotrs going in and mixing it up in the commentary.

We’re always ready to take criticism of what we’re providing folks like the Tribune, and we’re constantly trying to improve what we do here.

I *am* happy to see that this article got 160 comments, because I’m a believer that the level of interation and interest is, in fact, the measure of success for content on the web. If people aren’t commenting, whatever you wrote probably doesn’t matter that much.

I’m not a lawyer, but if something got to court I’d love to hear the argument.

“Yes, judge, we’re a respected newspaper, in the business of trying to serve our readers and our community with responsible journalism, finding the facts as best we can, carefully editing, and speedily acknowledging errors if we make them. However, we do maintain this mud pit on our news site in which anonymous anybodies and obvious losers are allowed to make noise, often insulting our organization, our reporters, public officials and everyone else in the process.
“Judge, I hear you asking ‘why?’ The answer is, we think if we stick with it long enough and get enough noise going we can make money by selling ads. In a journalistically sound manner, of course. But of course we’re not responsible for what shows up there.”

Call me a star-eyed idealist, but it seems to me that if papers – make that post-newspaper news organizations – can find a way to get into the business of building online communities, zip-code by zip-code, of real citizens who themselves get involved in the enterprise, helping neighbors find like minded neighbors, they might sacrifice a few hits at first, and it would take longer, but the journey would be worth the time and the cost. It’s a new definition of subscriber.

I should add that our site reviews comments after they are posted and removes anything offensive, etc. The issue of when the comment is reviewed is the rub.

Whatever the legalities, our site’s position is that not reviewing comments before posting is legally the safest, least-exposed route. I’m guessing other sites take that approach for similar reasons.

But personally I agree with you, for the reasons you and others state. Not only does “free-for-all” commenting erode credibility, it also encourages the conversation devolving into flame-wars and off-topic rants, as others here have pointed out. And when that happens, it in turn discourages legitimate, thoughtful discourse.

The industry as a whole should keep working on this issue, as you say, and try to come up with a better solution than the anonymous, free-for-all that seems to be the standard.

Regarding filling in boxes: if you just fill in boxes with fictions, you won’t receive your package from Amazon or your download from iTunes. It takes a little engineering and ingenuity, to keep it honest without being too burdensome, but it is possible. What you do have to be careful about is keeping whatever backup info is collected absolutely confidential – but that’s not impossible either.