Tuesday, 22 May 2012

Anonymous contributions

Posted in: Feedback | Website feedback

anonymity, comment, debate

18/06/2010 6:06 pm

john souray

john souray

Posts: 24

While I think that in general pseudonyms are greatly overused on the internet, and have led to a serious decline in standards of debate as people don't have to take responsibility for what they say, I fully understand that many valuable contributions may come onto these forums from housing professionals who can't be seen to be speaking for their employers.

But your recent innovation of allowing an "Anonymous" option is catastrophic. It is making some threads almost unreadable. You might think that the sense of a contribution ought to be self-contained, but that isn't a dialogue or discussion. It's just a Pinteresque succession of statements of people talking past each other. You often need to refer to other contributions or your own previous ones, and there are so many "Anonymous" contributors that it is becoming impossible to work out who's saying what or even responding to what.

By all means allow pseudonyms, but please make people pick something distinctive, even if it's just a code number.

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marty21

marty21

Posts: 67

27/09/2010 8:51 pm

I agree, I think I have responded anonymously by mistake as well a few times. Pseudonyms yes, if you want to respond privately and not in your user name, create another pseudonym, not that hard to do.

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Posts: 104

27/09/2010 9:53 pm

I agree. I thought it was a silly idea from the off. Create a user name at least. Otherwise there are dozens of anons posting everywhere and one looses all coherence in the threads.

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Junior

Junior

Posts: 649

28/09/2010 9:42 am

I agree to most of these Anonymous people seem to love throwning personal insults at people on this site

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Paine

Paine

Location: Outside Housing
Posts: 19

28/09/2010 9:48 am

I couldn't agree more.  However, when creating my profile, I found the website unresponsive and it took two or three attempts.  Could this sort of problem be partly to blame?

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Inside Housing staff post

Tom Lloyd

Tom Lloyd

Posts: 145

28/09/2010 10:08 am

The addition of the 'anonymous' option when posting comments on articles or in the forums was introduced as part of a more general upgrade to the site in May. It wasn't something we requested, but came with new core templates for some of the pages.

Having monitored how it is being used, I agree it is not particularly helpful. It does make it hard to follow threads, and can make people feel less accountable for what they say. In general we are happy for people to use the site anonymously, but it is better if they at least have a username.

I have already asked our developer to remove the anonymous option, but it may be a little while before the change can be made.

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Leon Tricker

Leon Tricker

Location: Portsmouth, UK.
Posts: 24

28/09/2010 1:05 pm

I would like to see the 'anon' option removed too.

Unfortunately, it is not just anonymous posters that resort to personal insults. Having spoken to colleagues and residents, I know this puts people off of posting - let alone using their own name.

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Joe Halewood

Joe Halewood

Posts: 243

28/09/2010 1:24 pm

It seems agreed by all contributors on here that the 'anonymous' tag hampers debate.  Yet it will take more than its removal to engender true debate.

Elsewhere on this site there are links to other sites in housing so how about some direct links to say latest HB figures or other 'official' facts.  Far too much time is spent attacking the premise of argument on here - eg there isnt 2m on waiting lists but 6m etc - a separate forums for official figures / facts in itself would engender true debate and then once agreed would form the basis of more reasonable and informed debate.

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Anonymous

Anonymous

28/09/2010 3:18 pm

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Sidney Webb

Sidney Webb

Location: South East England
Posts: 224

28/09/2010 3:21 pm

A brilliant idea Joe - links to the essential information digest, for instance yesterday saw the publication of the average private rents per district, showing that they continue to increase and exceed the benefit cap limits as a national average. It would be great not to have to do 'the blond joke thing' and explain the facts every time the argument arose. Simply pointing to the ready-fact column would be a huge improvement.

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Inside Housing staff post

Tom Lloyd

Tom Lloyd

Posts: 145

08/12/2010 12:52 pm

The option to post comments on stories anonymously has now been removed. This affects all stories added to the site from now on. It does not affect the forums, or existing stories.

You can still use a pseudonym when posting to conceal your identity, and we are quite happy for people to do this. If you are unsure how to do this, go to the 'my account' section (top right of any page when you are logged in), then 'edit profile' and 'edit personal details'. Here you can select whether any posts you make will display your real name or username. You can also change your username here if you wish to make it something that prevents you being identified.

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...

...

Posts: 49

08/12/2010 1:29 pm

Not a bad idea, but it will not reduce 'trolling' in any way and is unlikely to prevent two people having a slanging match over a particular view.

A morew advanced solution would be to prevent the same user from posting more than 2-3 comments on the same item within a set time. This is how the BBC keep their forums useable

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Sidney Webb

Sidney Webb

Location: South East England
Posts: 224

08/12/2010 1:49 pm

Meanwhile - it's a hey nonnie noo from him and a no nonnie who from me - hoorah!!

The BBC's moderation makes responsive debate a farce, often with in excess of an hour between post and display - let not go there please.

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Anonymous

Anonymous

08/12/2010 1:52 pm

So I can post nonnymousley here

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Melvin Bone

Melvin Bone

Posts: 190

08/12/2010 1:54 pm

But have to reveal myself when commenting on stories...

Good idea.

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Sidney Webb

Sidney Webb

Location: South East England
Posts: 224

08/12/2010 1:55 pm

Melvin - please do not reveal yourself, with or without mask, it may be more than some could cope with!

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