I have recently (and very unfortunately) felt myself obliged to contribute to this forum. May I just say that your balanced and non-partisan comments, Paschen, should be read by all. This is a complex issue, and there are no easy answers.....and you lay it all out very well.

Thanks, from a new guy...

It is only the super editors that can do it (the ones with the gold crowns) so if I am not visible on the site, it will be nightime in Vancouver, and therefore Sanjay and Dave Keating will be working so you can contact them.

Thanks

Thanks for the info, and I sincerely hope that I'll never have to write them!! (On that subject at least, I mean).

Fripouille you made some very personal comments about me on a post by Johnny. NP allows anon comments. You also stated that I make many comments on your posts. I just checked the 11 posts you have made since becoming a NP member and I made one small comment on one single post which was actually also about anon comments. I don't understand your problem with anon comments but you need to address your concerns to NP and not making unnecessary personal attacks against me.

My opinion on this can be resumed in one simple sentence

I am not "leaving" this otherwise excellent site, but I shall quite simply not put up another post, or comment, on it as long as anon comments are permitted.

Respects to all and thank you.

there have been some really vile comments made by anonymous not verified. And I agree there should be a way that registered users can vote them down. As Amy objected many on digg do vote them down, but they are still there for people to see and to comment on.

It takes a long time to get a staffer's attention to deal with these type of comments. sometimes days.

Just to clarify - I didn't object to anything about people voting comments down on digg - I just said that we won't be implementing that kind of voting system here; and second of all it has never taken me days to respond to anything, so please don't assume anything about what staff does or does not do.

I must admit that even though we get some good anon comments on balance I am still not in favour of them because of the abuse and spam. What also concerns me is the fact that anons can recommend posts, how do we know that people are not recommending their own work by not signing in or getting friends to recommend their work. If people can't be bothered to join why should they be able to affect what rises to the front page.

I have noticed now that anon recommendations carry more weight than volume of hits, yesterday a post with the most hits on site was buried on page 5!, in the past the amount of hits helped a post to move up but not anymore it seems.

I do second Vinny his comment here. And yes, I did change my mind after what I saw on some post such as Fri. Ti. and Pair a guy...

I agree Vinny. This is out of hand. I just saw a post that said "death to the jews". What do we need this kind of nonsense. Besides, If we are all committed to spending our time on NP at least they need to be sensitive to this situation and do something about it. Otherwise, I am afraid that it too will pass on to the graveyard of relevant web sites that went bad because of ownership not taking care of business and preserving the integrity of the site.

I have absolutely had enough of anon comments. Enough. I just don't know what else to say at this stage.

I really question the extent to which an anon commenter is to be taken seriously coming on this thread and complaining about anything. Honestly, the irony is just laughable.

MAN! Fripouille, I am really sorry that you feel this way. This is the very epitome of the effects of anon comments on the site.

I am seriously fed up with it.

Amy, yes, staff are very good at deleting offensive comments when they are made. But it's just not enough. I am so tired of seeing them all over the site. I know I'm commenting virulently on this thread this morning but I am feeling really angry about this situation.

Why not just make anyone who wishes to post a comment they must register like the rest of us, and have to use name, location etc, seems simple to me!

I realize this past week has been a bit stressful in regards to anon commenting, and I can fully relate to your frustration in regards to anon comments sometimes. I have seen both cases; a story that has attracted a lot of first-hand anon comments, which have added a lot to the story, and then also a story which has attracted a lot of negative and nasty anon comments and I and the other staff have to scramble to delete them as fast as possible.

We of course do take our members thoughts about a subject into consideration and we appreciate you guys keeping the conversation going.

We don't know that people aren't recommending their own posts, but as anon recommendations are only worth one point - we thought it wouldn't make too much difference if people do recommend their own pieces. It won't move the post up at all.

I'm sorry I don't have a real answer for you all at the moment, but I wanted to let you know that I am reading this and making note of what is said.

Thanks for reading and commenting Amy.

First of all, I just wanted to say thanks so much for all your comments here - they are much appreciated and we know that this is a charged  issue, so we wanted to try and come up with some solutions together as a community.

I have spoken to Mike Tippett and we are all keen to keep the conversation going, however, please know that we feel the anon comments and recommendations add value to the site and so are here to stay.

We'd like to decide collectively on the best course of action and we've come up with a few ideas of some things that we could do, and we also want to hear from you about what you think we could do to get the most out of anonymous comments and recommendations.

Here are a few ideas that we came up with so far:
1) Having a 'report this comment' button on a comment
2) Change the recommendation points to make the anon recommendations worth way less so that it would take so many anon recommendation points to make up even one 'regular' member's recommendation. That way, anon recommendations woudn't be worth that much at all.
3) Let authors hide anon comments on their story

Let's try and come up with some ideas and in the meantime, please post your own suggestions here.

In a week, we can look back at this thread and see what the best and most liked suggestions are.

However, also please be aware that these things don't change overnight and anything we do will take time, and will have to be fitted in with the rest of the software development on the site. But we want to hear your input and see what we can do collectively, as a community.

If you see any anon comments that concern you in the meantime, please message us and let us know.

As usual we will aim to deal with these as quickly as possible.

Thanks so much and we look forward to any suggestions you might have.

I wasn't going to comment on this again but I would like to add one:

4) Only allow people who can be bothered to take the time to join NP be allowed to recommend posts and influence what shows on the front page.

But of cause you have already ruled that option out so why even bother asking members!