RFC: Proposed comment policy change

Posted Nov 19, 2004 23:33 UTC (Fri) by moore (subscriber, #17466) [Link]

Disclamer: I am allready a subscriber

I think this is a good idea. It creates a econmic dissensinitave to troling. One othere soultion would be to leav it up to the readers where people with accounts could set weathere thay want to see non subscriber comments or not.

-Jonathan

Posted Nov 19, 2004 23:35 UTC (Fri) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]

Hi

I hope you reconsider this. I would like non subscribers like me to post comments. Perhaps you can have moderation and/or a seperate thread which can be disabled by subscribers to reduce the signal to noise ratio?

regards
Rahul Sundaram

Posted Nov 19, 2004 23:57 UTC (Fri) by philips (guest, #937) [Link]

I can only propose a feature for comment posting: allow registered people to post. If post happens to be abusive, put a counter on him. If person's behaviour is truly abusive - disallow posting comments for some time.

Hm. It seems that I have just repeated rules of FIDOnet about posting into news groups...

In my experience people who post flames are most of the time the most motivated people. Excluding them doesn't solve problem in long- term.

Obviously there are people who like to troll and flame, but still education is better than expelling them from community. Recall net-etiquette - all this wisdom is there for many years. Just read it.

P.S. What you mean by "subscriber"? is it the guy who has payed money for reading premium content week before I can do?

Posted Nov 19, 2004 23:59 UTC (Fri) by davidm (subscriber, #35) [Link]

I am a subscriber so that may color my view but I'm fine with the concept. If you allow anyone to post to the letters to the editor non subscribers can vent there.

Go for it.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 0:13 UTC (Sat) by oseemann (subscriber, #6687) [Link]

i don't feel disturbed by some occasional ill-mannered comments.
the overall comment quality is pretty high.
the amount of trolls and offending posts is too low to justify any change to the system, in my opinion.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 0:18 UTC (Sat) by jeffg (guest, #20473) [Link]

hmh, i thought that that was already the policy, that one had to be a member to post comments. it was one of the minor reasons that i subscribed. i don't think it's an unreasonable requirement, and i'll presume that some notable postings must have lead you-all to this decision, so i would view this as sensible maneuver.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 0:23 UTC (Sat) by dang (subscriber, #310) [Link]

Go for it. The cost would be that a non-subscriber might have a great contribution to contribute ( especially in the case of an unusually informed source ), but in that case they can easily email y'all. In the best of cases you can milk that into a full blown article.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 0:26 UTC (Sat) by jimi (guest, #6655) [Link]

I also subscribe. While i haven't encountered the posts you describe, I would support a decision to limit comments to subscribers if your research regarding posting is correct. The filtering out non-subscribers idea is also a good one (though if what would be filtered out is really crap then why allow it to be posted in the first place? back to subscribers-only).

I think lwn has a well-deserved reputation for *not* being a gossip/flame site, both in its reporting as well as its comments. That is why I subscribe. If non-subscribers are posting things that seriously detract from the value of lwn then perhaps such a ban is justified.

I think groklaw suffers from a posting problem. They have excellent reporting and integrity. Surely there are comments posted that are valuable and contribute to the site. But these days it is getting hard to find those amidst all the noise. In that sense, I feel that groklaw has lost a little value: it seems that only hooligans follow the site based on a reading of many of the comments. Fortunately, PJ is completely honest in her reporting and this keeps the value of the site very high. lwn is likewise honest.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 0:27 UTC (Sat) by DaleQ (subscriber, #4004) [Link]

I too am a subscriber.

I think that only allowing subscribers to post comments is a good idea. I think it would improve the quality of feedback and boost subscriptions.

Dale

Posted Nov 20, 2004 0:38 UTC (Sat) by bluefoxicy (guest, #25366) [Link]

I somehow got a subscription via a gift, which will soon expire; in reality, I have no money to fund an LWN subscription at this time, and thus am facing this idea with dread. I like being able to post comments, and this proposal is in most basic terms threatening to take that privilege away from me. There are two points here that should be considered.

1. I do not have a God-given "right" to post comments. It is your site, and you are supplying the service to me. Until I enter into a contractual agreement with you supplying me with a negotiated right to post comments-- such as a subscription-- it is entirely up to you whether to restrict this feature from me or not.

2. It has been stated in the article that the decision to restrict comments to subscribers is first supported by the poor actions of some non-subscribers, and only looked on semi-favorably as an afterthought as a way of encouraging more people to subscribe. I do not believe it is fair-- although the world is not nor meant to be fair-- for me to lose this privilege due to the abhorant actions of others.

A more proper solution may be to allow users to complain about specific comments (and private messages). This would bring attention first to the message itself, then to the user leaving the comment (which in turn brings attention to other comments by the user). Users abusing complaints or abusing the comment system will have their rights to said system revoked explicitly. Users determined to be evading the system (i.e. same user, same e-mail, same IP, different username) may have their accounts shut down and appropriate action (deny new accounts to X username, deny access by X IP, contact with ISP abuse center, or legal action) taken to prevent future evasion.

I believe that if the primary concern lies in preventing antisocial behavior, then the solution should primarily focus on antisocial individuals. If the libpng exploit were dangerous to your network, you would implement a filtering firewall to remove detected malformed PNG images, rather than filter out all PNG images indescriminantly. The PNG images are analogous to your users, the malformed ones are analogous to antisocial users, and the actual payload is analogous to the abhorant comments.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 0:40 UTC (Sat) by potiere (subscriber, #9747) [Link]

Subscription charges depend so much on where you live (5$ is not the same in India, Nigeria, Canada or Switzerland)! As long as we don't have a mechanism taking that into account, we should not use bying power as a criteria. Unless we like to shut the mounths from many countries.

Imagine to talk about free software in India without allowing indians to give feedbacks, except if they live in rich countries. Isn't free software a solution for all? Isn't the net the way to share with alls?

I second the idea of trying to remind the netiquette from time to time and when abused.

I am a subscriber, from one of the rich countries.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 0:43 UTC (Sat) by ccyoung (guest, #16340) [Link]

Can you tell me roughly
- what percent of responses are by members/non-members?
- about what percent of non-member responses are abusive?
- have you given thought to alternative measures?

Posted Nov 20, 2004 0:44 UTC (Sat) by smoogen (subscriber, #97) [Link]

I am a subscriber, and also do not see a problem with limiting it. This site is really useful, and people should support it. Being able to post is just a benefit for doing so.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 0:48 UTC (Sat) by SteveKnodle (guest, #7853) [Link]

Could you explain the problem more clearly?
What was the nature of the comment that angered so many people?
What if that comment had been made by a subscriber?

Perhaps non-subscribers could be asked to provide a one-line summary
which would be displayed initially, and in a different color
(perhaps along with a RUDEnessAssassin score ;-)
A "moderator" could of course promote it to a "full" comment.

This site is so useful for me, that I don't want to see it's operation
perturbed, or see it's staff's time diverted to administrivia.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 1:00 UTC (Sat) by robla (subscriber, #424) [Link]

I'm a longtime subscriber, and like the idea of providing others further motivation to subscribe. But I like the idea of *some* non-subscribers being able to post.

How's this for an option: As a perk of being a subscriber, you get the benefit of giving up to three non-subscribers posting access, where "three" is an arbitrarily small number so that subscribers are careful about choosing their friends. That way, if there's some VIP or friend that a subscriber would like to encourage to be part of the conversation, they can do that.

In thinking about it a bit, I'm not sure that a limit is entirely necessary, since subscribers have little motivation to pig up the place. Perhaps if the sponsor is displayed by the guest username, that would provide an incentive for the subscriber to censor their "friend".

Rob

Posted Nov 20, 2004 1:11 UTC (Sat) by Webexcess (subscriber, #197) [Link]

I am a subscriber and I also support this proposal.

Some valid concerns have been raised, however. lwn.net shouldn't lose the good contributions from non-subscribers.

How about letting subscribers "sponsor" comments from non-subscribers? Either on a user-by-user or comment-by-comment basis.. ie. comments from non-subscribers would not appear unless someone has "sponsored" that comment or all comments from that user.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 1:22 UTC (Sat) by frasc (guest, #4839) [Link]

The LWN editors are making a terrific job bringing to us, readers, a very remarkable source of information.

As indicated in the RFC the amount of `noise' coming from subscribers is very small.

Having subscribed when LWN was about to shut down, I can realize the amount of work and difficulties our editors are going through. Even though they managed to pull through the worst situation, they haven't achieved (yet :-) to be in total comfort.

If limiting the noise can diminish the amount of janitorial work they have to do, I am all in favor of restrictng post of comments to subscribers only.

That just sounds fair to our editors.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 1:25 UTC (Sat) by ikm (subscriber, #493) [Link]

That is, you would like to drop some useful signal in favor of the people who would like to live in the cozy non-inflammatory all-conforming world? I would just say that these people won't gain such a world anyway -- they should start attending to their psychological problems instead, but any lost signal is always lost, with no way to tell if it was worthy or not. Oh well.

If you just need to raise funds, I wouldn't mind disabling the thing.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 1:39 UTC (Sat) by josh_stern (guest, #4868) [Link]

I'm a subscriber. I haven't noticed any general problem with bad comments. I would like to suggest that the "scrolling mechanism" by which articles scroll down in chronological order and eventually drop off the front page be adjusted to reflect the number of recent comments and not just the time the article first appeared. Sometimes active and interesting discussions are dropped just from being a day old.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 2:06 UTC (Sat) by mepr (guest, #4819) [Link]

If the money is needed and it is going to help LWN financially, I want the editors of LWN to do well, as I do value this service. However, I think that S/N is already high and always has been. If anything, it's better now than before subscriptions started. I usually go months between seeing a troll, and am guessing restricting comments will be a net negative on value. However, if LWN needs to do it, then that is OK.
If S/N is already high, maybe a more practical numbers might be Non-Subscriber S / Non-Subscriber N (the NSN ratio), and the "it bothers JC (Jonathan Corbet)" / "editing becomes a drag for JC" or bJC/ebadJC ratio.
Thanks for such an excellent publication. I am subscribed and have been reading the Kernel, development and front page weekly, often before 12am wednesday, for 5+ yrs.

Mark

Posted Nov 20, 2004 2:50 UTC (Sat) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link]

I think it might be best to allow non-subscribers to post, mark posts by non-subscribers, and allow users to filter out posts by non-subscribers,
but have any post with a visible reply be visible, and allow subscribers to cause particular posts to appear to all users, and note the existance of suppressed posts on pages which would have them.

I think this handles the issues with filtering of posts that other people can see: each thread you see entirely or not at all; before posting, you can see if there are suppressed posts which say what you want to say, and you can make them visible to others (if you're a subscriber).

Ideally, this would create a disincentive to responding to trolls, because that makes the troll visible to people who would rather not see it (assuming that the people who could respond have the manners not to want to annoy others).

This is essentially the same as a (usenet- or mailing-list-like) moderated forum with trusted posters, where any trusted poster can be a moderator or not at their own option. (Also, untrusted but logged-in readers could choose to use or ignore the moderation)

Of course, this may all be hard to implement, in which case it probably shouldn't be a high priority.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 2:58 UTC (Sat) by sbergman27 (subscriber, #10767) [Link]

> Our current thinking is motivated by a recent comment which annoyed a fair number of people. A bit of research revealed that a large majority of comments are currently posted by subscribers - but that the ones people complain about almost never are. So restricting comments to subscribers looks like a relatively easy way to raise the signal-to-noise ratio without affecting all that many people.

My perception was that the comment annoyed a *few* people who were vocal about it. I am a subscriber and I am strongly opposed to making this a "pay to be heard" site. And it does not matter whether it is pay to post or pay to filter, it all amounts to the same thing.

The signal to noise ratio here has always been pretty good. Of course, there is always going to be the occasional troll or "overly enthusiastic" post, but why can't people just ignore posts that they don't like? Has the volume of posting here increased to the point that such filtering is really necessary?

Posted Nov 20, 2004 3:02 UTC (Sat) by mmarsh (subscriber, #17029) [Link]

LWN was useful before there were comments. When LWN started to offer subscriptions, I refrained from commenting because I hadn't yet subscribed. The first time I wanted to comment on an article, I paid up. That only seemed fair, since I'd enjoyed this site's contents for awhile and was now availing myself of a new feature. Of course, I can afford it, so it was not exactly a hardship (and was something I felt a little guilty about not having done sooner).

Without knowing what fraction of useful comments (however you might define "useful") come from non-subscribers, if it's greater than zero (as I am certain it is), then it would be a shame to lose those comments. If trolls are really getting out of hand, then something would seem to need to be done. If non-subscribers can no longer post, I would hope that there would be some alternate method for them to make observations or corrections, possibly by sending mail to the editor of the relevant section. I see these as different than letters to the editor, in that the comments could be incorporated into the comments thread for the article. Individuals who proved themselves to be conscientious with something tangible to contribute might even be granted free "comments only" accounts, similar to what non-subscribers currently have to have in order to post comments.

I have no idea what kind of burden this would place on the staff of LWN. I would hope that it's minimal -- it would certainly reduce trolling (at least that any of us readers would see). If non-subscriber commenting has to be disabled, my vote would be to at least try the above system. Either it works or it doesn't. If the latter, disabling it should be simple.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 3:28 UTC (Sat) by mattdm (subscriber, #18) [Link]

I'm in favor of letting anyone comment -- but not showing those comments publically at all. We don't need another slashdot -- and in fact, there's already a million various little linux discussion forums all over the web.

I come to LWN for intelligent Linux journalism. (In fact, I *subscribe* to LWN for that purpose.) Feedback and comments are valuable for corrections, but I don't want to have to wade through a bunch of chatter to get to the important parts.

Community commentary can be valuable, but: if it's not urgent, write a letter to the editor or submit an article. And if it *is* urgent, the article in question should be updated/corrected by the LWN staff.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 3:35 UTC (Sat) by biciunas (guest, #4398) [Link]

If it's up for a vote, I'll cast mine into the "let 'em all post" pile. As others have have mentioned, the S/N is good. My opinion is that those who don't want to subscribe won't be motivated by this loss; what I'd hate to lose are those who can't afford to pay. BTW, I'm a subscriber.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 3:38 UTC (Sat) by barbara (subscriber, #3014) [Link]

Note: non-subscribers must wait a week to post abusive comments to
subscription-only articles. Because these are the most interesting
articles on LWN, as a subscriber I don't see the problem with the current
system.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 3:52 UTC (Sat) by kh (subscriber, #19413) [Link]

Count me for subscriber only posting. The issue I have with a more frequent "letter to the editor" section is that without a tie in to the articles that posting has, I think I would miss anything there outside of the current weekly format.

As long as we are speaking of changes, maybe setting up an invite a friend link where subscibers could email "subsciber only content" to friends which would include a link to start a subscription along with that article's content.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 4:08 UTC (Sat) by bluefoxicy (guest, #25366) [Link]

An interesting thought, is there a difference betwen S/N and S/STFU? That is, are we worried about "noise" that people don't care about?

It seems to me that the occasional partially-off-topic or slightly-excessive post would be for the most part ignored. Nobody cares, it's not hate mongering, it's not links or (attempts to include) pornography or deformations that execute malware locally, and it's not mixed in at such a level where people actually take more than a very brief notice in a very select few discussions.

What becomes significant is when the content becomes either massive enough or offensive enough that conversations begin to include a progression of requests beginning with "please stay on topic," and then moving to "Can you find another forum?" before reaching the point where four-letter "STFU" posts begin appearing with no other content.

My point is that significantly low levels of noise tend to be filtered out in a given system. For example, a lot of hardware has a high-voltage signal which overcomes low-voltage noise; excessive amounts of noise produce noticable degredation, while rare or even occasional spikes create a disturbance which quickly corrects itself and allows normal operation to continue unencumbered.

I do not believe we've reached the point where excessive noise is beginning to harm the signal here. Occasional massive spikes (i.e. racist remarks or offtopic political banter) are quickly squelched and corrected for, so in reality we are simply looking at a real-world example of the principles of any system that carries a signal.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 4:19 UTC (Sat) by lm (guest, #6402) [Link]

You might take a look at what craigslist does. For those not in the know,
they have a model where anyone can flag bad content and the editors look
at it and toss the stuff which is obviously bad.

I subscribe, it's not that much money and it's nice to support you folks.
But I also think that the bottom line is getting eyeballs on your content.
Anything which reduces the number of people involved is bad.

In fact, I might argue that the whole premium content/early access model
is flawed. It reduces the number of people in the discussions. If there
were some way to give the paying people an edge, maybe make them moderators
or make their comments show up immediately and the other ones delayed by 24
hours (that's sure to shut down 99% of the trollers, they just want to see
the flame fallout), whatever.

The bottom line is that more people is better. Think about that.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 5:32 UTC (Sat) by JohnBell (guest, #12625) [Link]

Nothing to disclaim here, just plain fact - I am a subscriber and proud of it. I love LWN, have always used it as a great source for Linux news, and *had* planned to do so in the future until this baloney bubbled to the surface.

I was also one of the early participants in the comment section which caused this proposal to be brought forward. Now, you want to talk about signal to noise... I have never seen so much NOISE kicked up from a couple of posts on this site since I started clicking through. Much ado about nothing, in my opinion. For whatever reason, however, "some people" (I'm talking to you "foo", whoever you are) decided to step in and play Comment Critic and whine and complain about the Glory Days of LWN Past vs. the steaming cesspool (*snort*) that the comments sections have become today.

It never ceases to amaze me when I observe the level of effort that PSUEDO-INTELLECTUAL ELITIST SNOBS will go to in their quest to shut down statements and opinions that they find offensive. The bottom line is, it doesn't *matter* if the post in question was productive/trolling/offensive/abusive/paid-for/whatever. What matters is FREE DISCOURSE, something which is rapidly becoming extinct nowadays. People need to come to grips with the real world and face the fact that not everything in life is apropos, productive, pure, and peachy-keen. Be prepared to have to put up with jerks and neer-do-wells over the course of the day - that's the way it is and always will be. In fact, be prepared to carry the label of "jerk" from time to time - you don't agree with everyone, and not everyone agrees with you. Deal.

The absolute LAST thing I want to see LWN become is yet another bastion for CENSORSHIP hiding behind PC gibberish. Let's face it, that's what we're kicking around the table here - do we CENSOR people or not, and if so how do we go about doing it? Do only the "wealthy landowners" (subscribers) get to post? Do they get to invite their drinking buddies, chums, and hangers-on into the mix, while people with no connections and no money are left with no way to participate? Just who decides what is or is not worthy of viewing, anyway? What criteria will be used? Will everyone *agree* with that criteria?

Oh well, who am I kidding. This site will go the way of all the others that have thrown out the baby with the bathwater. More whining about being offended, more "MOD PARENT UP!", more useless time wasting BS. If you plan on doing that to LWN then cancel my subscription and pay back the remainder of my deposit - I'll have no part of it.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 6:16 UTC (Sat) by jvotaw (subscriber, #3678) [Link]

I'm a subscriber and I favor allowing posting only by subscribers, especially if there is another venue (such as a letters-to-the-editor page) for non-subscribers to post.

If that doesn't fly, here are a few alternatives that are less severe (not my original ideas):

1. When a non-subscriber posts, there is a delay of 12 or 24 hours before their message appears. This lessens the emotional reward of seeing your troll in print.

2. Allow comments by non-subscribers only after 12 or 24 hours have passed. Subscriber comments will thus tend to be earlier in the comments section.

3. Allow non-subscribers to post if they can find a subscriber sponsor. Not sure of the details.

No solution is perfect. I think your proposal is the best compromise I've heard of.

-Joel

Posted Nov 20, 2004 6:23 UTC (Sat) by TwoTimeGrime (guest, #11688) [Link]

If you're not going to allow non-subscribers to post, then also shut off their ability to see the comments. Make it so that you have to be a subscriber to both read and post comments. A private, subscriber only forum if you will.

It's very annoying to see a comment somewhere that you could add to, or correct if it had incorrect information, yet not be able to reply without paying. The fee to subscribe can be a deterrent. While the fee many be modest in places such as the USA, it may be prohibitably expensive in other countries.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 6:58 UTC (Sat) by dank (guest, #1865) [Link]

Subscribing to LWN is dirt cheap. If somebody wants
to comment, let them subscribe.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 8:53 UTC (Sat) by chel (guest, #11544) [Link]

Problem: "As of this writing, LWN.net holds 33,600 reader-posted comments; a few dozen of those, at most, have been abusive. Even so, something unpleasant occasionally gets posted, and some readers complain."

I am not convinced the proposed solution will permanently solve this (minor) problem. Abusive posts are best recognised by complaints. So a "Complaint" facility besides the "Post reply" facility might be a better way to solve this problem. If a complaint counter is added, this will act as a troll allert until the complaint treshold is reached and the posting is removed. It also gives a way to object against trolls without feeding the trolls.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 8:59 UTC (Sat) by hppnq (subscriber, #14462) [Link]

To me, the quality of the site matters most, so I would vote in favour of some mechanism that optimizes the S/N ratio. But I also like the idea that anyone can participate in the discussions, and I think one has to accept the fact that there will be a certain (low) amount of abuse of the comment system.

Currently I don't think there's a real need to change anything, but I fear the Groklaw effect, so LWN would do good to have some sort of remedy ready for that.

I am a subscriber, by the way, if that matters. I think anyone who reads LWN regularly and who can afford it should subscribe. But those who can't should not be shut out from the discussions if it can be prevented.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 9:04 UTC (Sat) by chant (subscriber, #20286) [Link]

Is there been any history of 'offensive posts' having been written by subscribers? If this occurs, what will happen? Since $2.50 is such a trivial amount, perhaps it is a low barrier for trollers as well.

Regardless, my vote is that non-subscribers be able to post comments. For the handful of abuses, its not worth losing a single one of the comments that I come here to enjoy.

I have just put my money where my mouth is and subscribed, albeit at the cheap rate, in the hopes that you'll leave the system open.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 9:57 UTC (Sat) by theraphim (subscriber, #25955) [Link]

Someone with enough capabilities to pay subscription price just don't have to have 100% rational personality without weak spots. Thing that can prevent them to post "obscene" comments can be a rule which can allow you to void their subscription in this case (or a fine from FCC :))).
These $5 is just a 3 rides on a local bus in L.A., but as much as 5% of average salary somewhere where I live.
Anyway it's your site. Feel free to do as you wish. I can find another place to comment :)

Posted Nov 20, 2004 10:10 UTC (Sat) by philips (guest, #937) [Link]

The place I come from - Belarus, last dictatorship of Europe - can be an example of place where paying $5/month can be an obstacle.

At local scale, for most people $5 is the money person needs to live for one week. For example, after paying rent my mother (who already retired) has about $25-35 on hands. And that's money for living one month.

If you need to pay international bill - you will have to use local currency. Exchange rate is controlled by government. That means, in fact, one will have to pay about $10 per month. That's already much, and for most people (especially youth, students, Universities' workers) is unsaid luxury. And I'm not talking about the fact that most of the forms of international payments are just illegal here, thou still widely used. (E.g. citizen of Belarus has no right to have bank account abroad - that's civil crime here).

Generally as sort of a rule, people here are immediately turned down when they see words like "subscription", "fee" on Internet. Almost every installation of M$ Windoz is unlicensed - and Linux (along with *BSD) are only truly licensed installed OSs here.

P.S. If one is employed by offshore software development house - Belarus is destination for out-sourcing too - price then might be Okay. But not everyone that lucky.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 10:53 UTC (Sat) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]

OK, subscriber here.

First, it's my opinion that the value of LWN almost doubled when comments
were added. Within reason, a number of choice comments by those informed
on the issues or having a personal experience with them adds a great deal
of value to a story, and I see a lot of that here at LWN, with little
"comment just to comment" noise let alone direct trolling. Ideally, that
would continue, but of course the natural tendency will be toward a
gradual degradation of quality. What can be done to avoid this?

First step, I'd suggest a simple subscriber post marker. No filtering or
other fancy stuff (yet, anyway), just a subscriber marker. This will
accomplish several things. First, it will allow users to actually see
whether the posts they value (or not) come from subscribers or not. Thus,
it'd give us users some data on which to form an option for going further,
and allow a followup RFC in two to six months, if desired. Second, it's
data you already have available, and would be intermediate test step
anyway, even if something further was to be implemented. Third, it'd
provide a bit of motivation to subscribe if only for the now visible
legitimacy factor, while not preventing those who can't/won't subscribe
for whatever reason from having their comments displayed.

Second, I like the non-subscriber delay idea. After implementing the
above as a first step, put into effect the 24-hour to 1-week delay for
non-subscribers that others have suggested. Again, this provides
motivation to subscribe while lowering the instant feedback and therefore
gratification potential of trolls presumably not so likely to subscribe
(tho it's possible). I'd suggest perhaps 48 hours as a delay factor.
It's not a whole week old, but should be sufficient systemic resistance to
the feedback loop so vital to trolls. While they may get a single post
in, which may draw some response, a 48-hour delay for each generation of
troll response will quickly put an end to any mounting feedback loop.
Ideally, subscribers will be mature enough to mute their responses as
well, meaning most response would be from other non-subscribers with their
own 48-hour posting delay, making a round-trip post and reply delay of 4
days, again, still short enough so real vital comments get thru, while
being a SERIOUS discouragement to escalating feedback loops. Note that
the proposed non-subscriber posting exception could apply to the the
non-subscriber delay as well, such that exempted non-subscriber posters
(as the subjects of an article or whatever) would see immediate posting
results.

I do NOT favor the removal of non-subscriber posting privs entirely, even
with an open comments page. The time may come for that, and it's possible
I'd change my mind if subscriber post marking is implemented as in the
first suggestion, so I could SEE who's responding as a subscriber and who
not, but I do NOT believe the time is now.

Duncan

Posted Nov 20, 2004 12:36 UTC (Sat) by zotz (guest, #26117) [Link]

I am not a subscriber.

I am not normally this dense, but sometimes I surprise myself: for some reason (slaps head) I was under the impression that only subscribers could post until this last dust up. I would have been posting more if I had known.

If others suffer from this misconception, it could account some for the lack of non-subscriber postings.

I have been a reader for many years.

The best idea I saw in the thread that prompted all this is that it should take one subscriber to approve a non-subscriber's post before it goes live. I just saw one in this thread that might be even better. Non-subscriber's posts go live when a subscriber replies to it. Then subscribers will just have to not respond to foolish posts.

Perhaps a refinement:

A non-subscriber get's one post a day to start, if their post is approved (or replied to) then they get posting privaleges for the rest of the day. Or some refinement on this.

I think that might be: needs specific approval (not reply approval) by one subscriber and that subscribers identity is shown alongside of the original post.

I think you may lose a lot by going strictly subscriber. I know sites lose out when they do not allow anon postings. I always try and make useful and decent postings, but sometimes I am not going to say things under my own name. There are many valid reasons for doing this.

I hope this turns out well for you in any event.

all the best,

drew

Posted Nov 20, 2004 13:04 UTC (Sat) by NESAC (guest, #3813) [Link]

I don't object to a plan that only allows subscribers to post, however, I don't see the need. The number of troll - like posts is already quite low, and I am not bothered by them.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 14:26 UTC (Sat) by vaxcluster (guest, #21475) [Link]

Disclaimer: I am NOT a subscriber.

I for one would not be unduly concerned by restricting comments to subscribers, but that is mainly because I currently cannot tell which comments are from subscribers, and which are not.

Before smashing that small nut with a sledgehammer, perhaps you could colour code the comments to show which are which. We would then be in a better position to give you our opinion.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 14:56 UTC (Sat) by angelortega (guest, #1306) [Link]

Disclaimer: I am a subscriber.

I agree with restricting comments to subscribers. Didn't knew trolls were
a problem here; signal-to-noise ratio has always been fine, as far as I
recall.

I don't think stuff like moderation nor filtering are worth the pain; I
prefer LWN editors dedicating their LWN time to things like interesting
articles (as they use to) and not hunting for stupid, offensive or spam
comments.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 16:02 UTC (Sat) by dwheeler (guest, #1216) [Link]

I pay real money for my subscription; why shouldn't I get benefits from paying? This policy change certainly isn't censorship; anyone can pay, and anyone can set up their own website to declare whatever they wish.

The reason I pay money is to obtain high-quality commentary and analysis on current events related to OSS/FS. LWN provides that, in real time, so it's worth paying for.

Non-subscribers can continue to be able to send 'letters to the editor', so there's always that approach.

Perhaps there should be a mechanism for non-subscribers to submit a comment on individual articles to LWN, who can moderate them and decide which of those can get posted. That would allow important comments through, while still giving a benefit for subscription.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 16:15 UTC (Sat) by tjc (guest, #137) [Link]

Pardon me if this has already been discussed. I didn't have time to read the previous 75 comments, but I tried to browse them.

What is the suscriber comments to non-suscriber comments ratio?

What percentage of non-suscriber comments are top-level? Perhaps disallowing non-suscribers from starting top-level threads would be enough to improve the S/N ratio for a while.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 17:01 UTC (Sat) by ruin8tr (guest, #16593) [Link]

how about if subscribers can rate non-subscriber comments up or down?

Posted Nov 20, 2004 17:09 UTC (Sat) by erwbgy (subscriber, #4104) [Link]

I think there are two issues here: increasing the signal-to-noise ratio,
and encouraging more people to subscribe to LWN.

I'm not convinced that there is a problem with the signal-to-noise ratio.
There are very few messages that I would consider noise, and they tend to
be on isolated topics that people feel strongly about. Then again, I
don't think that subscriber-only posts is censorship if they have
somewhere else to post. But, I think subscribers get enough value from
non-subscriber posts that this currently outweighs any possible irritation
from non-subscriber trolls.

Which leads me to a suggestion that may help with the second issue.
Identify non-subscriber posts, using an icon or different coloured title
bar (as suggested elsewhere) perhaps, and then provide a means for a
subscriber to sponsor this person. I would happily sponsor a
non-subscriber who I thought consistently posted useful comments, but was
not able to afford a subscription for whatever reason. I'm sure many
others would too, but we need some way of identifying such individuals.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 17:20 UTC (Sat) by copsewood (subscriber, #199) [Link]

I enjoy the comments facility, think it greatly improves LWN and that it works very well. I would therefore be reluctant (unless you are convinced this will improve revenue) to change significantly something that works well. I think the ability to make a complaint about an inappropriate post should not be made easier than sending an email to an address listed somewhere on the site (e.g. comment-complaints at lwn d0t whatever ). I think having an HTML check box makes complaining far too easy and will lead to trivial and inapproprate use.

I would also be very happy for the LWN editor to have the authority to remove a message or thread which detracts from the general quality of the site. The ability to post complaints letters when this is done and reasons for doing so would make this action accountable enough as far as I am concerned. If there have been so few inappropriate postings amongst so many, why leave these as part of the long-term archival history which lwn.net publishes ? I also think the human judgement of the editors is likely to work much better here than any numerical feedback algorithm from readers. This human judgement is what subscribers such as myself are willing to pay for.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 17:30 UTC (Sat) by vmole (guest, #111) [Link]

I'm a subscriber.

I don't think the problem of inapropriate posts is bad enough to warrant eliminating non-subscriber postings. I presume that at present, if I see a comment that is, let us say, un-civil, I can send a note to the editors for evaluation. At the rate of a few bad posts for several thousand good ones, that seems sufficient.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 17:34 UTC (Sat) by foo (guest, #1117) [Link]

I agree with some previous posters that a good first step would
be to simply mark the subscriber status of each poster. That
way we could all get a sense of where the information-free
posts are coming from. I do ask that it be textual and not
just a different color, for the benefit of those with substandard
browsers/terminals/eyeballs.

As for the censorship concerns, I feel that the danger of the
comments area becoming a Slashdot-style cheering section are
much greater than the danger of them drying up due to regulation.

I agree that the issue of international readers who really would
be hurt by the subscription price is a serious problem.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 17:40 UTC (Sat) by ewan (subscriber, #5533) [Link]

As a subscriber I'd prefer to leave the system open as now;
there really are so few 'bad' posts that it's trivially easy
to ignore them. If things ever got so that it took time to
hunt through the bad posts for the good ones then it would be
worth doing something about, but not otherwise.

However, I'd like to put in a vote for the idea of marking
non-subscribers' posts, it seems mostly harmless, possibly
revenue generating, and would put us in a better position to
judge should the need to reconsider come up in a few months.

Ewan

Posted Nov 20, 2004 17:47 UTC (Sat) by X-Nc (guest, #1661) [Link]

I had been against comments from the beginning. It seems to me that using the letters page is more efficient. Limiting comments to subscribers would probably be a good thing. It might even get a few more subscriptions.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 18:50 UTC (Sat) by dennisdjensen (subscriber, #25165) [Link]

Hello, I am a happy subscriber.

I am against any form of censorship or moderation of comments just because of a few annoying comments: There is no excuse or justification for such a thing in my opinion. The quality of LWN is high and attractive despite a few trolls once in a while.

Should the amount of noise rise to an unbearable level in some unknown future, then shutting off all comments and replacing them with letters to the editor or the author of an article would be better, but under all circumstances everybody ought to have equal access and freedom to comment upon an article.

Regarding fairness, no matter what the ratio between comments from subscribers and non-subscribers is, there is no fairness in treating one group different than any other group. When I pay, I pay to read articles, that is it, but if LWN takes any action to do such things, I will seriously have to consider wheither I'll continue to be a subscriber. I don't want to support an otherwise fine online magazine in locking any other group out, no matter how large or small this group may be.

I can see this is problematical from a practical point of view if the signal to noise ration falls beyond usefulness, but in such case I think it would be better to just remove the possibility to comment altoghether, but please don't start to separate readers any more than necessary.

Currently I don't see no problems except that a small minority--the few readers who complained--seems to be so annoyed over a another small minority--a troll--that they simply have to shut others out!!? That is bad thinking! I'm sorry to see that so many other readers don't seem to value freedom any more than they think it is OK to shut others out in favour of a more "elitist" group (the subscribers). It is not necessary. Please have the sense and patience to see how serious the problem may be--or may NOT be! Please just continue as before!

--
Dennis Decker Jensen

Posted Nov 20, 2004 18:56 UTC (Sat) by nicoruiz (subscriber, #25546) [Link]

Sorry to repeat myself but to recap:

The argument "subscribing is cheap, anybody can do it" is flawed, as already pointed by several comments. It may be cheap if you live in the first world, less so if you don't (or simply impossible, if you live in a country with currency control or that restricts international financial transactions). And despite what some first-worlders may think, there is people that live outside the first world that contribute to the general discussion.

The argument "everybody can have their own little web site and post there" is valid, but breaks the flow of the comments and diminishes the overall quality of the posts.

My argument for allowing non-subscriber posts is the following scenario: On the comments to some article featuring a tool or kernel hack, the tool's author/hacker(s) occasionally make very useful posts. I would be surprised if (for example) all kernel hackers that had posted to LWN kernel page are subscribed; and I don't want to loose those comments (those are precisely the kind of posts that reinforce LWN's prestige). I don't see most of those potentially useful contributors thinking "Oh, I guess I can pay a subscription to correct some strangers' misconceptions about my work".

Adding a link on the article on the lines of "author's comments to LWN posts can be found on his/her website at ......" is not going to cut it either. LWN could theoretically give the author of each tool featured here an account with right to post, but I doubt is worth the extra overhead for both the editors and authors.

That, and the fact that most people are trying to make a decision without a clear understanding the magnitude of the problem (since we can not tell subscribers' from non subscribers' posts we are all second guessing) is that I suggested some marking that let us tell one from the other apart (and my apologies for initially suggesting a color scheme and neglecting readers with less than perfect vision/terminal/browsers).

cheers

Posted Nov 20, 2004 19:49 UTC (Sat) by sdalley (subscriber, #18550) [Link]

Subscriber, against the proposed change as being excessively exclusionary to third-world posters.

FACT: The number of truly objectionable posts is pretty low.

FACT: It is your site and you have a perfect right to set the rules.

FACT: We can always mail lwn@lwn.net ourselves if we feel a post is objectionable and contrary to the usual high standards of the site.

So, why not simply introduce a rule saying you reserve the right at your own discretion to delete posts that in your best judgment detract badly from the site. This judgment would of course be guided by feedback comments to or about the post in question.

All the best, whatever you decide.

Posted Nov 20, 2004 20:30 UTC (Sat) by zender (subscriber, #10453) [Link]

Disclaimer: I motivated the UC Irvine institutional subscription (though it
cost me nothing personally)

I feel that the value of unfettered postings outweighs the inconvenience of a few trolls. I have not yet been the object of a troll, though I'm
pretty sure I wouldn't try to cancel UCI's subscription if I were.
However, if you're losing subscribers who are offended/turned of by the trolls, then your proposal falls into the category of self-defense.
I hope it doesn't come to that.

Charlie Zender

Posted Nov 20, 2004 21:42 UTC (Sat) by amk (subscriber, #19) [Link]

I don't think there are enough abusive comments on LWN to warrant an elaborate programming effort such as filtering. Restricting posting to subscribers seems too limiting; bozos are unlikely to subscribe, but there are probably many worthwhile posts from non-subscribers (software authors, for example).

Suggestion: some weblogs simply remove all the vowels frm absv pstngs, which is very easy to implement. (Teresa Nielsen Hayden's "Making Light" may have been the pioneer.) It's only weak censorship -- disemvoweled postings can still be read with a little effort, and the structure of the discussion is preserved -- but most people won't bother to parse the posting and the subsequent counter-flaming is quenched.

Posted Nov 21, 2004 0:44 UTC (Sun) by evgeny (guest, #774) [Link]

I've suggested it once in the past: please introduce blacklisting at the _user-level_, so I can mark posters whose style/attitude deter me too much and I (but only I) won't see their comments (or see them "rolled up") in the future. Now, you can make this "personal blacklisting" facility available to paying subscribers only. It is also possible to send (manually or automatically) warnings to accounts who are blacklisted by a significant (above some threshold) percentage of users. Or disable if that goes beyond another, higher threshold.

But if I had to choose only between status quo and disabling "unpaid" comments altogether, I'd vote for the status quo.

Posted Nov 21, 2004 2:26 UTC (Sun) by minichaz (guest, #630) [Link]

Implementing a "subscribers only" comment policy is the only thing that will keep me as a subscriber I'm afraid. That's not a threat but just how I want to spend my money. Sorry. I've watched the quality of the comments on here slowly degrade since I first subscribed and it's only getting worse.

I agree with a previous poster (I forget whom)... The only fair way to solicit opinion regarding this is to get a vote from current subscribers. In this matter non-subscribers don't really figure - they've not invested anything in the site so why should we care what they think and why do they think they have the right to comment on a governance issue such as this? They've always got Slashdot on which to vent their spleen after all. :D

Thanks,
Charlie

Posted Nov 21, 2004 3:03 UTC (Sun) by lilo (guest, #661) [Link]

As a sometime subscriber who simply hasn't had the money to subscribe this year, I would say, go ahead and limit comments to subscribers if it's clear it'll improve the signal-to-noise ratio. I wouldn't favor filtering, because it would turn what should be a single database of comments into a set of separate cliques, "not subscribed and don't care", "subscribed and don't care", "not subscribed and only want to listen to people who are", "not subscribed and only want to listen to my group."

The Slashdot experience, and the Usenet experience, both suggest to me that a group of people which hasn't had to invest anything it values in a forum is more likely to include people who are willing to engage in casual nastiness. If you can reduce that problem by making people invest time, or reputation, or just money, to gain the ability to comment, the results should be better. If only requiring that people invest the time to register an account is insufficient, make them subscribe if they want to comment.

Posted Nov 21, 2004 4:03 UTC (Sun) by csawtell (guest, #986) [Link]

I like this idea. LWN is easily good enough to be a for fully paid up members only publication, and currently the membership subscription is dead cheap.

If somebody _really_ wants to post something, then they can buy a subscription.

Note: I am a fully paid up member, so that might alter my point of view.

Posted Nov 21, 2004 11:02 UTC (Sun) by siesel (subscriber, #5021) [Link]

IMHO, LWN would loose value, if I can't see non-subscriber anymore.

A better incentive to let people subscribe would be a subscriber-only comment voting system.

a subscriber

Posted Nov 21, 2004 11:03 UTC (Sun) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]

I am a subscriber

I don't have a big problem with eiter allowing or disallowing non-subscriber posts. arguments can be made both ways (and have been)

however I don't want a filtering/rateing system

my biggest problem with comments isn't the occasional troll, it's the fact that when you have a spirited discussion (like this one) it's almost impossible to figure out which messages are new so you can read them without having to re-read the entire thread. this gets especially bad when a article spawns more then one active discussion thread.

some ability to identify 'new comments since I last checked' type of thing would go a long way towards improving things and also reduce the effect of trolls (as it would be easier to ignore them)

Posted Nov 21, 2004 13:09 UTC (Sun) by hingo (guest, #14792) [Link]

I'm a subscriber.

As long as the signal-to-noise ratio is something like 33 600 / 30, in other words 0.1 % are trolls, I think this would do more harm than good. Also, I think the community on lwn is pretty strong in keeping the trolls away. Normally there will be 1-3 comments rather respectfully asking the troller to go away, and people won't think about it much more. In fact, this week was the first time ever I saw two trolls in the same thread.

I would let it be for now. My limit would be that when we see two trolls going against each other in a thread that's longer than 2 comments, then it's time to do something.

Whatever happens, Mr Corbet has the right approach. There is no point in spending weeks coding an elaborate filtering system, when we really don't have a problem. Limit comments to subscribers if you will, but KISS.

Posted Nov 21, 2004 14:49 UTC (Sun) by lyndon (guest, #4007) [Link]

I think that this is a great idea (though I am already a subscriber). There are many sites that provide opportunities for discussion without having to pay a fee, but what I have always appreciated about LWN is that it is place to read news that has been selected and presented carefully.

It also sounds like an additional incentive for non-subscribers to subscribe, and makes subscriptions seem more valuable to those of us who have already subscribed.

Posted Nov 21, 2004 14:49 UTC (Sun) by jneves (guest, #2859) [Link]

(I'm a subscriber.)

I don't like this restriction because of two situations:

1) as a student I participated in LWN, proposing news, information and commenting news through the letters to the editor. Reducing the ability to comment will not affect users now, but it will send the message to users like I was that we're not interested in them. That may affect the future readership and subscriptions.

2) sometimes I don't want to login (non-safe computers, or computers that are known to have spyware) but I have a information to add. In those cases I leave an anonymous comment. That participation would stop for me.

Keep up the great work.

Posted Nov 21, 2004 15:15 UTC (Sun) by vblum (guest, #1151) [Link]

(also a subscriber)

I have no issue with restricting comments in principle.

I have looked through the previous threads for clear points for / against that I might have missed. The one which I find hard to dismiss is this: Someone from a "poor" background might decide against a subscription purely for financial reasons and thus be excluded from posting.

Proposed solutions:

(a) Have a cheap subscription option ($10 or less) which enables "comments only" but no other feature.

(b) during account creation (not subscription), add a clearly visible option to ask lwn (i.e. Jon?) directly for the ability to post comments, but require a specified reason.

Both (a) and (b) are still hurdles which are likely to turn back many of those who just wish to post that one quick comment. Still a loss in some cases.

On the other hand, they would give those people a chance who have a clearly defined interest in posting comments, but cannot pay the subscription through no fault of their own.

Posted Nov 21, 2004 16:42 UTC (Sun) by tilolevante (guest, #6174) [Link]

I think restrinting comments to subscribers is not a good idea.

It will hurt many readers, which can not subscribe for some
reasons (country, no credit card, students, ...).

tilo (subscribed)

Posted Nov 21, 2004 18:09 UTC (Sun) by jimmybgood (guest, #26142) [Link]

I'm not a subscriber. I've never posted a comment here before, but am doing so, because a request for comment was made and I was encouraged to reply.

First: By reading the first 116 comments, it is clear that, despite degradation caused by the occasional troll and flame, the signal-to-noise ratio is not generally considered a significant problem. Only two posts that contained the string "signal" thought the SNR was a problem and neither blamed the trolls. The SNR issue is a smokescreen to cover up the real motivation that the staff at LWN feels a bit uncomfortable about. My guess, as suggested by earlier posts, is that a few intolerant complainers are giving the staff headaches and cancelling a few subscriptions. So the staff is planning to drive away many contributors whose posts many here have found valuable in order to appease a few. That way lies mediocrity and American television.

Second: I might pay to read, if my desire were strong enough. But I would never pay to post, because I aspire to create posts that are themselves valuable contributions. Put yourself in the shoes of someone who has made such contributions and is now being told to go away. A few might purchase subscriptions, but most will just go elsewhere and that will be LWN's loss. I'm not even sure the LWN staff would want people they've rudely driven away to purchase subscriptions. Imagine the headaches one bored, lonely 16 year old with $2.50 and whose father is a lawyer could give them.

Third: Also from reading the comments, I tally the number one reason for supporting this policy change as something like, "I'm paying, if people want to post they should have to pay, too". Is this what the LWN staff was thinking of when they expressed a desire to make subscribers feel more comfortable about subscribing? LWN needs to think carefully about their business model. Do they want to charge for hosting content, like American television or vanity publishers, which both appeal to the lowest common denominator? Or do they want to provide premium content that they charge to access, like the BBC and main stream book publishers? People who post are providing content free and much of it is of high quality.

I sympathize with the folks at LWN, who have provided such a fine site for so long. Their subscription policy was a stroke of genius in the way that it balanced access with privilege. Banning posts by non-subscribers may be inevitable, but I doubt if anybody other than resentful elitists will think about it as anything but an ugly necessity.

Posted Nov 21, 2004 18:45 UTC (Sun) by Baro (guest, #26165) [Link]

I am a paying subscriber who just left LinuxToday due to the latest MS ad fiasco. I am not against ads but on the contrary I was for decent reasonable ads. I think LWN nends a little more of it.

My take on posting is as follows:
Only subscribers should be allowed to post, both paying and none.
Trolls and offensive posters will be give warning for bad posts, if they persist, they are blocked and band from any further posting.

One more thing, I am using FireFox on Linux and when I try to middle click to preview in a different tab, it takes me to a different site (some are porn). Did you know that? The preview works correctly when I left click.

Posted Nov 21, 2004 18:57 UTC (Sun) by Klavs (subscriber, #10563) [Link]

I can agree with the idea that "what's worth commenting, is probably also worth paying a litle money for" - BUT (and that's a big one!) I would be very apalled, if this (as indicated by others too) shuts out the countries which are not rich. IMHO the best solution would to allow only subscribers to comment, but vary the price, so it's $5 or whatever, for all us from the rich countries (I'd suggest calculating by BNP or something to get a fair rate?) - but I would very much like LWN to be open for everyone to subscribe - without having to pay half a months salary or something (which $5 is to people in some countries). Having this variable price, would also allow more subscribers - as those from countries such as india etc. could subscribe, without being bleed dry :)

ofcourse I do not know how many from (f.ex.) India would actually subscribe if the indian price was the same percentage of their monthly wage, as $5 is to most of us from the rich countries, but that is no reason to now allowing them in as subscribers at a fair rate.

The problem is ofcourse, that you have to verify they are actually resident of these countries - but for that - there's very good geo-IP databases around - so it could probably work for the 90% or something.

Posted Nov 21, 2004 19:15 UTC (Sun) by maney (subscriber, #12630) [Link]

I'm addressing this to you because, to be honest, I haven't so much as skimmed more than a fraction of the comments in this thread, and so don't really feel as though I'm part of a discussion this time out. It's not quite the first time I've found a comment thread at LWN to be so worth passing by, but it's one of the outstanding examples of the breed from all the years since you added this feature to the site.

After all these years, and despite occasional highly valuable info that's come up in the discussion threads, it's LWN's journalism that keeps me coming back (and, now, keeps me renewing my subscription). So to a considerable extent I really don't care a hoot what you do with the discussion part - keep it, can it, open the floodgates to unregistered posters or close them to admit only subscribers. I'm not saying that these choices wouldn't influence my perusal of the discussions, but none of these policies would have any significant effect on the part of LWN that is most valuable to me.

That said, I would vote for the status quo - allow registered users to post, regardless of their subscription status. As long as the ratio of annoyingly inappropriate items is as low as it so far has been, it doesn't seem to me to be worth losing whatever fraction of the more valuable items non-subscribers are adding to the discussions. Perhaps it would be useful to add some indication of subscriber or non-subscriber, but then again this might do more ill than good. Still, the fact is that I really haven't a clue how much of what I like (and, from time to time, dislike) in the discussions is from subscribers or non-subscribers, which makes it impossible to weigh the pros and cons in any but the crudest way.

If you're itching to spend some time improving the site code <grin>, may I suggest that the mechanism that handles logging one in when one tries to read something that's subscriber-only on the day that the cookies have expired could use a little more intelligent behavior? As it is now, it seems not to have any memory of the URL you wanted to see, so after dredging up the password out of one's memory (after all, it was last used a month ago), one is dumped back at the home page rather than being shuffled along to the page one was headed for. It's a small annoyance, but one that bites me two dozen times a year, more or less. (I regularly read LWN from two different machines, so of course have to reauthenticate from each one every month).

Posted Nov 21, 2004 22:23 UTC (Sun) by dkite (guest, #4577) [Link]

As a subscriber I can vouch for the fact that it makes no difference to
the quality of the comments.

What is being solved here? One or two out of hundreds of comments that
are over the top? Isn't it a bit of an overreaction?

Possibly flagging comments (only flagging, no filtering) from
non-subscribers would show whether there is a problem or not.

What I have noticed is that people who use their names usually have at
least non-offensive comments. Active encouragement for people to identify
themselves may be a better idea.

It is possible that some of the more informative comments in the past
came from non-subscribers.

Derek Kite

Posted Nov 21, 2004 22:35 UTC (Sun) by Jammer5 (guest, #19147) [Link]

Disclaimer: non-subscriber. first-time poster.

Is Bruce Perens a subscriber ? Is Andrew Morton ? What about other luminaries in the Linux community that occasionally post here ? Do we want to force them to subscribe before they can post ? If so then we'll lose valuable authoritive contributions to the various discussions involving their areas of expertise.

As far as I can tell, the necessity of logging in prior to posting already prevents most anonymous trolls and I can't remember seeing any recent threads which erupted into a flame war. This whole thing seems to have been stirred up by a single questionable post which attracted an overreaction in reply. If the original post had been ignored, there would be no issue to discuss here. "Don't feed the trolls".

I vote to continue to let non-subscribers post.

PS. Can someome tell me how you currently determine whether a poster is a subscriber or not ? All posts look the same to me and the "offensive" post could just as easily have come from a subscriber. Or am I missing something ?

Posted Nov 21, 2004 23:11 UTC (Sun) by pyxis (guest, #15886) [Link]

I think we should accept comments from non-subscriber, and let site-admin or subscribers to mod down (ie hide) bad posts.

Then, hidden posts may be shown only if readers (subscribers and non) explicitly wants to see them.

---
Stefano Spinucci

Posted Nov 21, 2004 23:59 UTC (Sun) by ehjartar (guest, #5373) [Link]

Hi,
I (a subscriber) vote for status quo for allowing posts, I'm sure
many of the valuable comments come from non-subscribers. Filtering
does not bother me, although I would probably not use it.

Posted Nov 22, 2004 0:00 UTC (Mon) by daniel (subscriber, #3181) [Link]

I have no problem whatsoever with whatever you decide to do here, Jon, I trust you completely to do the right thing.

But it's a practical certainty the trolls will find their way here in time, and that a moderation system of some sort will eventually be needed. When the time comes, I don't think you have to waste your valuable time building it yourself, this is a challenge that volunteers will flock to.

Since Slashdot has already proved the efficacy of a self-regulating system to extract a high-quality signal from the noise, I'd personally prefer to see those techniques developed further here than to reinvent the wheel or emulate some less efficient system.

Of course you know about this:

http://squishdot.org/Download/Squishdot-1-5-0.tar.gz

Posted Nov 22, 2004 0:32 UTC (Mon) by nicku (subscriber, #777) [Link]

I am a subscriber, and once asked Jon for the ability to be able to not read a particularly consistent and abusive poster's comments.

However, that person hasn't posted for a while.

Having recently retired, finding the money to pay the subscription will be slightly (but not too much) harder, though I know some for whom it will be a considerable financial question.

Now I vote for no restriction on posting, unless evidence shows a more serious problem caused by those who have not paid. However, I really want LWN to survive, and for Jon to thrive, and if your proposal will help keep LWN going by encouraging more subscriptions, then by all means, do it.

I like the idea of keeping more highly posted articles more accessible, suggested by some here; perhaps a link to a page of the most popular previous month's articles sorted by number of comments. But yes, that's more unpaid work for Jon!

The suggestion of encouraging the more affluent readers to sponsor the subscription of intelligently posting but financially challenged readers sounds very good---if people will do it.

Posted Nov 22, 2004 0:36 UTC (Mon) by darthmdh (guest, #8032) [Link]

At first I was quite offended that comments would be limited only to those who could afford subscriptions, be it monetary or being in that geographical area etc. It seems rather Orwellian to lock up the farm so only the pigs can post.

However this is not my farm... website. I'm a guest here. If my comments are not wanted because I cannot afford to pay for them or because I am not a US citizen and hence it is painful to attempt to subscribe, then so be it. Most people's care factor is zero I'm sure, and if it also stops trolls/idiots then that's a good thing.

I've always been impressed with the quality of posts on LWN which is why I frequent this place pretty much exclusively (okay.. sometimes I'm unfaithful with El Reg, my hussy ;) Whatever keeps more signal and little/no noise is fine by me.

Posted Nov 22, 2004 0:54 UTC (Mon) by leonbrooks (guest, #1494) [Link]

If you prune back that harshly on your community all in one go, it may have a significant negative impact on the site's character. Might I suggest:

• Allowing subscribers to tag a post as abusive, show a skull and crossbones next to any post that gets so rated, then three strikes and it gets deleted. Deletions are complicated, so perhaps it would be better to simply display a place-holder saying "Post from InsertUserNameHere voted abusive and removed".
• Rather than simply forbidding them, add an extra hoop or two for non-subscriber posts to jump through, such as a minimum of 2 minutes between click-on-reply to allowed-to-post, and then maybe a second similar gateway after that during which the poster is urged to review their contribution for politesness, consistent reasoning and spelling mistakes.
• Add a "Linux Reference Centre" toolbox and require non-subscribers to click through a link on it before responding. The extra advertising revenue would help to fund LWN. Er... Wait! Stop! No! It was a joke! What're you doing with that noose? I didn't realise so many of you read LT! Hey! Ow! (-:

Posted Nov 22, 2004 4:10 UTC (Mon) by pengo (guest, #7787) [Link]

I agree with a number of posters who say the proposed approach is too heavy handed. However if you are going to go ahead with it, I suggest you still allow lapsed subscribers to post comments.

That would mean subscribing for any period would give life-time posting rights. I would challenge you to check your stats, as I suspect there would be little correlation between lapsed subscribers (as opposed to other non-subscribers) and abusive comments.

Posted Nov 22, 2004 7:08 UTC (Mon) by Richard_J_Neill (subscriber, #23093) [Link]

I think this is a bad idea, and we should continue to let non-subscribers post. I am a subscriber, because, at the moment, I can afford it (although I don't always read LWN from a machine which remembers my password). I'd rather see a different algorithm - some way to delete the occasional bad post. Perhaps if 3 subscribers flag a post as abusive, the editor would be informed, and enabled to delete it?

Thanks for discussing it with us though.

Richard

Posted Nov 22, 2004 14:07 UTC (Mon) by AAP (guest, #721) [Link]

I'm not a current subscriber, but IMHO, if it ain't broke, don't fix it! I've seen no problem with the LWN posts. Cutting off non-subscribers might cut off some valuable posts. I don't know how many comments come from non-subscribers, but I seldom see trolls here. I agree with a previous comment that it would be nice to see who is or is not a subscriber.

Posted Nov 22, 2004 14:24 UTC (Mon) by NZheretic (guest, #409) [Link]

Trolls and spammers fear the exposure of their real identity.

A subscribers-only restriction will only be effective if the first payment is via a credit card or some other form of transaction can be used to track down and expose the trolling poster's identity. It can only be effective if LWN editors are willing to disclose the real identity of the abusing poster, which could put LWN at legal risk from lawsuit for violating privacy.

If potential is the only rational for switching to a subscribers-only policy, then the same effect can be achieved by denying the use of public http proxy sites ( via a blacklist ), post from an ssl encrypted page, and reporting the poster's IP address in the comment header. If the poster is informed beforehand then it would not put LWN at any legal risk and it would achieve the desired effect.

Posted Nov 22, 2004 14:54 UTC (Mon) by alex (subscriber, #1355) [Link]

Disclosure: I'm a subscriber

I have no real issue with LWN comments being subscriber only. After all LWN != Slashdot and I'd rather enjoy a high signal low noise environment. Someone has pointed out that some luminaries comment but I don't know if they subscribe or not, personally I can't see why they wouldn't.

The only non-subscriber posts I forsee I may miss is authors posts who occasionally respond when their software gets reviewed in LWN. Perhaps the solution is a post/email confirm approach for non-subscribed posters?

Posted Nov 22, 2004 15:36 UTC (Mon) by cdmiller (subscriber, #2813) [Link]

I like the FIDO net counter idea proposed by philips:

An unsubscribed reader has to register to post, and abuse counters are kept.

- cameron

Posted Nov 22, 2004 15:36 UTC (Mon) by leews (subscriber, #4690) [Link]

I am a subscriber.

However, I didn't subscribe to read comments, but for the excellence of LWN reporting. In fact, unless I am rather free, I skip all comments.

I agree with what has been put forth in previous comments: If comments cause problems, censorship is probably not the best answer. Flagging posts as coming from non-subscribers is a good idea, but it should not go much further than allowing subscribers to turn them off, or complaining about them in through an email link.

LWN is spotless and pristine compared with wandering though the landscape that comp.os.linux.* is, for example.

The temptation to flame trollish posts, should, and must be ignored, and with a ratio of about 3000:1 good to bad posts, it is not prudent to invest resources in this non-problem.

Posted Nov 22, 2004 15:52 UTC (Mon) by g2boojum (subscriber, #152) [Link]

I'm a subscriber.

I have generally found that one of the great strengths of the LWN comments has been the regularity of replies by the people actually in charge of a project. Clearly these people read LWN, although I don't know how often such people are actually subscribers. I suppose that these folks could send letters to the editor instead of posting comments if they're not subscribed, but that is rather more work, and I would hate to see anything that reduces the number of "high-signal" comments.

Posted Nov 22, 2004 16:45 UTC (Mon) by ccchips (subscriber, #3222) [Link]

I work in a Windows-only shop, and I am in a bad position to change careers. The few minutes a day I have to participate in a discussion about Linux (which I use at home,) would be sad to lose, especially in an environment where most of the participants are eloquent and knowledgeable.

However, I am paying monthly bills for just about everything under the sun these dsys, including (sadly) television, which is of little or no interest to me, but which my significant other wants access to.

Unfortunately, if you put this decision into effect, I will lose the ability to say my piece in participation with such people as yourselves, and will not likely participate by reading the service, since I would be unable to express my support (or concern) about issues that pertain to the Linux community in such a respectable forum.

In effect, Linux is a hobby to me. It would be nice if it were more than that, but this is a Microsoft monopoly world, and there's very lttile I can do about it beyond being something of a cheerleader squad member. $60/year is a little over 1 month of television, 4 bottles of vitally-needed drugs, a pair of shoes or two, a week's worth of food, and (with reduced fare) less than 2 months' commute on what is likely to become a really low-quality public transportation service, now that the Republicans have managed to monopolize our political system.

So if I can no longer express my opinion in this forum without paying for it, so be it. It's a sad day, but what can I do?

In closing, I just want to thank the fool who posted that comment the other day. I suspect I know what you were trying to do, because I've been around a lot of years, and I've seen this kind of trick before. I hope you got what you wanted out of it, and that you will enjoy sleeping in the bed you are making for yourself.

Posted Nov 22, 2004 16:55 UTC (Mon) by justme (guest, #19967) [Link]

Don't know if anyone's still reading this thread, but as a non-subscribing occassional poster, here's my two cents:

Here's the situation as I see it:

The signal-to-noise at LWN is high, but could be better, and one troll can scare off a lot of interested readers and fascinating posters.

It's far too much effort for the editors to monitor and clean up every thread. And, they are reluctant to "censor".

It's also far too much effort to set up a moderation system akin to higher-posting-volume sites, and too much effort for readers to rate comments.

Other automated concepts (filtering, abuse counters, subscribers-only) are too limiting, ineffective, evadable, and/or too difficult.

So, I think a workable solution would be to have subscribers able to report "abuses" directly to the editor (or to a special readable page, to avoid repeat complaints), and to have the editor respond as he sees fit. This wouldn't necessarily provide instant response, and might allow trolls to score an occasional victim, but it can't be gamed, doesn't require constant vigilance, and keeps editorial control where it belongs.

Maybe this isn't that far from the status quo, but I don't think the status quo is so bad that it requires more than a tweak right now.

Posted Nov 22, 2004 18:00 UTC (Mon) by arafel (subscriber, #18557) [Link]

Taking a step backwards, are you sure the level of 'abusive' comments is high enough at present to actually warrant doing anything? Speaking personally, I haven't seen any nasty comments on any of the stories I've read...

I'd be inclined to leave it some time. If the situation does seem to be getting worse, then do something. LWN currently works, and as such care should be taken to avoid breaking it ;-)

Posted Nov 23, 2004 12:53 UTC (Tue) by ernest (subscriber, #2355) [Link]

I fail to see the logic in this.

The fact that abusive messages only originate from non-subscribers does not imply non-subscribers are all abusers.

Doing wat you propose would be like rejecting email because some of them are spam.

Ernest ter Kuile (subscriber).