And Rebekah is spot-on. If you want to offer commenting under a “handle,” go for it — but have a name and an email and an IP address on file.

Give special perks to users who use their real names. Figure out a rewards system. Consider creating user accounts that let them recommend and bookmark things, for others to see. Display their stats. Give people an identity that goes beyond a comment handle.

But most importantly, if you want your comments to have value, value them enough to invest your time and attention. If you can’t be bothered to care (and mean it), then just don’t do it. Trollish comments are relatively rare on my blog, because we care about those comments. Trollish comments on my former employer’s site are the rule, because the truth is, nobody there thinks comments have any value beyond the value of a page load.

1) when users register, they have to use a legitimate e-mail address. By this I mean one that you can’t freely obtain like Hotmail or Gmail. Instead make it be tied to the person’s ISP or even work. I’m not sure how technically this is done, but I have been part of forums that do it, and it seems to work fairly well in reducing spam and trolls.

2) “Gamers could teach us a thing or two” – To be fair, this is only half true. Sure, services like Xbox Live feature reputation, but it doesn’t mean anything. The idea of reputation is a great idea if you believe that everyone will give reputation based on the intelligence of discussion, but the reality is people will probably just give positives to the people they agree with and negatives to the people who they don’t. And then the question becomes what to do with that reputation. Based on the above reality, it’s impossible to institute bans based on negative rep, because then people with unpopular opinions would be silenced. That totally defeats the point.

3) The major problem with comments is simply thus: no matter how hard you try, on the net if a troll wants to troll you he/she will. End of story. There is no means available that will prevent this in any way, shape, or form. There is a great quote, “safes are meant to keep the honest honest. What man has made man can break,” and the same is true with comments. By putting control of Web content partially into the hands of all possible users of your Web site, you essentially give people carte blanche to troll you. For a great example of commenting gone wrong, look at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch site. You’ll get the idea.

Sorry that veered off from constructive ideas into criticism of the system. Just my .02.

-Paul

People say all kinds of inappropriate, hateful things because they are not held accountable by their name, and if they get shut down, they can always sign on again. If that person who made the quasi-death threat knew that their name was in a database somewhere, they wouldn’t even consider leaving that kind of comment. It seems like it would be fairly easy to monitor new registraions and delete clearly fake ones or email their owners and let them pick from being cancelled or providing a real name that no one else sees.

Since commenting is partially a way for readers to hold newspapers accountable, there’s no reason that newspapers can’t do the same. Anonymity is not a right.