One of the telling comments from the dias during the Santa Ana City Council meeting on September 6, which dealt with the “rebuke” of anti-Semitic comments made by Mayor Pro Tem Claudia Alvarez, came from both Council member Vince Sarmiento and Sal Tinajero regarding “vile” and “personal attack” comments that get away from the issue itself. OC Weekly used to run a regular feature highlighting some of the worst of the worst in Register online comments.
Those days are nearly at an end.
The Liberal OC has learend that the OC Register will soon be changing their online commenting policy to require commenters to log in to Facebook in order to post a comment to a story. The LA Times already has a commenting policy like this and OC Weekly provides options for posting comments. The Register will roll the policy out gradually to start with comments on published stories from the paper that are online, and then roll it out for online stories and blog items. The new policy is likely to start next month.
We noted online comments on the Carlos Bustamante sexual harrassment investigation story started posts that outed the identities of some of the women being questioned by county officials. The Register’s editors removed these comments and it’s entirely possible that this situation was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
We believe this policy will result in few online comments but ones more relevance to the issues of the day and add quality to the merits of debate instead of hate.
Why is it that as a blogger I find the cartoon both true and hilarious.
Indeed.
kenlaysnotdead will be very upset at this new policy. No more anonymous character assassination and confabulating for him on OCRegister.com!
comment deleted for violation of TOS
What’s the matter with you? Making a remark about a man’s family? I suggest you take yourself to the rowdiest bar you can find and shoot your pie hole off like that. But you wouldn’t do that now would you? Because you couldn’t hide behind the computer dressed in your jammies where no one can see you. Coward.
It put a BIG smile on my face! 🙂 🙂
They could have come up with a better scheme than facebook. What’s to stop me from creating a bogus FB account to use for signing in? Why not Disqus? Broader platform with tracking of comments.
It’s a bad move by the Register. Obviously all of you rather enjoy trying to figure out who is leaving rude or mysterious comments. Enjoy Life. Don’t kill mystery. Let the author edit it as he/she pleases.
I disagree. It’s keeps comments on topic and puts racism back in the closet Read the cooments to stories in the LA Times. Solid debate. If you want to post a racist rant, the Register’s policy won’t stop you. It just attaches a name to it
I don’t see it either, Dan. Again, what’s to stop me from using a bogus account and continuing the rant? Also, many of us don’t really hide behind our non de plume. I use mine to better convey where I’m coming from. I see that in others too.
Nothing; but easier to have Facebook shut it down
I am sure Facebook has provided fun for the People. However, it does indeed represent one more mode of social conformity and ultimately lack of privacy. A move to Facebook identification isn’t that different from an international I.D. Card. People need to think conceptually about these matters. Don’t be sheep.
To say the LA Times is using FB comments on its stories is not accurate — so far it’s just the LAT blogs. And though LAT is calling it a success so far, even they acknowledge it’s not a cure-all: http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/media-lab/social-media/143192/news-sites-using-facebook-comments-see-higher-quality-discussion-more-referrals/
Also, the Register already has started FB comments on at least one blog (OC Unwired) but not on its news stories.
Unfortunately this will also put a crimp on you guys’ anonymous friends who like to give me grief for drinking.
And yoru anonymous friends who claim I’m unemployed (which was a shock to the 8 people who work for me), or that Beth Krom held a fundraiser at her son’s funeral, or that Chris is in declining health, or that Claudio (who doesnt blog anymore) has a $1,000 bar tab when no bar would do that (I could go on and on)
Yeah them too. (Except they’re not my friends)