So here’s the problem: several political discussion sites, like Lib Dem Voice, have a problem with anonymous postings by people who are not in fact who they claim to be. Agents provocateurs from other parties, for example, can and do use either an ‘anonymous’ label or a pseudonym to kick debates off in a particular direction for their own purposes.
Whenever the debate gets particularly bad, a moderator of the site will threaten to reveal the IP addresses of those who have posted - effectively removing their anonymity, by revealing the unique address of the computer which posted the comment. Although in itself just a number, there are then ways in which to use this number to search for the identity of its owner, and it can of course be compared to the IP addresses used by those people when they used their real identity. I believe some ISPs use a system through which the IP address of an individual user of its service will change, but there is often some other associated identifying numbering with it too (such as the user account number).
So why don’t blogs where this is an issue simply routinely post up the IP address of commenters, alongside their comment? Most of the time this would be of no interest, but where the source of a comment became an issue anyone could then use it to help track down where it actually came from.
Effectively you would be removing (or at least going a long way to removing) the anonymity which the internet provides.
I can think of times when this might not be appropriate, but on political sites where the origin of comments often becomes itself a subject of discussion, it seems to me it could do a lot to prevent people masquerading or others, or “trolling” as it is apparently known.
I’m quite a novice in this internet thing so maybe there are good reasons for not doing this and obviously I’d be genuinely interested to hear them. But if there aren’t, this seems to me a simple solution to a problem, which at a stroke would improve the quality of discussion and make many sites more useful.
October 27th, 2007 at 17:38
“have a problem with anonymous postings by people who are not in fact who they claim to be.”
That’s a contradictory claim. An anonymous poster doesn’t claim to be anything but anonymous. I’ve posted several times as an anonymous to the Lib Dem Voice and othe blogs, and when I do that, I’m openly anonymous. I’m not a member of Lib Dems or any other party, neither do I claim to be. If you or somebody else have got that impression, it has been because of your own false assumption, not because I have pretended to be something that I am not.
You can choose to publish the IP addresses alongside the comments if you want, but if you do so, it would be fair to warn in advance. Some of us have legitimate reasons to stay anonymous, reasons which can’t be explained because they would weaken the anonymity.
October 27th, 2007 at 20:57
the problem in making the IP public is that it tells which machine is being used and where this machine is but not who is using it.
I think a better way if the problem arise is to allow comment only for registered users
October 28th, 2007 at 0:20
To Anonymous: yes you are right, probably I wasn’t entirely clear in what I was saying. I don’t have a problem with people like you who claim to be anonymous and nothing more. But there is a problem with people who sign up either as “anonymous” or with invented names (either of the “Lib Dem Voter” variety, or a manufactured “real” name like “Bill Bloggs”) who effectively are using anonymity but then claiming to be a Lib Dem Voter. A good example was the Grant Shapps incident on Lib Dem Voice (basically a Conservative MP was caught claiming to be a Lib Dem voter). In these issues “anonymous” people certainly are claiming to be something more than just anybody.
To Giacomo: yes, that’s another way of doing it. But an IP address can help you quite a bit to track down the person, especially when the same person has used the same IP address to post with their real name. And other IP addresses can be specifically located to particular buildings or organisations - eg Lib Dem Voice has in the past had some “anonymous” comments from people claiming to be Lib Dems, but from computers based in Conservative Central office (indeed some of the people concerned have subsequently admitted this).
October 28th, 2007 at 12:24
Well, in such a specific case it seems better to just make public the dirty trick when discovered, who moderate comments can always see the IP address and check it out
October 29th, 2007 at 11:23
I tend not to trust anonymous comments with no source references as I would someone who attaches a name and a website/email address.
I tend to treat those who just use a name and nothing else the same way.
The exception is where a long track record is esablished and you know the style of the writer - Lepidus who frequents Cicero’s Songs is a good example.
You could use anonymising proxys or other technology like Tor to really anonymise your posts anyway, so IP address logging isn’t that useful against people determined to remain anonymous…