Janet Johnson is not my real name. I could say it is my real name, sign up for verification using a real email address that does not reveal my real name, and then comment on whatever I want. I know this means that my comment will be disqualified, which is unfortunate, as I believe I and other anonymous posters offer a lot to a healthy online discourse (if rules are put in place and followed, which NHI admits they were unable to do).

In the comment section above, it was mentioned that a paper in Lewiston uses a registration system where it takes several days to be able to comment. That seems like a huge issue for a supposed “community minded” organization, as it puts up major obstacles for successful discourse on current issues. If a cumbersome system like that is put into place, I doubt I will remember to come back in a few days to contribute to the discussion. The news cycle is too quick, and I predict the NHI will lose its importance, which would be a tremendous blow to the city of New Haven and everything that is good about it.

In Paul’s statement, he said that until everyone in New Haven can speak their mind without fear of reprisal, then the NHI will continue allow anonymous commenting, in some form. I agree with this completely. As an intensely private person in an increasingly public world, I cherish my anonymity. A few bad apples shouldn’t ruin it.

There’s also the little problem of employees getting fired for speaking their mind on social media sites. There are also safety issues as well, as you can’t verify an online posters’ mental status when you verify their email. Also, consider those readers who are disabled. For example, if I’m physically disabled and post with my full name on a story about hiking East Rock park, then my insurer could try to deny me benefits, based on faulty reasoning that just because I know a hill exists, I must be able to climb it. That might seem far fetched, but it’s actually not.

I rarely comment on any news site. I agree that many comments can be counterproductive, if not downright offensive. When I see negative comments, I depend on basic reasoning and logic to ignore those posts, and hone in on the comments that are actually productive and contribute to the discourse. I’m surely not the only NHI reader who does this. I don’t complain about negative comments because negativity is an unfortunate human trait,going back to the beginning of time. The NHI readers are, by and far, respectful, intelligent, and care about our city. To reduce the discourse at a time where tensions are heightened feels too much like censorship, in my opinion.

It’s not a great analogy, but it feels like I’m on a school bus, and the two kids next to me started a food fight, and now I have share in their punishment, because I happened to be riding the bus that day. Guilty by association. Guilty because I don’t want every Tom, Dick and Jerry to know my name, my every thought and opinion, and so on. Guilty because I chose to keep my privacy intact and be anonymous.

The desire for privacy is not weird, and it is not always the mask of bigots and haters. I think there are lots of folks like me, who are uncomfortable with “forced sharing” that seem to be the goal of social media.

I DO NOT and WILL NOT sign up for any service that makes me sign into facebook or twitter. Facebook knows to much as it is, and I don’t want to give random people any inkling of what I look like, my interests etc, all of which is available on my fb page, with its ever evolving privacy changes that leave users vulnerable. (My twitter is under a pseudonym, and I successfully blog under one as well.)

I think privacy and safety for readers has to be at the forefront, along with the multitude of issues raised by the closing of the NHI comment section, and it seems that lots of folks are losing sight of these concerns. I hope that Paul and his staff can implement something that preserves what was successful about the comment section, while keeping it from turning into the Register. I do absolutely believe that a small independent news source is the forum for local residents to discuss these issues. As long as I’m respectful, I should be able to post under a pseudonym or anonymously if I chose. It’s not really “community oriented” if there is no way to comment, or if comments are so moderated that people are forced to share an uncomfortable amount of personal information in order to participate. And yes, I do feel that making me post my real name and so forth in order to participate in an online discussion is an invasion of my privacy. It might not feel like that to you, but it certainly limits this particular readers participation.

PS I used to live in Somerville MA, and got most of my community news from LiveJournal Davis Square forum. Perhaps the NHI needs a separate forum that users enter at their own risk if they want further discourse on timely and important issues.

PPS I would have just emailed you, but it took too long to find your email address on this site. I blog anonymously, but I make sure my readers can easily find my email address for contact purposes. Also, please notice that even though I choose anonymity, I am respectful and I believe I would have contributed to the discourse, as stated in your privacy policy…if I were allowed to keep my name private. I am really quite offended by the idea that anonymous posters are always malcontents.

Funny, when I read that comment in his column, I thought of you and knew how you would react.

You appear to have a love/hate relationship with The Times. To select one minor transgression and elevate it to the point of “rank hypocrisy” seems quite overstated.

I suppose if they posted a defense of their behavior that contradicted their policy, they could be accused of hypocrisy. However, we are talking about one minor example by a publication that produces an enormous amount of content every day.

I also think that you belittle the importance of Keller’s remarks by essentially distorting this single event into an example of enterprise hypocrisy. You seem to be using a minor pretext to unload a major amount of venom.

Personally I think Keller’s concerns are quite legitimate, and so should anyone whose work is co-opted systematically for the private gain of others.

Andy Koppel

Granted, some comments are uselessly nasty, but you’ve always been able to weed them out (including mine). Perhaps it’s time to add staff to take care of the problem. When I posted my previous comment here I also tried to post the same comment on the sites you linked to in the NHI but I wasn’t able to do so because they’re Facebook sites and I’m not a member. I don’t think the social networks are the answer. They may seem public but they seem more like cliques to me.

Either way, one solution would be to let it all hang out – readers will find one forum or another for their vulgar comments, so being the traffic cop might not, so being the traffic cop might not be t be the way to go. Instead, the paper could direct all commentators to a third-party bulletin board such as Yahoo, include all the requisite legal disclaimers, and wash its hands of the whole mess.

Another possibility would be to have all comments submitted as letters to the editor. That alone would filter out most of the riffraff. Each news item has a unique identifier. Include a link to the L2E form on each item’s page, and write a simple script that ties the comment to the story. If accepted, it would show up on the appropriate page. But the key is to make the letter writer include all the traditional personal information each time they submit.

I am forever reminded of MLK’s response to a woman who accused him of disrupting the “peace” in a segregated B’ham, AL with his marches and protest. King responded: “Dear Lady, Peace is not the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.” Why don’t we focus more on working for justice, than on quieting the voices that speak out and changing their “tone”. This work will ALWAYS bring about tension, on both sides of the debate. Should we really be trying to moderate the anger, hurt, or fears of those who speak out, so as not to hurt anyone’s feelings in the process of reaching for a higher good?

Yes, we do ask people to use the same pseudonym all the time.

As to Sven’s point: He has been hounding me for 20 years because of one article in which he was a subject. Contrary to his point made here, he and his allies had ample time to respond — directly at the time in the letters section of the publication that printed the article (the New Haven Advocate), and then in endless vicious personal attacks he has made sure to contribute, sometimes by name, sometimes not, at every place I’ve worked. That’s part of the job. I know. And he makes good points I like to listen to (when he’s not threatening to punch me out, which he did once, and when I can wade through the name-calling he relies on so often). But I also admit that the cumulative effect of Sven Martsons dominating comments sections is part of what has made me reexamine if they have much value for people beyond a small group of hateful obsessives who direct their rage on unrelated targets. (PS He’s a very good artist.)