The Batavian’s Howard Owens submitted this comment, disagreeing with my assessment of the Buffalo News’ comment policy revision:

Alan writes, “In other words, the Buffalo News is doing it wrong”

No actually, they’re getting it all right. It is simply unethical for news sites to allow unvetted anonymous comments.

Here’s more I’ve written along those lines.

“Anonymity, pseudonyms, noms de plume – they’re all longstanding traditions in internet discussions, going way back to the free-wheeling days of usenet newsgroups. It moved on to blogs where writers assumed online identities like “Atrios”, “Calpundit”, “Kos”, “Allahpundit”, and reader/commenters did the same. ”
None of those sites are news sites, who’s primary purpose is to provide credible original reporting. It’s a false comparison.

Further, a particular news site going to a real names policy in no way diminishes a persons ability to be anonymous in any other forum that allows anonymity. There’s nothing prohibiting a reader from setting up a blog on Word Press and anonymous bashing whatever and whomever he or she chooses. The Buffalo News going to a real names policy in no way is a threat to online anonymity.

“The Buffalo News presumably has no prohibition against its journalists providing anonymity to sources for stories. In fact, it does so quite routinely, as do all responsible journalists.”

What you fail to note is that when a reporter grants anonymity, a process has taken place (at least, ideally), where a reporter and editor have discussed the legitimacy of granting anonymity, weighing the probative value of the information provided, the motivation of the source, the credibility of the source and whether the information can be obtained by any other means, and verifying the accuracy of the information as best as possible (if not completely). No such vetting process takes place with anonymous comments.

So, again, it’s a false comparison.

And I’m completely flummoxed your argument that “nobody asked for” and there’s “no need” for comments on certain stories. If nobody asked for them, then why is it an issue? Nobody will comment on them. And the idea that there shouldn’t be comments on this or that story runs entirely counter to the whole notion of freedom. Why deny somebody the ability to comment on even the most mundane news item. You never know what information might come out. It could be quite worthwhile. On The Batavian, some of the most interesting conversations occur on some of the most seemingly minor stories.

If you’re going to moderate comments before they appear, you might as well not even have comments. It’s a conversation killer.

Nobody has a good reason to post anonymously. If you can’t say it with your name on it, you probably shouldn’t say it. However, if it’s legitimate news that you want to tip the paper to it, then there are innumerable ways with most news organizations to provide anonymous tips.

At The Batavian, we get anonymous tips on a routine basis.

In a later post, you quote some comments and imply that if the poster hadn’t been able to post anonymously, the information might not have come out. I’m simply going to call bull shit on that. I’ve enough experience on requiring real name comments to know that people post just about anything (including hateful crap) with their real names attached. And the fact of the matter is, such information as you cite gains in credibility when a real person with a real name takes responsibility for it.

I realize that there has been a certain spin to the Buffalo News going to real names that it will clean up the comments. That’s not the real reason news orgs need to adopt real name policies — it’s simply a matter of ethics. A real name policy in and of itself will not clean up comments. There is simply no substitute for involved, active moderators monitoring in and participating in the comments. Running a successful online community is not a “set it and forget it” process. It takes time, intelligence and effort.

Alan, you’re familiar enough with The Batavian to know — we require real names, we have a robust and diverse community of contributors, with a largely civil exchange, and plenty of people not scarred off by attaching their real names to say what’s really on their minds.

There is simply no logical, reasonable argument I’ve come across yet that would excuse a news organization such as the Buffalo News allowing anonymous comments.

My one-liner about the Buffalo News “doing it wrong” isn’t directed towards the revision of its policy, but to any commenting policy it has ever had. We can all agree that the Buffalo News’ comments section was an unreadable thread of trash. It was quite clear that pure anonymity had emboldened some hateful commenters to spew hate-filled things.

The Buffalo News isn’t the Batavian and it isn’t WNYMedia.net. It’s the sole local paper in town, and it has always treated its online presence as a confusing appendage rather than a tool. The Batavian is mostly a straight news source, but it’s set up like a blog. Comments are a blog creation, and you made the decision from practically day one to require real names. I’ve praised you before many times for that.

But I won’t just automatically criticize a site solely for permitting anonymous comments or noms de plume. While the process for granting anonymity to a site commenter versus a confidential source may be different, the reason for that request and desire for anonymity may be the same. An elected official’s staffer may choose to post a comment on my site for the same reason he may choose to request anonymity to a reporter – he has strong opinions and background knowledge, but is not authorized to speak to the issue. There is value in permitting that person to shield his identity.

We don’t get a lot of racist commenters here, and when we do we generally keep the comment up because (a) the commenter looks like an idiot; and (b) the rest of the commenting community here can call the idiot out. Just because someone wants to say something stupid doesn’t mean I have to delete it. The difference at the News is the sheer volume of comments, and in turn racist idiocy, which required some sort of reaction.

You say that pre-moderation is a discussion-killer. But any movement to remove anonymity will chill commentary to some degree. You’re coming at this from a newspaperman’s perspective, while blogs and their comments are really a contemporary version of usenet newsgroups, where anything goes. That sort of free-wheeling discussion is an internet thing, not a newspaper thing.

Yes, the Batavian gets robust comments going even on routine stories. So, I gather, might the Buffalo News. But my criticism had to do with the fact that the News didn’t do anything to police its comments section, which it appended to each and every story. Remember – the Batavian uses a blog platform. The Buffalo News doesn’t. I can’t imagine there was a big clamor for people to be able to post a comment to every single story the News does.

But the core of our disagreement is that you oppose anonymity, while I can see its value. You even acknowledge that people will say dumb and racist things even when using their real names, so anonymity itself isn’t the problem – it’s anonymity paired with ignorant hatred.

So, we can agree that the Buffalo News’ “set it and forget it” method of “policing” its comments section is the real culprit. Because of the volume of traffic the News gets, it had a duty to implement a commenting system that would encourage discussion and discourage/ban hate speech. It failed to do so, and here we are debating it.