GigaOM writer: "Anonymity has real value, both in comments and elsewhere." In the wake of the faux lesbian Damascus blogger, the question over whether or not to allow anonymous comments is being raised again. Some claim anonymous comments allow for dissent and are essential to democracy. Other claim that that anonymous comments lead to harsher, uncivil conversation that serves nobody. [more inside]
posted by zooropa on Jun 20, 2011 - 36 comments

"Every day there are untold millions of comments, texts, and online interactions. Millions. And each one says, I am here and I extend my consciousness to there. There might have been a time when humans were content to sit and simply be, like the goat I saw yesterday sitting contently in a patch of sunshine at the Lincoln Park Zoo. That time was long ago. We want the news. We want to chatter and gossip. We want to say "I am alive" in a billion billion different ways. And now here is internet, providing such an easy, easy way to do that."
posted by nomadicink on Nov 19, 2010 - 35 comments

A tribute to the 75-minute period where Tom DeLay actually received feedback from America. Tom DeLay drops unrestricted comments almost immediately on his first disastrous day as a blogger.
posted by jonp72 on Dec 11, 2006 - 60 comments

Track your comments. Remember back before Matt gave up his day job? How we didn't have an easy way to keep up with conversations we participated in? Hate that you can't do that with other sites you frequent? Now you can.
posted by FlamingBore on Feb 13, 2006 - 16 comments

Bloat!, which has historically been a site with scathing reviews of popular weblogs, has in recent weeks become a source of excellent opinion and well thought out suggestions. For the first time, MetaFilter gets into the top ten, and I have to say some of the comments are right on the money. I hate posting information about this site on the main page, and T. Radhuis picks up on that. I'll be adding a couple links to the navigation, one being "news' with MetaFilter-centric posts and comments (and yeah, I understand that I just turned this post into another one about MF, I swear this is the last). I don't know about splitting the comments into good and bad, especially since posters would choose which thread to add their comment (which could be abused).
posted by mathowie on Jan 28, 2000 - 0 comments