Note from the Publisher: Guest Comments Are Dead

Hey Everyone-- as part of our continuing efforts to make Gothamist a friendly and reasonably polite place, we've eliminated "guest" comments on our posts. This means that to comment on the site, all users will need to complete a short registration process.

We've decided to do this because the vast majority of bad behavior (trolling, spamming, incivility, etc) seem to come from the guests. That's not surprising: as many internet pundits have observed, total anonymity seems to make even the nicest person act totally insane.

A note about privacy: the new system does require a working email address to complete registration. It does not require you to share your real name, or any other information about you. Gothamist will not sell your email address to third parties.

Registration on the new system is fast and easy-- you can do it here. And once you register you get a nifty profile page, showing all of your previous Gothamist activity. You can also select an "avatar" which will show up whenever you comment.

Thanks to everyone who gave feedback on the comments system. Feel free to share your opinions in the comments on this post, or in emails to me and Jen.

Previously: Comments 2.0

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jake Dobkin in Miscellaneous on October 15, 2007 10:41 AM

Comments [rss]

Kevin Robinson

@Neil: Holy cow that guy is vile!

Neil Epstein

@maevemealone @zodak (incase that works in the future...) - your suggestion is noted and acted on.

Tim N.

Wow! And I get an avatar??? I feel so young...

Good move, you guys. Glad to be back.

zodak

does this mean you will start banning ip addresses?

read maevemealone's comment for a suggestion.

personaehiro

great! I do admit that some of those anon guest comments where entertaining from time to time. But the sites better of without them.

Steven

It's about time!

MarygraceNYC

Simply perfect!

Accountability, accountability, accountability.

Nice move guys. Cheers!

Rocknrope

Boy, I'm gonna miss the "equalized with lead" commenter. Oh wait, I'm not.

Monster_mash

Yay. Thank you.

cwbuecheler

I heartily support this change.

Dave Hogarty

[41] Absolutely correct. And deleting offensive comments tends to only beget more comments. I tried cleaning up the comments section once; it was a Sisyphean task.

Nick S

@ Jen Chung:

i didn't mean to insinuate that you guys are stupid, just kinda stubborn. the editing HAS improved though! i've also noticed you guys have really toned down the "Gothamist went to Gothamist's grandmother's house this weekend" phrasing, which is good.

matty

so on the first day of no anon comments this site is completely boring.

RatherBeBiking

RoDogg,

it's simple.

if someone wants to say something, they should register and log in.

that's alot easier for gothamist staff to implement then deleting all the trolling posts, as you suggested.

do you know how much work that would be?

Dave Hogarty

Goodbye insane people. I'll be listening for your lunatic ravings on the nearest street corner.

MaiaW

Nice move, Gothamist. I don't think a valid email address is too much to ask to contribute to this site. There's no doubt there will be inane comments anyway...but i think a small bit of order will be a good thing.

amsci

That cat looks like it's melting.

maevemealone

whole heartedly love and I second the idea of a reply button. We still need a way to flag the offensive haters who actually do register. Kultur has to go...

Kevin Bracken

I'm surprised nobody's blamed the change on the Jews yet - I thought they ran everything, or something. lol

Jen Chung

Glad everyone is receptive to the change. And #29, God forbid!

And #2, thank you for the reminder that we need to be much better with what we publish. We do, even if you don't believe it, try to proof as much as we can, but we're churning out a lot of posts, so it can be difficult to keep up. I know I make mistakes, but I hope it's not as bad as it was, I don't know, a year ago, say. And really, it's distressing to see comments telling us we're stupid, although it's much worse seeing horrible narrow-minded comments.