Protest in Guangzhou: Why would you burn garbage?
Week Around the Ists
Barbie Spa: For the cosmopolitan plastic beauty in you
Interview: Coco Zhao, from jazz to M. Butterfly
Cinematheque: Mulan is finally Chinese again! (and other film news)
By now, you've probably noticed our new profile system, rolled out in June. In the system, people who comment on Shanghaiist are segregated into two groups: those who have registered for a free account to post (who have their name or alias attached to each comment) and those who haven't (who are universally called "guest"). As of this morning, Gothamist has rolled out another change, whereby guest comments are automatically not displayed for all users — to display them, you have to click "Show Guest Comments" below any post to display them, and a cookie will be set on your computer to always display them.
That small change is the next step in a slow phasing-out of anonymous comments here on Shanghaiist. Soon, guest comments will be disabled altogether and the only people who will be able to comment on Shanghaiist will be those who have signed up for an account. This is a natural and necessary step forward — since allowing guest comments, we have seen a noticeable uptick in comments that violate our commenting policy — and, really, registering is a painless process. It's fast, free, and anyone can do it ... and you only have to do it once. Please do sign up if you haven't yet.
For those worried about privacy, please click here and scroll down to "Gothamist LLC Privacy Statement." If you are still worried, remember that the Shanghaiist username you choose does not need to be your real name, and the email address you use for the verification process can be a random free email account you created just for the purpose of signing up.
If you're a registered commenter, you'll also see something new when you click "Edit Profile" in the top left corner: you can now upload a 100 x 100 avatar. For now, that icon will only be displayed on your profile, but soon it'll be used to identify you in the comments for an article. Neato! Here's a sample profile page.
As always, feel free to tell us how much you love or hate all of this in a comment. Play nice.
Photo by october13th.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
post to facebook
Aw, what the fuck. I am too lazy to register. Unless you give me something for my trouble. Like a hug. I like hugs.
Yeah, all the comments here are off-the-cuff nonsense anyway, and I doubt mandatory registration is going to change anything. Why make it more difficult? It's just going to make the site less used - fuck that shit!
Sorry, Shanghaiist, you are being phased out. You just posted about your great traffic numbers. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Why not install a system like YouTube's whereby users are in control of comments? It's called Web2.0 don't you know!?
wacc~
Anonymous comments add nothing to a conversation, especially when they are snidey jibes with no substantive remarks. They also intimidate readers from partcipating in case they got shot down in flames by a smart arse who is really nasty, ignorant and rude.
On the other hand, knowing the poster's identity can help the reader judge how trustworthy a comment is. For example, JQ Whitcombe has a track record writing about jazz in Shanghai so I am more likely to listen to his comments compared with an anonymous stab at negative wit.
catshanghai is gay
my comments are as valid as the next man. i may be drunk, but like the above poster mentions, anything that kills traffic is... stupid. ya i mentioned i aint right in the head earlier. but for real, we dont care if you have a history of 'insightful comments'. you got somethign to say, say it. otherwise shut da fcuk up
log my IP shanghaiist. keep trying to track ppl liek the man and see where that gets you. you want a hint? i ripped on y'all on facebook
Setting up a free email account so I can sign up for Shanghaiist? You're delirious! I won't even do that to get laid! Is the Chinese government paying you to police that Internet? Cookies up yours!
YAWNS. All the more reason to avoid Shanghaiist.
Gothamist is not the first, and definitely won't be the last, blog network to require registration to comment. That said, the registration process requires you to provide no personal information other than a user name (which can be anonymous) and a valid email address. This is information that many regular no-registration-required blogs require you to provide to leave a comment anyway. The "setting up a free email account" idea mentioned in the post was only for the most paranoid users. Shanghaiist is not going to give your email address to any third-party. And if Shanghaiist ever decides to email registered users — which is not something we have even discussed — there will be an opt-in/opt-out option announced beforehand. For those worried about "logging IP addresses," as far as I know almost every blogging software already logs your IP when you make a comment, anonymous or not. In fact, I think your IP is logged the moment you arrive on most sites. Think what you will, but these changes, believe it or not, have been made to improve your user experience on Shanghaiist. And I think eventually people will see that. We love our readers. We are not trying to drive anyone away. And yes, guest No. 1, if you catch us late enough in the evening at the Halloween Party, we may even give you a hug. But those who would still like to send us hate mail after guest comments have been totally phased out can always email us (info at shanghaiist.com) or leave an anonymous "tip" on our Contribute Page.
oooh. someone "ripped" shanghaiist on facebook. how will shanghaiist ever recover? didn't you have to register with facebook, using an email address, to do that, #7?
really, people, what's the big deal? what are you afraid of? it's not like you have to register to read shanghaiist, only to comment. on all of the other "big" shanghai websites you either can't comment at all or your have to register to do so. it's just the way things are.
i'll be registering with shanghaiist....as soon as i think of an appropriately witty user name.
@ 12.47pm; sorry, i just assumed you guys were a group of geeks with nothing better to do than log IPs and jack articles from digg
jeez it's not like its all that difficult to register nanheyangrouchaun@badchina.com
Actually, its xinjiang15@netscape.net. No need for secrecy as Chinese attacks have regularly bombarded netscape, heck, I even have a log of intrusion attempts from all over China and some bounces off of HK and Seoul ISPs, that log would make an interesting Shanghaiist post, wouldn't it!?. My blog is badbadchina.blogspot.com
Good policy change. Comments by random trolls add no value to any blog or bbs and make for a difficult discussion when one cannot keep track of which "guest" said what. Plus its easier to understand where a regular poster is coming from when one knows what perspective someone like "nanyan-grouch..." is coming form. ;)
hmmm. this obviously has multiple drawbacks.
Since the number of people commenting on blog entries seems to have rapidly declined in the last 6 months, I can't see how this is going to help. Or maybe it will.
Anyway, seems more or less pointless to me. The old system where people could enter their name as they entered each post worked fine from the end user's point fo view.
i agree
from now on i will post as ihatecapitalismwithaburningpassion
tony tang
It's still very un-Web2.0 ... let users rate comments and give them the ability to filter preferred messages only.
um, don't you need to be logged in as a user to rate comments on sites that offer such a feature? meaning you'd need to register regardless?