Another Reason to Miss IA

Sometimes I should just keep my (virtual) mouth shut. HNN long ago decided to increase it's user-unfriendliness by making registration before commenting mandatory. Okay, now that makes some sense, if they were getting the kind of flames that they claim they were. But, on top of that, it is not enough to provide a live email and go through the registration process -- you have to provide your actual in-real-life name, too, and allow it to show up in your posts.

Me not knowing this, I dutifully registered, using my Rana Ravens alias. While there, I was polite, civilized and (I thought) made some useful comments. Then I made the mistake in responding to a post about anonymity of admitting that my pseudonym was, well, a pseudonym. Whoosh -- away go all my polite, thoughtful posts, and I am now banned from posting.

THIS was among one of many reasons why IA's site was so good. We could have lively, impassioned, deeply argumentative discussions there, and so long as we did so with a modicum of politeness and intelligence, we could call ourselves whatever we damn well pleased. I only recall about 5 or 6 people in the entire time I visited the blog being told to behave by IA, and they either did, had their ISPs banned, or left. Other forums and blogs I visit have similar policies -- you get warned, the bad post is deleted or "disemvoweled," repeat offenders get banned, and life continues on. Even the Chronicle's clunky "submit first, then we'll vet it before posting" format works better than the system in place at HNN.

Such a delightful way to be welcoming to those who wish to participate in discussions about academia and history but (often with good reason) fear the retribution that might follow if they posted openly, eh? No wonder the comment threads are so empty and bland.

Such an irony: should IA wish to comment in response to any of the posts at Cliopatria about her departure and good works, she would have to forgo the very thing that made her valuable as a sort of academic everywoman: her anonymity.

Comments

[Duckling]

Sounds like a bummer. I've more or less given up on my anonymity as I bought a cheap me.uk address and anyone can trace me to my homepage. I'm still using 'Duckling' so that I'm not too obvious on Google. Which is my number one fear. I don't want potential employers typing my name in and finding that I'm on a constant diet and panic about silly things all the time. Anyway, I've got a forum that is really under used (basically I'm the only person using it). It's www.17th-century.info. If you fancy starting a discussion about anything there you are very welcome. I think it's fantastic the way IA built up such a community. I hope she's still surfing around somewhere.

[Rana]

Yeah, it'd be nice if she were. :)

What particularly frosts me about HNN's approach is that "Rana Ravens," while not my legal name, IS a real name for me. I've been posting and signing on as Rana for years now, and it is how I think of myself when I'm online. Once or twice I've posted something under my given name, and it felt strange and, well, wrong. I'm also easier to find online by searching for Rana Ravens or Frogs and Ravens than I am by my given name (unless you include the middle initial). My real-world name is quite common online, actually.

It also annoys me to realize that, if HNN is watching its boards so intently that it can erase a post and send a "you're canceled" email within 30 minutes of posting (and it may have been less than that) it would not be any more difficult to do the same for truly offensive posts. Make everyone who registers have a working email address, require them to read and agree to abide by the board rules of ettiquette, and forget the "real name" business. Besides, if I wanted to register as Abel Finkwater or some such nonsense, how exactly are they to know if it's "real" or not?

Maybe they should require sponsorship for new members -- to be allowed to post, you have to get an "she's okay" from one of the other members? Also restrictive, but more in keeping with the intent behind the "real name" policy than the farce in place currently.

r

[Duckling]

I think the sponsorship idea and the real email address sound good. It could function the same way as Orkut.

I'm surprised they haven't had any objections from transsexuals or people who've changed their name for religious reasons but haven't had the documents done. People should be able to call themselves what they want.

[Ralph Luker]

Rana, I will ask HNN's editor to read your post and the discussion here. Perhaps he can make some arrangement. We like your being among our readers at Cliopatria.
I would add, however, that you shouldn't underestimate the problems that HNN and IA had with spam and vicious comments. Once when IA complained of having to clear about 200 spam comments out of her blog, I told her that HNN had just had about 500. It really is a problem for internet sites with high volume traffic.

[Rana]

Ralph, that would be nice. I do agree that the spams are a problem. However, since there are blocking technologies out there (one site I visit imposes a delay-ban on posting -- you can't make posts too close together or they get rejected) and other ways to get rid of spam without compromising actual commenters' access, I hope that the policy can be reconsidered, at least as far as the "no pseudonym" portion of it goes.

(Rude commenters, on the other hand, will probably always require real-person policing, alas.)

I can email/post URLs of sites/forums with other posting formats, if you'd like.

[Duckling]

A happy ending. :)