As 2005 draws to a close, a year with many changes for OSNews, we have one more big change to make OSNews a better place. But first, let us take a short look at all the big changes OSNews has seen this year.
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RE[3]: And I hope ...
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Not likely. If there are too many sign ups from the same non-commonplace domain, our exception reporting notices it. If you think it's wortwhile to sign up for a new Yahoo/Gmail/Hotmail account every 30 days just to continue to use OSnews semi-anonymously, well, more power to you.
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And look how quickly you went and signed up for an account :-). No more hiding now.
Great job OSNews...time to get things back on track around here (things have deteriorated quite a bit over the past year, so here's looking to an awesome '06). Things just keep getting better and better!
-jayson (a loyal OSNews reader for 4 years and counting).
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There is no reason other than 1) people requested it, and 2) the test we did a few months ago (we disabled anon. posting for a week) was succesful (higher comment-quality). So there you have it.
My word is all I can give you. As I said, I was against it at first (someone else on the team proposed it), it took months before people even convinced me of doing a *test*, let alone making it for real. But then again, you seem to have your mind made up already, so there really is no use in debating this.
Edited 2005-12-31 19:08
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For someone who does not like this site, you sure do comment a lot.
Only 2-3 per week requested it, how many were the same person making the request?
None. Want to know why? Because I emailed them back.
But anyway, why don't you go on and count the people in this thread who agree with what I'm doing? Seems like you are the only one disagreeing... Of course, people who are anonymous can't comment, so they can't voice themselves in this thread either... But hey, if you can twist the facts, than why can't I? 
.
RE[4]: Anonymous Posting
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I for one am happy that this is being implemented as other news sites and most forum sites already require registered users to post comments. It provides not only an organized structure but also makes it easier when replying to posts as well for casual readers to read comments.
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As the year draws to a close here in New Mexico, I only want to thank the staff of OS News for doing a great job all year long. There were some rough spots, but that is what makes life interesting!
Thanks to all the people who visted, thanks for the insights, the flamewars, and genuinely interesting discussions.
I, for one, am looking forward to an even better year in 2006!
Happy New Year to all!
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2005-10-18
lol I never attack the staff 
That's usually the quickest and surest way to be banned from a site, maybe not OSnews, but in general lol.
Getting rid of anonymous is a good idea. Now there won't be as many "idiotic" and random posts are there used to. I think it's a sensible idea to take responsibility for what you post, not say something "bad" and then hide as anonymous.
This is my first year at OSNews, and it's a good one so far. Keep up the good work
--ZaNkY
Member since:2005-11-23
>Getting rid of anonymous is a good idea. Now there won't be as many "idiotic" and random posts are there used to. I think it's a sensible idea to take responsibility for what you post, not say something "bad" and then hide as anonymous.
It is also a good way to ban and remove all guys that don't think as you.
Member since:2005-07-10
Re: "It is also a good way to ban and remove all guys that don't think as you."
Moderators who do their job don't typically ban posters who dissagree with their point of view. They do have a right to ban a poster when he/she attitude gets out of hand. Such as using vulgar language or when attacking/insulting others which does little if anything to benefit readers.
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Good wishes for OSNews in this new year! Thanks Eugenia for all this quality until now and thanks too the the rest of the osnews' crew who maintained this quality and are trying to make the whole site better for its users.
A new year of good news and happiness for all!
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2005-07-06
The improvements to the commenting system is so much better now, so congrats for that. The only thing that I would like to see improved is a decent search engine. Thankfully, OSNews does prodide a link to search via Google, but I can't help thinking that some efforts towards to the inhouse search capabilities would be better for OSNews and its users.
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I'm not so sure about the anonymous thing.
It's not so much that I'm not sure but that I don't see you so sure either. I mean, there was that experiment in November and after that Adam wrote in Meta:
Our little experiment to disallow anonymous posting on OSNews taught us a few things.
[...]
3. It was a nice break, but it wasn't the solution.
I personally don't care much about it either way, but let me ask, if it wasn't the solution a month ago, is it now? How have things changed? What other solutions did you consider, or is this a least evil?
I'm just asking, really.
And, again, Happy New Year!
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indeed, registration is annoying even for trolls.
they'll just use bugmenot.com.
just as i did.
And we'll just set up a scritp, or do it manually, to block each and every account listed on BugMeNot.
It's just a few more minutes of work, added to the few hours a day, I work for OSNews. Easy enough.
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you are frigging nazis
It's just not a very wise thing to go and call people nazi, mister. Nazi is a very insulting word, there are a lot of people on this planet, namely who's six million friends, relatives and neighbours got murdered, who wouldn't like you for saying that. But anyway, happy new year to you too.
3. It was a nice break, but it wasn't the solution.
That was kind of Adam on his own, basically. He assumed we all agreed, but it never was thrown into the group to discuss. A few days after that blog posting, I ressurected the isue, asking what we were all thinking. Then the discussion got going.
I bet you don't have any solid numbers other than Eugenia wanted it.
I'm not going to disclose personal information, but I think we get about 2 emails each week asking for us to disable it (that may not seem like a lot, but remember, it makes up for about 50% to 70% of all the personal emails to osnews-crew@osnews.com we get). Other than that, regular readers have often said it in the comments (ie: http://www.osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=13132&comment_id=80... ).
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Is the absolutely horrid abuse of tables in the HMTL (apparently hyper-mega-table language). That said I'm surprised how smoothely the transition has been. The improvements to the comment and rating system have been a great additions to the site... though at one point it seems like you are almost rewriting SLASH from scratch, but it's working well. Though I miss the way Eugenia always had tons of sites and original contributions which seem to had slowed down.
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Peace, Prosperity, Health, Happiness and Satisfaction in all you do, wherever you may be in 2006.
I am looking forward to the thought provoking comments on the "Industry Watch" gateway that OSNews has become. Its not just about alternate OS's anymore - it has expanded without anyone really noticing. That's why it will remain my home on the net in 2006.
Thanks folks. Great work.
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I feel compelled to finally have registred, after 3 years of lurking, to make a comment.
Thank you. There were so many times in the past three years that I stopped reading the comments because of lame ass anonymous users. If you don't have the balls to attach your name to something you write, don't post it.
I like the direction OSNews is going. Certainly I have disagreed with some of Eugenia's and others "News" in the past but it wasn't enough to have me go calling people Nazi's.
I mean its not like this registration process cost us money and we have no say. We are but mere guests here in the long run of things.
So again, thank you for the decision to disallow anonymous comments!
Edited 2005-12-31 20:43
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But making you shut the hell up would solve everything!
"You just justified why 9 out of 10 anonymous people here are so, and why they have no problems blasting the editors of this site."
Because 9 out of 10 anonymous posters are YOU, and as we all know, YOU have no respect for the other users of this website.
"Well, now that I've thought about it and reflected back. They have given the people you call trolls (in some cases undeservatively) more power as you can't tell who is who anymore by the subnet they come from."
You could have registered anyway...
"Now? I doubt I'll read even once a week. Today I've been here the most I've been here in months."
It would be our plesure, so far you've brought nothing but insults to the table, no logical arguments and no usefull ideas at how trolling can be stoped. Infact, I'd go as far to say that in all the time you ever commented on this site, all you did was troll.
As for bugmenot, an automated script that blocks all user names found on that site would be easy to write.
I'm glad that these changes have been made, but there is still one thing that bugs me: I can vote up anyones comments for any reason (perhaps because I agree with them), but to vote down someones comments I have to have a very specific reason, disagreement is not one.
Thats the one thing I'd like to see changed.
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That you can randomize anonymous in and of itself a feat worth bragging about , as well as your IP no doubt. Fight the man .
All I'm saying is it certainly is about time they did away with the /. anonymous morons. I have not set foot on slashdot page in almost two years. It was no longer the insightful place of my early twentysomethings. Its a bitter crowd over there.
Here I like at least some form of thought to go into a comment. Attaching a name to your comment hopefully makes you think about it for a second. Well in SOME peoples instant a nano second at any rate.
I LOVE the interent and its randomness and anonymous areas but sometimes you need to be accountable to a community and this place needed it.
Happy New Years all!
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2005-12-31
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well now that anonymous posting is not permitted you might want to relax the score threshold. i'm not sure yet how this voting thing works otherwise there are a few i would have voted up already.
no it would not have just been staff . backwards anonymous did have a post or two that was insightful and at the least thought provoking.
=/ meh. i'll figure it out soon enough i suppose.
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I don't think OSNews has the same problems as Slashdot. When stories get 500 comments you might want to raise the threshold on Slashdot to read the most relevant posts. You don't have the same problem here (yet). I've seen a lot of good comments at 1 that stays that way permanently.
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I'm all for registered users only, the anonymae thing was quite annoying.
But secondly, grow up Thom. I don't mean to insult you. However, people are going to. Such is the life of a mod/admin. If you take it personally and attack back they'll eat you alive in the long run.
I recommend swallowing your feelings and dealing with people in the most judicious manner you can. And if they are being polite and discussing, acting like you normally do (cause you're a great contributor until you get on a personal defense).
Ignore them, the rest of us tend to anyway. Until you attack back.
Oh, and, don't slow up 
. OSNews has had a pretty good pace lately; keep it up.
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2005-11-15
" I know myself well, hence I also know I can be harsh, direct, and arrogant. That's no surprise at all for me. Hey, I'm just a human too, I make mistakes. However, that does not mean I will change my tone. There are occasions where I truly feel offended; especially when it comes to all the biases I have been accused of (pro-Microsoft, pro-Apple, anti-KDE, pro-GNOME, anti-Microsoft, anti-Apple, pro-KDE, anti-GNOME, etc. etc.). I will never accept it when my integrity gets questioned. So, if you do question my integrity, you can expect a frontal gale (as we Dutch say)."
Unfortunately, many times I have seen you stoop down to the level of those very trolls that happen to question your integrity. I quite vividly remember you questioning other people's integrity, which is quite hypocritical any way you look at it -- so, it's OK for Thom to question someone's integrity, but be aware of the full frontal Dutch gale coming your way if you dare to question his. I think such attitude sends wrong kind of signals to your readers.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't defend yourself, but I just don't think that giving a troll a taste of its own medicine is befitting an editor of an online news site of this caliber. You could always try being a bigger person and instead of throwing a hissy fit (which is exactly what it ends up looking like, by the way) defend yourself in a calm, professional manner.
OK, nevermind the above. You're so cute when you're angry. Happy New Year, hairless monkey.
-- Snifflez the Zombie Squirrel.