As a starting point, I disallow everything in comments but plain text. Anything else is an invitation to spambots to come fill our site with crap.

Already as it is, we get more user registrations per day from Russia, the birthplace of spambots, than from all non-US baseball playing countries like Canada and Australia and Japan combined, even though there's currently nothing for these spammers to do on the site.

At some point, I will probably open comments up to other forms of content, but it will require some method to distinguish trusted users from untrusted ones.

Ah, makes sense ... someday, there will be a Flaming Lips album about your epic struggle: "Ken Battles The Russian Spambots."

Ever see that Star Trek episode "The Corbomite Maneuver" where a young Clint Howard uses a phony front of what he wants people to think he looks like...when communicating with his ship? Here's the picture:

http://tinyurl.com/5mnbsv

I could see someone trying that with Seesmic...

I may be a geek, but I'm not enough of a geek to remember Star Trek episodes. I never understood the appeal of the show (any version.)

3

I'm enough of a geek to remember that episode ... AND remember the name of the drink Howard's character offered Kirk .... tranya.

Aw, Will...you haven't lived until you've seen the episode of Deep Space Nine where they compare human existence to baseball... ;-)

BTW, good one dianagramr.

"If you don't stand up behind your words, what are they really worth?"

I don't know, don't the author of Primary Colors, or Deep Throat, or the various poems attributed to Anonymous still have some impact on our lives? At least the internet is semi-anonymous, and most websites I post on allow the authors to e-mail me and hold me accountable for my words and actions. I don't have any ambitions of becoming an internet celebrity and having everyone know my name, as if that instantly gives me credibility. In fact, sometimes knowing someones' name allows for prejudice that would not occur with internet semi-anonymity. Shouldn't the argument matter more than someone's face?

I'm not sure ... I think Deep Throat meant more for the credibility of Woodward/Bernstein than the actual guy. (I was honestly surprised it WAS one guy.) Primary Colors? Bah, Joe Klein could and should have put it out. That was just good marketing. I'm not saying it's a celebrity thing, just a way of ending some of the "I'm anonymous so I can be an asshole" ethic of the net. Just watch any thread degenerate or go off topic in ... well, anywhere. Seesmic has a chance -- chance mind you -- to turn into real conversations, the kind you would have at a dinner party. MOF, I'm beginning to think that more than identity, presence is actually the more important component.

Will is right on. When someone breaks a story, there has to be someone who lends their actual name to give credibility. Primary Colors might have been a majority of facts, but it also had fictional elements to give flavor. Nothing wrong with that, but it wasn't a Time Magazine piece by Klein.

Very interesting questions are being raised. Too bad that I don't have much time to answer them today (people could write essays on these issues!). Here's a quick try...

About the anonymity, I agree with you, it is a problem when people hide behind an alias to insult other people or act inappropriately. The 'getting off topic' or 'degenerating threads' issues can probably be prevented/hindered/softened by some form of policing (or applications of a 'code of conduct') on the blog/website where the posts are made.

I am not sure that using video would prevent these things from happening. I'm not very knowledgeable with these technologies, but my initial thought is that it might actually make it more difficult to isolate specific words or elements that some people would want to cut or censor automatically.

Credibility is another thing. In my opinion, people have to stand behind their words, whether posting with an alias or a name. It is crucial for somebody like you to use your name. But is it really important for me? In my opinion, an individual's name is not important to talk baseball in a casual way, to share a passion for baseball. I do not think that using an alias affects the credibility of the post that I am making right now.

Nonetheless, these are interesting questions. Thanks for bringing them here. I am very interested in what everybody else thinks about this...

No, it doesn't alter your credibility but it does allow you the veil of anonymity. Your thoughtful post has the same meaning whether it's a cute name like BALCO Lab Rats or John Smith. But John Smith of Foxboro, Mass is less likely to be a raging jerk if he has to sign his name to it. I don't think it makes a whit of difference to the good people but a lot to the bad, which is why I think it's a major positive.

Of course, we're likely to be rickrolled a lot with video ... so it's all a tradeoff. I think too many people enjoy their snarky anonymity and would say "never gonna give it up ..."

11 But would it make enough of a difference to the 'good people' if they had to sign their name?

If I had to sign my name, would I post?

I think that it becomes more of a 'comfort' issue:
- Comfort with the technology: what other people who have access to the content of this blog could do with it (all the way to identity theft)...
- Comfort with my 'image': what if I say something really stupid (not inappropriate or offensive, simply stupid (I don't have an example)? Would it affect me more whether other people (like potential employers) can track this to my name? Maybe an alias protects me somewhat (or gives me a stronger illusion of protection).

But then, how does this affect what I said before, about 'standing behind my words'? Am I still doing that in that hypothetical context?

I'm not sure, I have to think about it a little more... What do you think?

I do think the identity theft issue is problematic. I'm not saying you have to be "Will Carroll" or "Joe Smith", just that there needs to be some consistent "identity" that can't be easily changed. There's ways around it, I know. Consistency, like Diane's "Dianagramr" or Steve's "NetShrine", work fine. So does "Ken Arneson."

As for the tracking -- EXACTLY. If you wouldn't say it in public, why in the world would you say it here? I realize that saying something at a dinner party or a book club meeting isn't searchable and archived, but we're in an internet world. I don't want anyone not willing to stand by their words at my party. :)

13 I agree with you, especially when we're talking about baseball stuff (or books, music, blogging, etc.). But what about politics? There were quite a few recent discussions on this blog about that. Would the discussion be the same if people were using real names (or 'traceable' aliases)?

Do the people using names or 'traceable' aliases voluntarily refrain from participating to such discussion, even though they might be tempted to do so (going back to the 'comfort' issue that I mentioned earlier)?

I'd think that some would choose not to participate. So be it. Scott and I both have a pretty high embarassment threshhold, so if there's a porn discussion here, I doubt it would slow us. Others? Who knows ...

I know that when I was talking with ESPN prior to my time there, I knew that my talent for saying stupid things would likely get me in trouble with them so I stopped blogging.

15 Thanks for sharing the ESPN part, it definitely gives perspective to the discussion. I hope that others might decide to share their opinions on the subject...

Just signed up with Seesmic to take a peek at this and found the thread attached to this video. I'll be honest - it was very difficult to get through. Not necessarily because of the people posting, or what they had to say, but knowing that I'm going to have to spend 1:30 to hear a point that I could have read in :20 is tough for me, and the video aspect of it doesn't tickle my fancy enough to hold my interest. Of course, it didn't help that the last couple of posts were on the merits and origins of one individual's eyewear (although, maybe that's point. I watched those because I thought I might miss something salient to the discussion and wasted a bunch of time, which I wouldn't have done in a text format because I'd simply scan over it.).

This gets back to the point Ken was making in previous threads (assuming I'm remembering/understanding correctly) about finding something that video does uniquely well that text does not and exploiting that. I'm going to poke around a bit more with this tool - I want to be fair, and punting after looking at one thread wouldn't be - but I don't think Seesmic has found that unique thing, and my overall initial impression is that it's a novelty that doesn't deliver anything to make it stick long term.

Of course, considering the discussion of identity, this is coming from a guy who doesn't even have a picture of himself on his Facebook profile....

Agree, Derek. Like any "conversation"/discussion thread, getting off topic is a killer. What's the Hitler rule's video equivalent? I think it's the identity thing and making video dead easy that's the strength of Seesmic. There's a tipping point where Google (or someone) learns to search video, add tags, etc, where it becomes more useable ...

... or is Ken's paradigm the old one? Will the next generation think of video as the primary focus and text as "old school?" I don't know.