Whether you like it or not, transparency is coming. What you say will be traceable back to who you are.
Just like old times before the 1990s made us all think privacy meant we could create anonymous and bizarre screen names and lead dual or triple or quadruple lives.
I for one am relieved by tools like Disqus–which track all of my comments across Disqus powered sites like this one. Now that Disqus is allowing people to use their Facebook profiles to comment, the networks are moving toward synchronicity.
That sounds so scifi, it makes me laugh.
You can read more about this partnership at the Disqus Blog » Facebook Connect now available on Disqus.
So far, it looks like Google Friend Connect over at HighCallingBlogs.com may have been a premature bet.
Now I’m wondering if it is time to add Disqus to HighCallingBlogs.com… What do you all think?
{ 23 comments }
So, just for kicks, I'm commenting here using my facebook account.
You bring up a great point here. As you know, I am really enjoying finding new ways to increase the level of community using some of the social media tools, and I really like tools like Disqus (which I also use at bibledude.net) because it gives me much more insight into who commenters are at my site. It also helps to keep me accountable, because I know that others will seee all of my comments. It really makes me think about how I am being viewed. With the integration of these tools and the tracking, people can look back at an entire history of many things that I do to see what message my life shares.
I'm glad that you wrote this… This kind of stuff has been heavy on my heart lately, and I will porbably be shring much more on the topic at bibledude.net.
Dan
Personally, I find the whole tracking mechanism of DISQUS quite unsettling and disappointing. Why shouldn't a person be able to lead multiple screen lives, since that is a form of play, and the internet has been a tremendous place to be creative and playful (and let's not get lost in a discussion of how that play has sometimes gone awry). Must the value of everyone-has-a-place and everyone-in-his-place dominate here the way it does in corporate and societal life? You say that it sounds so sci-fi that it makes you laugh, while I would suggest that it sounds hauntingly “Big Brother” (and I say that not as a conspiracy theory type person either). I'm not sure this means DISQUS is a terrible invention, but the people at DISQUS might consider allowing maximum control for its commenters (meaning that if a commenter prefers not to be tracked, then she should have the option to be less transparent, or at the very least that a commenter once tracked might be able to change her mind and unilaterally delete her profile).
Not transparency perhaps – but at least a prod to keep your story consistent!
I'm probably way too old-school, Helena – if you say something online, it should be the same as if you are saying it to my face. To me that means being accountable for what you say and how you say it. As a publishing medium, the Internet is unparalleled, but I'm not a big fan of the “keep it anonymous” side of the street unless you are talking about specific applications – games and the like, sure.
Disqus is an interesting tool. On the one hand, people don't have to register on my blog to comment there, and they need only remember one login/password combo (or have their browser do it for them). With that setup, more people are free to comment, and I can secure my blog against spammers and other hack attackers far more efficiently. So long as an individual posts responsibly and on-topic, they can call themselves Xavier Mondrian Prufrock for all I care – but if they are posting libelous garbage, or trying to hide from accepting the consequences? I don't think so.
I would have to agree with Helen about the unsettling nature of DISQUS. If the application allowed the user complete control over their comments and identity then it would be a great feature for keeping track of comment threads. People grow, change, reimage, reinvent, etc. all the time and an application that does not allow a person to do that is too limiting.
And I agree with RickD335 that I should be accountable for what I say online to you. However, my relationship with one blogger may not be the same as my relationship with another, just like we all have business and personal relationships offline. There are comments (that I am perfectly willing to be accountable for to the blog owner) that I might write on my husband's or best friend's blog that I do not want you reading. This doesn't mean that what I may post is unchristian, just perhaps personal.
The internet allows us to commingle the public and the private spheres and we should be able to retain the right to determine how much of ourselves is transparent in both arenas…an application like DISQUS in the real world would be like living your life with a constant public broadcasting of everything you say that then gets etched in stone in the town square.
As an anonymous blogger, I would prefer not to use DISQUS
I'm sorry, I meant Helena. Quite a different person than Helen I am sure.
Here's my take. Helena (Helen? Helena?) has a point. Rick has a point. CA has a point (or two or three).
Which adds up to: controversy. Nothing wrong with a good controversy. But as a network administrator (that being you), I'd be extremely hesitant to adopt DISQUS for a site of such magnitude and diversity as HCB.
Why? One, you'll become the firefighter for various issues that may arise (and from what I can tell, they will arise and you already seem to be fighting too many fires). Two, DISQUS isn't quite “there” yet, since it doesn't appear to allow users satisfactory (or at least obvious, simple) control over their identities and comments.
To this, I remember Cheryl Smith's observation that it's not always advantageous to be the first of one's kind (she compared Classmates to Facebook). Meaning, DISQUS may be a good first try at this sort of thing, but someone else may make a better second try.
I'd wait for the second try, or at least wait to see if DISQUS has the vision, flexibility, responsiveness and ambition to make important changes. In the meantime, there's no loss to HCB, which appears to be flourishing without DISQUS.
I've been thinking about that example of Classmates versus Facebook. And it is apt at another level. See, I suspect that the name “Classmates”, and probably the functionality as well, was too narrow. Some people don't care to relive their high school days! But Facebook broadened the field both in name and functionality, and people rewarded it by signing on in droves.
How does this relate to DISQUS? I believe they need to avoid narrowing the life of a commenter (for their own viability's sake). So here's a wish list I think they might consider…
- allow a commenter to opt out of having a profile automatically created
- allow a commenter to delete his own profile (not have to contact the company to do so)
-allow flexibility in tracking; a commenter could opt to have certain sites left out of his comment thread
-allow commenters to hide/show/delete/alter various aliases associated with his profile
- allow commenters to exempt certain comments from the thread
-provide comment deletion options
-give commenter the option to show/hide his comment pop-up box from (just because a commenter may have to use DISQUS to comment on a site that has installed it doesn't mean he is particularly interested in the opportunity to be tracked!)
-give commenter the option to make his profile public or private, even without claiming it
- add a pop-up message when commenter comments the first time, explaining that an undeletable profile (though it should be deletable) is about to be made for him, with a sample of what that looks like
The best web programs provide for these kinds of things in their functionality. DISQUS?
(And now, for those who want more freedom while they wait, because they'd like to comment on good sites like this one without being threaded, here's a tip: just use a bogus email every time… because DISQUS weaves your thread together by using your email; I tried it here so you can see that this comment and the one before it aren't threaded, just for kicks, as our venerable blog owner likes to say. This doesn't require the creation of a new email account. You can just make anything up, as long as it has the form of a real email address. So much for the push towards transparency!
HCB Reader, thanks for the tip. That is so cool. I'm going to try it.
Okay, here I am trying it.
Oh, oh, oh! It works!!
I feel so…
opaque. : )
L.L., so you like that trick?
Here’s another good one. Or maybe actually a bad one–which serves to make the point about the need for greater commenter control.
Let’s say that the name of the blog owner here was not “goodwordediting” but rather “venerable blog owner.”
Let’s say that, just for kicks, Mischievous Devoted HCB Reader comes along and wants to razz Venerable Blog Owner. MDHCBR would have to know VBO’s email to accomplish this, but the following could happen (mischievously, or, less likely, accidentally)…
MDHCBR could leave a comment using VBO’s email and… magic of all magic… MDHCBR could become part of VBO’s comment thread, as if the two were one.
But enough of trying to explain. Let’s try it out so you can see.
Here I am trying it out.
It works (just click the profile for VBO and see how we're linked. [fanfare and squeals of equal volume to yours, L.L.]
Mischievous Devoted HCB Reader and Venerable Blog Owner are now as one. Good thing Mischievous Devoted HCB Reader doesn’t atually know VBO’s email. Yet.
Devoted HCB Reader… so, like, hey, what's your email?
[she says innocently]
L.L., no problem [he says, just as innocently].
Which one would you like?
And remember, before you try this trick in the privacy of your own home, you might want to come up with a different name than your own real name. Otherwise you and I and Venerable Blog Owner may become one, which may or may not be of interest to you.
Interesting discussion here. For some reason, as owner of the blog, the
annonymity still bothers me. For me social media is about being social. How
can we be social if no one knows who we are? More and more, I'm becoming an
advocate for transparency online.
That doesn't mean we don't still allow ourselves privacy. But we shouldn't
expect a published comment on a public website or blog to be a place where
privacy is an option.
When you visit glass houses, people will see what you do there.
I love your idealism.
And, at least for my part, I'm not so interested in being anonymous (though that can be fun sometimes). I just like the idea of being able to choose whether or not my comments are mini-blogged.
funny exchange between hcb reader and l.l.
i'm still too green to know what's really going with this topic, but i enjoyed reading about it.
I am not sure what you mean by transparency online. A DISQUS profile is only as transparent as the creator of it allowed it to be…And an application like that encourages people to work harder at being anonymous and maintaining different aliases. (Thanks for the tip DHCBR)
Really though, this isn't about transparency, it is an objection to an over-controlling application and to having everything said in it compiled together. When I roll over a profile and see a bunch of comments unrelated to the blog posting I am on, it is actually confusing and gives me a feeling of having walked in to someone else's conversation. I do not feel the need to be in on everything you have to say to everyone else.
This would however be a nice way for me to keep track of everything I am commenting on.
I am not sure what you mean by transparency online. A DISQUS profile is only as transparent as the creator of it allowed it to be…And an application like that encourages people to work harder at being anonymous and maintaining different aliases. (Thanks for the tip DHCBR)
Really though, this isn't about transparency, it is an objection to an over-controlling application and to having everything said in it compiled together. When I roll over a profile and see a bunch of comments unrelated to the blog posting I am on, it is actually confusing and gives me a feeling of having walked in to someone else's conversation. I do not feel the need to be in on everything you have to say to everyone else.
This would however be a nice way for me to keep track of everything I am commenting on.
HCB reader thanks for the tip i really appreciate it! let me see if i can try it!
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