please tell me why you keep deleting my accounts. im just trying to participate and i haven't broken any rules.

I don't delete accounts. I'm not sure why it's happened. I'll ask.

Thank you for not turning comments off on your posts Dan.

I read the comment from exelizabeth & I agree that it was excellent.
She certainly offered a new POV not heard by Stranger staff.

Chris also said "5. Bet you anything women have a different experience of Twitter than men do," and I bet you anything that women writers on Slog have a different experience of the comments than men (including Dan Savage).

I'm just here to say that esteemed commenter Catalina Vel-DuRay is one of the few reasons I continue to visit Slog.

SLOG is one of the few places on the net where I willingly go into the comments. Yeah, I see some eye-roll-worthy trolling and the like, but even when I read long threads on controversial topics I see a lot less than what I get when I just accidentally read a few comments at the end of an article elsewhere.

The time and energy it takes to moderate, even lightly, is not insignificant. I appreciate the effort, and and grateflyu that some discourse is still happening here. I also completely understand why some people turn comments off, and don't blame them at all.

I, too, still yearn for comment threads to be a place for intelligent and nuanced discussion and conversation, and have hope that they will someday become exactly that more than they are today. We have this super-powerful technology that could really allow us to understand each other more, to get past the right/left bullshit and really get to the core of who we are as people, to truly learn from each other. Trolls ruin it for everyone. I'm not going to quit intelligently commenting. I am, however, going to try harder to not get sucked into the crap side as much.

Dear Catalina Vel-DuRay: Would you email me, please?

@1: You keep getting deleted probably because you spam multiple comment threads with the same off topic ALL CAPS laden comments.

@9: I'll message them for you if you like. :)
I see Catalina on Facebook

Anonymity goes hand in hand with trolling. Commenting needs a system where identity can be verified before being allowed to post - and all posts should be required to have the identity of the poster (full real name) attached.

Yes, Mr. Savage.

@12:

I'll second that. Trolls troll because they know they can vomit up any inflammatory misogynistic/homophobic/xenophobic comment with little repercussion; at most their account will be blocked, but they can easily create new accounts ad nauseam. Linking accounts to URL's would also help to minimize such abuse.

Blog comments are like most other things in life. Some are hidden gems, some are best left hidden, and most are merely forgettable.

@12: you're kidding/trolling, right?

"all posts should be required to have the identity of the poster (full real name) attached"?

Yeah, that's going to work really well on Dan's threads about kink and LGBTQ issues.

@16:

Why not? We're not asking for the identity of people who submit questions to Dan, just those who comment on SLOG posts.

the feel of slog comments has certainly changed in a downward direction over the years. i've been reading and somewhat (in)frequently commenting for way too long now. part of the problem for me is that i'm not a part of the good slog "community" -- as i once was. but i think apart from that, there's just a lot more stupid or incendiary comments here. before there was, like, one or two trolls. and even they would attempt discourse from time to time. now, there's a bunch more and there's not even an attempt to communicate. also, calatina is great, and i miss fnarf's insight on everything seattle.

There is a huge difference between a moderated comment section and an open one. Even if there is only light moderation, people behave much better. There are some places I won't even open up comments because they are so horrible. But SLOG is generally a pretty good place. Not always, but usually better than most.

@17: I'd have to hire bodyguards.

@17, in this political climate, asking LGBTQ posters to sign their real name is a surefire way to silence them. I have been harassed on these very boards for my gender identity months before the election. Frizzelle, Savage, and even Keck did nothing to stop or moderate it. If I had to reveal my real life identity, I would have no option but to leave, for the safety of my family and my community.

We don't always agree, but I don't think you want to run the transgender community off these boards on a rail. That would effectively be the immediate result of the action you are supporting. Every two weeks, a TPOC is found murdered in this country. I'm sorry, but I cannot support turning this venue into a potential shopping spot for haters to cherry pick their targets from.

I miss Fnarf too. He has been very kind to me in real life as have Catalina and other Sloggers from back in the day. I miss Kim in Portland, and the irascible 5280 (RIP) and the wonderful Mr. Harriman and Canuck.
We could have a community again if we wanted, and I think some mods would go a long way toward making a better environment for that.
This has been the only website where I comment for a reason, and I'd like to see it be an even better platform.

@23 - agreed. Kim's comments on religion and "Mr. Mile High" and his Denver-centric somewhat conservative outlook both are missed. I still check in; not too bad, really.

@22:

Well, the playing field would be leveled in the sense that EVERYONE would have to identify themselves, which is rather the point. People tend to be much more responsible with both their words and actions when they know others know who they are.

@25 and others - I use my real, full name with my local newspaper online comments so my neighbors will know how I feel about certain topics. I think there is a place for anonymity, and SLOG posters tend to do a pretty good job policing the occasional bad apple in the group - self regulation seems to work here, mostly.

@12: "Anonymity goes hand in hand with trolling. Commenting needs a system where identity can be verified before being allowed to post - and all posts should be required to have the identity of the poster (full real name) attached."

That's not a solution, trolls are proud to be homophobic and hateful under their real names.

We just need the hostiles 86'd quicker than sometimes happens. Willful trolls seem to set up roots for weeks longer than need be.

@17: "Why not? We're not asking for the identity of people who submit questions to Dan, just those who comment on SLOG posts"

What identity are you going to accept? What wouldn't be faked? Even ignoring the potential harm to privacy from posting in threads of a sexual nature under ones REAL NAME, you're going to have trolls submitting fake info.

@23: Hope all is well for you, Lissa!

@25: "Well, the playing field would be leveled in the sense that EVERYONE would have to identify themselves, which is rather the point"

But they wouldn't. The policy would be exclusively harmful to the sincere.

Also Dan, if you're reading beyond, have you ever considered moving comments to a more manageable platform like Discourse?

@27: I am well! Wrangling Nuns for a living agrees with me. :)
It's always nice to see your comments, and I hope you had a good holiday.

Golly this is great. We're being all civilized and shit!

I miss raku and being told we need more vegan infrastructure!

Also a little moderation in the comments would a long way. Block ip of those posting hate speach

I've been commenting off and on for years. I do miss some folks (like Kim and Fnarf and a few others), but in general you folks are keeping up the tradition of quality. Hats off, and happy new year to all!

btw: Stranger and Dan - I don't know ehat Disqus costs, but consider it. Really lights up the chats.

@17 Eh not a great idea. Who knows what will cause someone to look you up and stalk you. I was a student at the UW when that crazy homeless guy got a weird fixation on that woman and came to her work murdered her. Doesent take much to find out all about you.

@17/28:

It doesn't seem like it would be terribly difficult to ID commentors, using, for example, telephonic SMS verification (how many run-of-the-mill trolls have multiple phone accounts under different names or addresses? Very few, I would venture). Other web sites handle this fairly well, so it's not an insurmountable problem.

@33:

Well, I don't see how one can have it both ways. Either people would need to be identifiable in order to dissuade unsociable behavior, or they would have to accept the scum-sucking bottom-feeders in the comments - or do as many long-time SLOGers have done and just disconnect altogether.

Hey Dan, I am curious if you have ever talked to Jonathan Maus from Bikeportland.org. I think they have one of the best comment sections on the web and he really seems to care about making it that. It is a lot of work to moderate it the way that he does but I think if more places with comments put the kind of effort into it that he does comment sections would be better.

@31 - I don't think web sites have the time, or practicality, to determine IP addresses and block them, and IP addresses are not always static.

i appreciate this comments section when my comments aren't deleted. there seems to be a strong hive mindset on this forum, it may work for the regular users, but, for outsiders, everyone here seems very hostile to dissenting viewpoints.

@37:

Granted, dynamic IP addresses are problematic, or trolls can, if they're really motivated, simply unplug their modems for a few hours to get a new static IP assigned. Obviously, there are no "magic bullet" solutions to this, but the point is to actively discourage trollish behavior, and it seems like the more disincentives one can throw at them, the more likely they'll simply decide the cost (in time, if nothing else) for continuing to troll a particular site isn't worth the emotional satisfaction they get out of it, especially when there are plenty of more accessible web sites out there they could be vomiting all over instead.

Despite the trolls, I love the throughtful discussion that appears in Slog comments, and I usually learn a lot. While I rarely ever comment here, I was really active in Questionland before its untimely demise, and really miss it a lot. We had a great community there that loved Seattle, and I made some great IRL friends. I wish we had it back, even the archives.

In conclusion, the good folks here outnumber the trolls. Yay!

There's a large group of interesting and compassionate people, for example, who comment on/have a dialogue about Savage Love every week.

I have been under the impression for months now that comments have been disabled on the weekly column. But after reading this, I tried a browser that wasn't Firefox for Mac — and, what do you know, there they are!

Gawker had the best comments. Sigh.

TL:DR

Actually, it used to be fun when we all knew each other, but I regret how today's trolls attack women online and expect to get away with it; the poor staffer having to read that deserves multiple medals

I thought it was weird that comments would be turned off for "I, Anonymous", cover stories and other features — basically, anything on the site other than SLOG. But it's just a browser issue.

A person might want to look into that.

I've only been reading Slog and its comments for 5-6 years now, obviously not as long as some here, but I too have noticed a decline in the comment section. However it strikes me that the decline in quality of the comment threads correlates with a decline in the quality of the articles.

There have always been trolls I think they just seem to be more numerous now then in the past because the more insightful comments aren't commenting due to the decline of insightful articles worth commenting on.

@43
Yes everything was better in the old days.

@33: True that, I've been stalked IRL by someone I'd only interacted via local social media, they went so far to create fake media accounts for me, and track me down to my home address which right at that time had the only smashed window I'd ever had after several years in that location. Creeps be creepin'.

@42: Oh gosh, maybe before they revamped their comments section. It went downhill really quickly after that point.

The only thing I miss about the golden age of the Slog was the quality of discussions of the decline in comment quality. You used to read some really funny, insightful things about how much more intelligent and sincere the threads used to be. We still have one or two left whose nostalgia is worth your time but they way the lament that it's not like it was is not like it was.

@38: "for outsiders, everyone here seems very hostile to dissenting viewpoints"

It takes a lot to get comments deleted here, so they must be rather terrible opinions.

@46: It was nice when we had semi regular Slog Happy meet ups, and we all had a chance to know each other in real life. Will isn't wrong about that.
It's harder to be a stinker to someone on line when you've hung out with them in the flesh.
So yes, in this case, it was better in the old days, for that reason.

Anonymous comments are great. Often thought provoking and "raw" they are often useful or interesting or humorous or offensive but witty. Both on SLOG and on some news sites like The Guardian and NYT.

Plus, the super-wealthy can say what they want, but the rest of us can lose jobs and wind up on the streets, literally, for an errant comment. Anonymous comments are great. And I'm not talking about hate speech but the right wing and the left wing both have elements of thought police who have tanked careers of people with jobs that looked secure (like tenured academics) who were stupidly offensive. Free speech means little if you're homeless. Of course, anyone can be doxed, but it requires a level of technical skill that won't usually be applied to anonymous comments.

This whole thread is a solution in search of a problem. Nobody is really bothered by any comments on Slog if that person continues to comment on Slog. This is especially true because we all have more important things to do.

the biggest problem you readers have is your herd/hive mentality. you think anonymity is the cause of the belligerent hecklers. but those 'trolls' as you call them are simply responding to the despicable ideology that clouds these pages.

@53: I'm beginning to guess why you get banned wherever you go.

please explain it to me some time. seems to be the seattle freeze that fosters libtardation.

Yes. Please leave comments on. I'm a regretful and often pointless/high contributor here, but I love to read the opinions of others and have learned a lot about how policy and politics affects others. There are some good people here. Except @53 who is a spamming douche.

@55: I have reported you for Spamming multiple threads with the same comment. So if you don't want to get banned, not doing that is a good place to start.

I have a faint memory of Woody Allen posting a comment to Slog - many years ago. It was probably was him - or I like to think so. I forget what the comment was, except that began with a reference to starting a film.

Ok, please show me evidence of that Lissa. I've been talking about the disservice of this publication's support of Hillary Clinton. I only posted comments in threads about politics. but if little libtards like yourself need a safe space, i guess the moderator will have to spend lots of time banning dissenting viewpoints from your purveyor.

exelizabeth could seriously lose her job for that post. It was super easy to google one of the students she mentioned, and confidentiality is a HUGE deal when you're a teacher.

Oh my, I have now had a chance to read this thread, and I must say I am flattered by the kind words.

I have long said, and said on Slog, that I think there are two different standards when it comes to comments: "Traditional" journalism (on-line presences of newspapers and television) and advocacy journalism, such as The Stranger.

"Traditional" journalism should hold to the time-honored tradition of no comments, but readers submitting well-written, coherent letters to the editor. Advocacy publications - in their rough-and-tumble, community-building tradition - should embrace on-line comments, including trolls. And there should be no excuse - including the writer's gender or sexuality - for posting something without opening it up for comments. If you can't defend what you've said about a theatrical production or book review on an "alt weekly", you need to be at a traditional medium. If a writer is concerned for their personal safety, there is a long and proud tradition of the pseudonym.

With that said, gentle moderation is needed: If a comment is pertinent to the article, it gets a lot more leeway from me than if it's just some broadcast spam like Our Dear Strangerino has been up to recently. And if it's just viciousness without purpose or point, it should be deleted posthaste. But a well-aimed piece of viciousness can be very helpful to a writer in sharpening one's claws.

@59: Your comment history from your previous iterations are no more my dear.
Quel dommage!
And did I mention anything about the content of your comments? No I did not.
I flagged you for spamming, and spamming is what you did. It had nothing to do with "safe spaces", or even your demonstrably unpleasant personality, and every thing to do with you posting the same god damn comment over and over in multiple different threads.
So again, maybe don't do that.

you are lying Lissa. there was some similarity but i never did that because i was careful to edit out enough content from each post. you are harassing me and so is the webmaster of this site by continually deleting my accounts.

If you're getting completely banned, then there's a lot of different people reporting you. Repeatedly. That's quite special. You have to be really, really unpopular. Have you ever seen a YouTube comment thread with like, 500 comments? And the one on top has maybe +147 likes? And you scroll down and down and down to the basement and there's like these little dingleberries on the end just crushed into the dirt. Like negative 899 or something? Nobody likes that guy. Nobody. You're like that. If you're getting banned, you're that disliked.

At least here it takes a little while. These automated systems cram you straight into the toilet and flush before you can refresh your screen twice. You do not want Disqus.

i would like disqus, in person round-table would be even better. i haven't insulted or attacked anybody. i've just defended my position

@63 - Some similarity? Dude, I reported you a couple of times myself for the exact same reason - spamming and off-topic. Just because an article happened to mention 'Politics' does not mean that your tired old screed about Feelin' the Bern was relevant. Comment on the content of the article itself (and keep the schoolyard insults to yourself) and perhaps people won't feel the need to report you.

show me one example

I'm late to this party but I am another longtime fan of Mme Vel-DuRay.

I miss Fnarf and many of those already mentioned.

You know who I don't miss? Loveschild*.

*(Also Seattleblues.)

Something that would be a welcome addition to the Slog comment system would be a "block user" option. My local paper uses Disqus for comments on blog posts by staff writers, and Facebook comments for regular articles; with both, the individual reader can block all comments from any individual commenter. You don't have to report them or anything --- you just don't see their posts any more. I've done it to 3 or 4 people, and it makes life a lot pleasanter.

@53. I called you on your comments and asked you to provide proof for your accusations against Dan. No response from you.

There was a period of time a few years ago where the comments got really nasty and the Slog writers started getting bitchy about it. But, it was pointed out that the Slog authors were getting equally assholish and antagonistic. Shortly thereafter, the slog authors got a bit less blatantly antagonistic and clickbaity and comments got to be a bit nicer.

During this past election cycle, the slog writers got truly nasty quite early in the cycle. One of the biggest offenders was Matt Baume who would antagonize other Democrats by frequently denigrating people who didn't support Hillary. Dan Savage regularly participated in the denigration game while playing coy with his bitankual bullcrap.

The tone of the authors sets the tone of the commenters. Being a blatant asshole as an author just permits the commenters to be as big of assholes as possibly. Maybe now that the second most divisive presidential candidate is gone (though the most divisive candidate is taking office), everybody (including myself) can tone down the antagonistic rhetoric.

I've said this before, but I'll repeat it: I hang out on SLOG, despite not living in Seattle or even the U.S., in large part because of the quality of the comments.The ratio of interesting and thoughtful comments to ignorant and trolly ones is remarkably high (especially when you keep in mind that this is the internet). People express genuine disagreements of opinion, sometimes even civilly! People often say things that get at the heart of the matter and aren't simply reiterations of one tired party line or another!

Thank you Dan for keeping comments enabled. And thank you Sloggers for being an interesting bunch.

The decline in comments is due to the paper getting rid of most of the actual talent, which caused many commenters to leave, raising the ration of troll/asshole to normal person.

If you kept talented bloggers and put out articles with some actual meat on them, you would attract a higher number of decent commenters.

Most Slog articles are now just attacks on people who disagree with you, a list of embedded tweets from some nobody, or whatever the hell Mudede scrapes from the ever deepening bottom of his barrel that week.

That being said, as bad as it seems sometimes, the comment threads here are a bastion of reason and decency compared to those on most news sites. Hell, people here actually seem to proofread.

I think the world of you bunch; you and your smart brains. Keep commenting.

/waves

Wow, Dan is a real deal grownup who can just *ignore* things he doesn't like!

@67 Strangerinno you want and example? Check out your comment here: http://www.thestranger.com/slog/2017/01/…

Want to tell me what the hell Lynch's support of Bernie has ANYTHING to do with Twin Peaks at all? This is what people talk about of you being a troll. (also Lynch is directing every episode of S3 of Twin Peaks so I don't see how he has "withdrawn support" of the show)

@67: See below.

You @59:” little libtard…”
You @65: “I haven’t insulted or attacked anybody…”
You, strangerinno, are hilarious. Unintentionally, but hilarious none the less.

Sanguisuga’s advice is good, because you have not been contributing to any conversation.
What you’ve been doing is being a human vuvuzela.

@75: waves back :)

@63:

You DO know this is a privately owned web site and the owners have every right to enforce whatever standards of conduct they see fit, yes? If you're getting banned then it's because in their determination you've violated those standards - repeatedly from the sounds of it. That's not "harassment" that's their prerogative, and if you don't like, or can't accept the terms they've set, you are always free to go elsewhere.

Here's an option that could discourage spammers/trolls while maintaining a measure of anonymity: Make registered users pay a one-time fee to comment. Somebody that gets repeatedly banned isn't going to pay $5 every time they want to register a new account.

This would raise some funds (which Keck would like) to pay for moderation and/or go towards a cause. It would also leave a paper trail to hold truly awful or threatening people accountable.

I'm not a huge fan of Disqus, and I know somebody put a lot of work into MyStrangerFace... But the comment system needs some help. It sucks that you can't edit anything. And if we had threaded comments, it would make it easier for people to stay on topic.

Also, where is the Slog commenting policy? That should be easy to find for multiple reasons.

@22 "I have been harassed"

it's a comment thread. It's not DEFCON 1 when someone says something about you that you don't like. If you're secure in yourself you wouldn't give a hot shit.

and look at how many different people turn around and spend time talking with *one idiot troll*

How long have you all been on the internet? Does "don't feed the trolls" mean anything to you? Why do you always blow these up to dozens of comments as if you're suddenly going to get through to someone too stupid to understand why nobody likes their dumb shit?

@85 that did it! that was the post that will make him see the light and understand! you did it! great job!

The CHZA are you familiar with Matthew 7: 3-5?
BTW are you hungry?

@82: Fine in theory but I doubt the Stranger staff want to deal with the bullshit payment reversal/chargebacks that would come from that.

It would hurt sincere anons the most, persons with a lot to lose who post on random Savage love and civil rights related threads about their person and life.

@75. Pridge. Waving from sunny Queensland, Australia.

I'm proud to say it is the excellent comments of our exquisite Mz. Vel-DuRay which keep bringing me back to Slog -- in fact, I found this thread by searching the site for her latest & greatest commentary. Keep moving and shaking us, my dear!

@81: Yeah, I am sure a bunch of conservative bros heard that one this one tiny liberal blog there is a small, hardly commented on football post about a single team once a week, and they just had to get in there and flood the place.

It is solely about the firing/quitting of actual talent. Most of the regular commenters left once people like Goldy, Constant, and Madrid left, Slog was merged with LineOut, and the quality/frequency of Slog posts dropped fast. Readers left, trolls stayed.

Also, people here LOVE arguing with trolls, despite what they claim. Trolls add to clicks, comment totals, and page views in a really big way here. They offer a really easy target so people here can feel better about themselves in contrast, and add to the site's monetary value.

Like it or not, it is a symbiotic relationship. At least based on how it plays out here every damn day.

@92: In some cases this is true to a minor extent. Some Gamergate creeps posted the Matt Hickey article to some MRA subreddit for their fellow freaks to comment on.

"Also, people here LOVE arguing with trolls, despite what they claim"

I do reply sometimes but always flag the obvious shitposters in the hopes that they'll be sent to the cornfield. Sometimes it works, often it doesn't. At least the cretin in this thread got wiped as he deserves.

@84:

I prefer to think of them, not so much as trolls, but more like dancing monkeys - sometimes it's amusing to drop a coin in their cup and watch them flail about off-rhythm to the organ-grinder melody of the current topic of debate. It also helps if you imagine them sitting at their keyboards with a tiny bellhop's cap jauntily angled on top of their pointy little noggins.

@94: Eh, they're never at all smart so it'd be more fun if they just went away, back to whatever idiot-hell that spawned them.

I do appreciate the picture of the people who won't leave well enough alone clattering around on their keyboards in their crawlspace domiciles all dressed up like a monkey butler though.

Fez not optional.

On topic!

https://blog.coralproject.net/the-real-n…

"Nine Key Facts on Anonymity and Social Problems Online
Beyond the lab, what else does research tell us about information disclosure and online behavior?

Roughly half of US adult victims of online harassment already know who their attacker is, according a nationally-representative study by Pew’s Maeve Duggan in 2014 [6]. The study covered a range of behaviors from name calling to threats and domestic abuse. Even if harassment related to protected identities could be “solved” in one effort to move to ‘real names’, more than half of US harassment victims, over 16 million adults, would be unaffected.

Conflict, harassment, and discrimination are social and cultural problems, not just online community problems. In societies including the US where violence and mistreatment of women, people of color, and marginalized people is common, we can expect similar problems in people’s digital interactions [1]. Lab and field experiments continue to show the role that social norms play in shaping individual behavior; if the norms favor harassment and conflict, people will be more likely to follow. While most research and design focuses on changing the behavior of individuals, we may achieve better results by focusing on changing climates of conflict and prejudice [17,16].

Revealing personal information exposes people to greater levels of harassment and discrimination. While there is no conclusive evidence that displaying names and identities will reliably reduce social problems, many studies have documented the problems it creates. When people’s names and photos are shown on a platform, people who provide a service to them – drivers, hosts, buyers – reject transactions from people of color and charge them more [9,5,8]. Revealing marital status on DonorsChoose caused donors give less to students with women teachers, in fields where women were a minority [18]. Gender- and race-based harassment are only possible if people know a person’s gender and/or race, and real names often give strong indications around both of these categories. Requiring people to disclose that information forces those risks upon them.

Companies that store personal information for business purposes also expose people to potentially serious risks, especially when that information is leaked. In the early 2010s, poorly-researched narratives about the effects of anonymity led to conflicts over real-name policies known as “Nymwars.” This provided the justification for more advanced advertising-based business models to develop, which collect more of people’s personal information in the name of reducing online harm. Several high-profile hackings of websites have revealed the risks involved in trusting companies with your personal information.

We also have to better understand if there is a trade-off between privacy and resources for public safety. Since platforms that collect more personal information have high advertising revenues, they can hire hundreds of staff to work on online safety. Paradoxically, platforms that protect people’s identities have fewer resources for protecting users. Since it’s not yet possible to compare rates of harassment between platforms, we cannot know which approach works best on balance.

It’s not just for trolls: identity protections are often the first line of defense for people who face serious risks online. According to a US nationally-representative report by the Data & Society Institute, 43% of online harassment victims have changed their contact information and 26% disconnected from online networks or devices to protect themselves [15]. When people do withdraw, they are often disconnected from the networks of support they need to survive harassment. Pseudonymity is a common protective measure. One study on the reddit platform found that women, who are more likely to receive harassment, also use multiple pseudonymous identities at greater rates than men [14].
"

"Requirements of so-called “real names” misunderstand how people manage identity across multiple social contexts, exposing vulnerable people to risks. In the book It’s Complicated, danah boyd shares what she learned by spending time with American teenagers, who commonly manage multiple nickname-based Facebook accounts for different social contexts [24]. Requiring a single online identity can collapse those contexts in embarrassing or damaging ways. In one story, boyd describes a college admissions officer who considered rejecting a black applicant after seeing gang symbols on the student’s social media page. The admissions officer hadn’t considered that the symbols might not have revealed the student’s intrinsic character; posting them might have been a way to survive in a risky situation. People who are exploring LGBTQ identities often manage multiple accounts to prevent disastrous collapses of context, safety practices that some platforms disallow [7].

Clear social norms can reduce problems even when people’s names and other identifying information aren’t visible. Social norms are our beliefs about what other people think is acceptable, and norms aren’t de-activated by anonymity. We learn them by observing other people’s behavior and being told what’s expected [2]. Earlier this year, I supported a 14-million-subscriber pseudonymous community to test the effect of rule-postings on newcomer behavior. In preliminary results, we found that posting the rules to the top of a discussion caused first-time commenters to follow the rules 7 percentage points more often on average, from 75% to 82%.

People sometimes reveal their identities during conflicts in order to increase their influence and gain approval from others on their side. News comments, algorithmic trends, and other popular conversations often become networked battlegrounds, connected to existing conflict and discussions in other places online. Rather than fresh discussions whose norms you can establish, these conversations attract people who already strongly identify with a position and behavior elsewhere, which means that these large-scale struggles are very different from the small, decision-making meetings tested in anonymity lab experiments. Networks of “counterpublics” are common in democracies, where contention is a basic part of the political process [25,26,27]. This means that when people with specific goals try to reframe the politics of a conversation, they may gain more influence by revealing their pre-existing social status [28,29]. For example, in high-stakes discussions like government petitions, one case study from Germany found that aggressive commenters were more likely to reveal their identity than stay anonymous, perhaps in hopes that the comments would be more influential [30].

Abusive communities and hate groups do sometimes attempt to protect their identities, especially in cultures that legally protect groups while socially sanctioning them. But many hate groups operate openly in the attempt to seek legitimacy [4]. Even in pseudonymous settings, illegal activity can often be traced back to the actors involved, and companies can be compelled by courts to share user information, in the few jurisdictions with responsive law enforcement.

Yet law is reactive and cannot respond to escalating risks until something happens. In pseudonymous communities that organize to harm others, social norms are no help because they encourage prejudice and conflict. Until people in those groups break the law, the only people capable of intervening are courageous dissenters and platform operators [3]."

I'm glad you don't turn off the comments because we learn from each other, from the enlightened comments to the crappy ones. It's important for us to know how others think because people don't generally talk much on a deep level in this town unless you know each other very well.

That woman's comments, assuming it's a woman, on the Juvenile jail and her kiddos saddens me because it may be different in California but here in Seattle there are very few, if any, real rehabilitative or counselling services offered to incarcerated or "detained" children. There's no money, absolutely no money, set aside for those kinds of services in the Juvenile jail budget and it won't come from best starts for kids, so where will it come from? Does Washington state have the money? It doesn't appear to.

The jail is an institutional cage that says two kids you are unworthy of being with the rest of us, and we're willing to put you away, maybe throw you away. That's the bottom line and that's the exact wrong message to send to children who are nine times out of ten not seriously bad or violent but just make wrong decisions. And they often learn in jail how to make more wrong decisions. Sure, some kids need to be detained and kept away from the rest of the public but why build an entire system around small minority? There are alternatives to institutionalization and King County would be wise to support those. And the racial disparity of children in this region who are jailed is a whole nother societal wrong.

"My students have murdered, assaulted, raped and harmed people" is how she describes her "kiddos." Wow. That's some passive-aggressive BS because most kids who are locked up, at least in King County, are not there for violent offenses and even if they are, they are children, and they are children, emotionally speaking in terms of brain development, sometimes up through the age of 25. So with friends and caretakers like her, those kids are in deep trouble. I don't know if she's purposefully putting them in a bad light and secretly hates her work but she's not doing those kiddos any favors by characterizing them as dangerous criminals and herself as their (white, I'm guessing) protector.