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This may be more of a 2.0 philosophy question, but I run a news website and am about to launch a comment feature.  I recognize that transparency and immediacy are desirable things if you want to get a lot of discussion going at a site.  That generally spells a freewheeling apporach and perhaps anonymous posting.

BUT… I’ve noticed that when the daily paper here launched their comment feature with anon posting capabilities, it was immediately descended upon by the lowest demoninator of foul-mouthed, insulting trolls and meat puppets, which I think had more of a chilling effect on community dialogue than anything.  I suppose that opinion is debatable.  The other issue is that, from a legal standpoint, the more one censors a site the more that censor is assuming responsibility for the content and comments that are left….

After watching what’s unfolded at the other publication, I want to make sure I’ve got good architecture in place.  For sure, I don’t want to throw it totally open, although I would still like it iniviting for lighthearted comments dashed off at the spur of the moment.  You know, a little spice is an entertaining thing.

My thought is to design the comments feature so that any anon posts by unregistered users get purged after a couple of days.  That way the trolls can have their fun but the archival record will contain comments only from those who assume ownership of their opinions.  But I don’f know if this is possible or how one might go about doing that inside the EE framework.

I’d also like to hear comment from others about how they’ve addressed this problem.

You know, I have always liked John Gruber’s reason for not doing comments on his site.

Fascinating and provocative.  Kinda cross-purpose to building a community portal, but illuminating in that perhaps not all things should be commentable.

“This is so.”
“No, it’s not. Jerk.”

Expression granted, yes, but has understanding been advanced—at all—by such a dialog?

Interesting article indeed, but it’s definitely not a direction all sites should follow. After all there are numerous sites that wouldn’t have made it without comments.

So to get back to you original question.
There are various ways to monitor your comments. The most intensive one is to check each comment ater submission and then choose to publish them or not. The least intensive one is to built a “karma-system”. Visitors/users can approve or disapprove a published comment. The more approvals it receives, the more valuable the comment is. And vice versa. But I haven’t seen any EE sites that use this method.

And then there’s this new thing, called “Caving the Trolls”. Read more about this very interesting approach on this site. I must say the idea is quite nice and something I really would support. But I haven’t been able to test this tool (not available for EE) but from what I’ve read and seen thus far; I think it could use a bit more tweaking.

If you’re looking for a short term solution to your problem; calculate how many comments you expect if you open up (do you receive a lot of emails about subjects? Compare them to visitor stats) and then just choose to open up for all visitors or just to people who want to register. Add the word “beta” to your logo and monitor closely how your site is developing. And just try over a short period what works best for your visitors and you as well!

I don’t think every site needs comments. And I’m with Paul, I think Daring Fireball’s John Gruber provides an excellent reason. Though I admit to more than a few times regretting that decision—not for the need to have my comment displayed, but for easy access to providing feedback. In fact for a number of sites without comments, I do wish the writers would make it easier to provide feedback. I mean after all could just be as simple as using the comment form as a feeback form, with no public display.

For people who really care about their comments, but don’t want a lot of work. I’ve always thought that the membership approach worked fairly well. If I really enjoy a site, and find myself wanting to comment frequently, I just join the site‚ especially if membership is free. On sites that allow you to stay logged in forever, this works well, because I often forget that I had to join to get access to the comment form in the first place. For sites that expire your cookie every couple of days, I admit its kind of irritating.