A little while ago I mentioned that we were thinking about requiring registration for commenters and asked for feedback. Some was positive and some was negative, but most of the negative feedback related to (a) having to use your real name or (b) being required to use a Facebook account.
The whole trolling situation has since gotten pretty far out of hand, so we’ve decided to go ahead with registration. However, you won’t be required to use your real name and you won’t be required to use a Facebook account.
Note that this only affects you if you have been posting as a “guest”; if you normally sign in with Disqus (which powers our commenting system) or your Mother Jones ID, nothing changes. If you were using the “guest” feature, you can now sign in via Disqus, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Twitter, or OpenID. You can also create a commenter identity in the Mother Jones system here. As before, your information will not be disclosed; see Disqus’ privacy policy here and Mother Jones’ here.
Our moderators will continue to keep an eye out for abusive comments, but given the volume of discussion here, we’d love your help. Flag abusive comments (see our community rules here), which helps us identify and ban trolls. Further feedback is welcome, of course. You can email us at support at motherjones dot com.
