OSNews

one of the resolutions maybe?

I'll have a drink on it tonight .

I think we all will enjoy (or already are enjoying) a good drink on it.

Happy New Year!

One resolution from everybody should be to not attack the staff directly

Point!

Maybe the staff should refrain from attacking their users then.

Happened to me, and it's why I went anonymous.

Not likely. If there are too many sign ups from the same non-commonplace domain, our exception reporting notices it. If you think it's wortwhile to sign up for a new Yahoo/Gmail/Hotmail account every 30 days just to continue to use OSnews semi-anonymously, well, more power to you.

GMail lets you postfix (did I just make a word up?) your e-mail to do just this.

Do you know how easy it is to create a mail alias?

Come on, you have to be smarter than this.

1. SMTP tricks (like using the + sign) are already monitored. Multiple addresses to the same domains are alrady monitored. You underestimate our ability to pull information from our own database.

2. Either way, if you really want to skirt the system, go ahead. Those people will likely be ignored anyway - as the community grows and average scores are taken into account. Personally, I think anyone who goes through all that trouble just to be able to post anonymously has larger issues than fitting into the OSNews community.

You IP isn't hidden for long...

"Help help I'm being repressed!"

And look how quickly you went and signed up for an account :-). No more hiding now.

Great job OSNews...time to get things back on track around here (things have deteriorated quite a bit over the past year, so here's looking to an awesome '06). Things just keep getting better and better!

-jayson (a loyal OSNews reader for 4 years and counting).

Yep, I went from "anonymous" to "anonymous".

Cool. Pat yourself on the back now, and don't forget to inform everyone just how smart you are.

There is no reason other than 1) people requested it, and 2) the test we did a few months ago (we disabled anon. posting for a week) was succesful (higher comment-quality). So there you have it.

My word is all I can give you. As I said, I was against it at first (someone else on the team proposed it), it took months before people even convinced me of doing a *test*, let alone making it for real. But then again, you seem to have your mind made up already, so there really is no use in debating this.

Edited 2005-12-31 19:08

How many readers do you have?

Only 2-3 per week requested it, how many were the same person making the request?

Sounds like you implemented something that less than 1% of your reader base asked for.

Yeah, that's a smart idea.

For someone who does not like this site, you sure do comment a lot.

Only 2-3 per week requested it, how many were the same person making the request?

None. Want to know why? Because I emailed them back.

But anyway, why don't you go on and count the people in this thread who agree with what I'm doing? Seems like you are the only one disagreeing... Of course, people who are anonymous can't comment, so they can't voice themselves in this thread either... But hey, if you can twist the facts, than why can't I? .

You have yet to really offer your opinion on why this is a bad thing? How does registering for an account to post really inconvenience you or anyone else for that matter. What it does do is cut down on the retarded "Microsft sucks", "Linux sucks" comments that I often got disenchanted over.

Even with moderators it is a daunting task to catch every single one of em.

Even with non-anonymous posts you will still get the "gifted" few who don't quite get the old addage if you don't have somthing nice to say then don't say anything at all. In this example "nice" not being nice in general but from my stand point at least something relative to the article in which the user is commenting.

"What it does do is cut down on the retarded "Microsft sucks", "Linux sucks" comments that I often got disenchanted over."

HOW!

Will someone please answer me this? Is there some statistical proof that the "haters" are less inclined to register? Watch: Linux isn't ready for the desktop. Vista is going to require I buy a top of the line video card and another stick of ram just to send e-mail. Macs are just eyecandy. And I just beat your solution.

It assumes that most of the trolls wont bother to register and post, there will be some of course that will register, but then that's where voting comes in handy.

One can only hope tho...

Happy New Years from Guatemala to All, and thanks for the staff for trying to make osnews better, realizing and admitting there are problems and trying to fix them, even with measures that many people wont like is better than apathy and doing nothing at all.

This aleviates (or is it Eleviates?) the problem because most Trolls post anonymously because there is less chance of them having to worry about any consequences where as being required to register makes them question this false sense of 'Immunity' to consequences that may occur as a result of their own actions.

Personally in my experience I have rarely seen a Troll from someone who is a registered member of a site community, like Neowin for example.

Also I will answer your other question about users who have Dynamic IP's, well this is solved by IP bands, ISP's are limited to the IP ranges in which they can use, and in many cases they are then divided again into regional addresses, my ISP does this, they have their main IP range, and then sub-divide that into ranges for different regions. All that will occur is that certain IP ranges would be banned

Thom, You can't count the people who liked the anonymous posting becuse... Um you disabled it and thereby silenced their Voice.

Thom, You can't count the people who liked the anonymous posting becuse... Um you disabled it and thereby silenced their Voice.

Why don't you read my post in its entirity?

Ah, I see now. Sorry I hit that stupid comment and stopped reading the comment there like I do with all Stupid comments. Howver seeing your role in this I thought I would reply.

Imagine that I skip over the comments I don't think have any value....

What a novel idea.

Aside from the fact that somebody here is trying to prove that trolls don't have to be anonymous, what exactly is your problem with the end to anonymous postings?

If you really care, start a petition. If you're nice to Thom, he might even link to it :-)

Meanwhile, it's great to have OSNews back, minus most of the trolls...

Happy New Year everybody!

My problem with the end of the anonymous posting is that the comment sections will not only lose the Trolls but also some valuable and insightful input.

I prefer to Post anonymously as that way people can't associate my comments as coming from a person slanted one way or the other. Otherwise people tend to read comments and respond to comments based upon comments I may have made in the past.

Instead now I will just have to create new ID's every so often. This is my 3rd on osnews since anonymous posting was originally disabled back in November.

I wonder what number I will be at by the end of next year

Well, you can get a life...

I like your attitude. If I ever make it to Holland, can I buy you a beer? :-)

Bill

I for one am happy that this is being implemented as other news sites and most forum sites already require registered users to post comments. It provides not only an organized structure but also makes it easier when replying to posts as well for casual readers to read comments.

Thom may fly off the handle every great once in a while (who doesn't?), but I personally won't believe any of you can't tell the difference between the week that anonymous comments were allowed and when they weren't.

>Getting rid of anonymous is a good idea. Now there won't be as many "idiotic" and random posts are there used to. I think it's a sensible idea to take responsibility for what you post, not say something "bad" and then hide as anonymous.

It is also a good way to ban and remove all guys that don't think as you.

Re: "It is also a good way to ban and remove all guys that don't think as you."

Moderators who do their job don't typically ban posters who dissagree with their point of view. They do have a right to ban a poster when he/she attitude gets out of hand. Such as using vulgar language or when attacking/insulting others which does little if anything to benefit readers.

Now, we all just get to make up stupid shit names and when they get deleted like this one will in 10 minutes we will need to make another one.

Maybe, but a lot of people won't go to the trouble of registering just to post an inflaming remark.

indeed, registration is annoying even for trolls.
they'll just use bugmenot.com.
just as i did.

indeed, registration is annoying even for trolls.
they'll just use bugmenot.com.
just as i did.

And we'll just set up a scritp, or do it manually, to block each and every account listed on BugMeNot.

It's just a few more minutes of work, added to the few hours a day, I work for OSNews. Easy enough.

Ok, thanks for the explanation.

I still don't have a strong opinion on the subject but if you're really convinced about wanting it this way, then by all means, go ahead with the plan.


I hope 2006 will be a good year for OSNews.

>I'm not going to disclose personal information, but I think we get about 2 emails each week asking for us to disable it.


lol 2 emails each week from the 120000 readers. Yeah, so many people have asked to disable it ....

I agree completely. It should reduce the troll count some.

bah! My nested comment table code is infinitely worse than OSNews could ever be.

I was anonymous yesterday, yet I'm not today.

Who am I?

I'm still anonymous.

Happy New Year.

"I'm still anonymous."

No, you are not. You just registered and I have already read ~6 of your comments.

It is much easier to associate comments based on name then trying to remember which anon user is which based on the first 3 octets of their IP address.

Do you know my name?

No.

How do you know I'm not 5 different accounts now that you don't see my IP address anymore?

You can't.

I could be ydoj or odie or garfield for that matter all posting at once.

Removing "anonymous" solves nothing.

Notice the username: suomynona -- anonymous

+1, very true, and they know that. I don't know what the hell brought this on.

They are trying to become a big site, however they lack the practical experience to do it in a way that they retain their existing readers.

That said, I 3 years ago read 10+ times a day. 2 years ago, I realized how immature the editor(s) were. 1 year ago I went anonymous and read every few days.

Now? I doubt I'll read even once a week. Today I've been here the most I've been here in months.

Unfortunately, Slashdot is higher quality.

Back to real websites.

Adios.

"That said, I 3 years ago read 10+ times a day. 2 years ago, I realized how immature the editor(s) were. 1 year ago I went anonymous and read every few days."

Whiners! OSNews still is, and will be one of my favourite bookmarks in the future.

GREAT WORK Thom, Eugenia, Andrew, Adam And a happy new years eve even though it's already 04:07 pm 2006 here in sweden...

"they lack the practical experience to do"

Boy isn't that an understatement.

Adios to you too. Either come to the site or don't, but I sure get a kick out of you simultaneously telling everyone how you're not going to be reading OSNews anymore while also posting 25 messages to this story.

But making you shut the hell up would solve everything!

"You just justified why 9 out of 10 anonymous people here are so, and why they have no problems blasting the editors of this site."
Because 9 out of 10 anonymous posters are YOU, and as we all know, YOU have no respect for the other users of this website.

"Well, now that I've thought about it and reflected back. They have given the people you call trolls (in some cases undeservatively) more power as you can't tell who is who anymore by the subnet they come from."
You could have registered anyway...

"Now? I doubt I'll read even once a week. Today I've been here the most I've been here in months."
It would be our plesure, so far you've brought nothing but insults to the table, no logical arguments and no usefull ideas at how trolling can be stoped. Infact, I'd go as far to say that in all the time you ever commented on this site, all you did was troll.

As for bugmenot, an automated script that blocks all user names found on that site would be easy to write.

I'm glad that these changes have been made, but there is still one thing that bugs me: I can vote up anyones comments for any reason (perhaps because I agree with them), but to vote down someones comments I have to have a very specific reason, disagreement is not one.

Thats the one thing I'd like to see changed.

"I was anonymous yesterday, yet I'm not today.

Who am I? "

I was going to post a reply composed of the letters diiot, but thought better of it. :-)

Bill

well now that anonymous posting is not permitted you might want to relax the score threshold. i'm not sure yet how this voting thing works otherwise there are a few i would have voted up already.

no it would not have just been staff . backwards anonymous did have a post or two that was insightful and at the least thought provoking.

=/ meh. i'll figure it out soon enough i suppose.

A lot of peoples votes went to modding down idiot anonymous posts. Hopefully we will see more votes go to good posts now.

You do realize that it is far better to mod up good posts that to mod down bad ones?

Of course. I was only suggesting what was probably happening.

I don't think OSNews has the same problems as Slashdot. When stories get 500 comments you might want to raise the threshold on Slashdot to read the most relevant posts. You don't have the same problem here (yet). I've seen a lot of good comments at 1 that stays that way permanently.

Hey! Anonymous!

I have a great idea!

Leave!

You are free to stop coming at any time.

Truly, your since of entitlement and the others complaining as if you're inalienable rights were being destroyed disgust me.

"You just justified why 9 out of 10 anonymous people here are so, and why they have no problems blasting the editors of this site."

Really? Wow. I must have some secret superpowers that I'm not aware of. I wasn't even talking about the anonymous people. I didn't realize my comments had hidden meanings.

That's got to be one of the most usefull sites I have ever seen.

Thanks!!

Hey cool!
THANKS FOR THE LINK!

There is also http://www.spamgourmet.com/

Great site, highly recommended.

Cool. Thanks. for any gmail users you should also check out gmail aliases. http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=12096&topic=156...

I don't get it. Bugmenot is basically so you don't have to register to read articles from sites like NYT which require registration just to look at the content. You can do everything on osnews -- except post comments.

If you want to post, and you're going to go through the effort of going to bugmenot, getting a login, and logging in -- shit, why not just register yourself?

Whatever floats your boat, I guess.

What if your IP changes every session? Like the 40% of the web on dial-up...

Well, now that I've thought about it and reflected back. They have given the people you call trolls (in some cases undeservatively) more power as you can't tell who is who anymore by the subnet they come from.

The troll that used to be (xx.xxx.xxx) is now ydoj or blue or fred.

No one will know (which is very likely already happening, but now it will just get worse).

So, it's really a good thing for everyone but the people that wanted to eliminate Anonymous.

I suppose that people will be people and do their best to try and find a way around it. I also believe that there are very few people who will go out of their way to abuse the system, so I doubt we'll need to write code to try to prevent it.

...unless it becomes a widespread problem.

Correct. Text based browsers currently can post anonymously.

We'll see how long we permit that.

We might work to make the mobile/text-mode browsers posting registered-only too, but this won't happen just yet. We might support some very basic mobile comment login, to supply the login/password every time you have to post a comment or a reply. This is the only way to guarantee that it will work on all mobile browsers (cookies or sessions are not a standard in that world to provide a full "logged in session" at all pages).

Anyways, happy new year everyone!

"Why should one have to stoop to using a PoS graphical browser to post here non-anonymously?"

Browser is just a tool; using a text-mode browser doesn't make you "cooler" than everybody else. You really don't have to climb down from your elitist heaven to post here anonymously, because, to tell you the truth, there are no such heaven at all -- you're simply imagining it.

Membership dues are to be paid upon joining. Make all checks payable to The Club of Mutual Admiration.

If you cannot hold a perceived minority position without taking the flak for it, then you should be the first person to doubt your own conviction. This being what it is, you have absolutely nothing to lose in any and all faux oppression.

Closing communities is never good

OSNews is what you folks call a community? Odd, I thought usenet, mailing lists, and forums were communities. This, on the other hand, is a news site .. you know, as in OS*News*. If I was of the view that this was a community site, I can tell you it would suck in more ways than one. However, I prefer to love the site for what it is.

Happy new year, all!!!

It will quite probably to a large extent turn the comments section into a "club of mutual admiration" thingy...

Because, goodness knows, the registered users on Slashdot all agree with one another. Each and every one of us, we're right-wing liberal environmentalist Kantian objectivists, all Linux-using pro-Apple Microsoft apologists, GPL-hating free software advocates with communistic capitalist bents.

I'm neutral on disabling anonymous posts and I have my disagreements with OS News staff decisions, past and present, but the assertion that requiring someone to go through a free registration process is "closing the community" is nonsense. Yes, it dissuades people who aren't willing to take the time to do that, and that probably does dissuade people who aren't often moved to comment from ever commenting. But the bar is equally high for people on any side of a given issue. That the group of users who are willing to register for an account is definitionally going to be heavily tilted toward people who don't mind going through a registration process doesn't mean there isn't "room for dissent" on any other issue. I see registered users bitch about articles here all the time, and there's absolutely no reason to think that's going to stop.

Thank you very much Sparrowhawk. I can't believe it took me to reach comment 113 before anyone actually mentioned something OS related. You restored my faith so I thank you.

'06 is going to be very interesting. Can't wait to get my hands on the new Mac. SkyOS final? Would be very nice to see but I wouldn't hold my breath. Not that I mind. They're doing a great job and they'll take as long as they need to get it right.

For OSN in 06, I'd like to see less infighting about which DE is better. The whole OSS industry is touted as being about 'choice'. I've made my choice. You've made yours. No amount of kicking and screaming will change that. I'd like to see Gnome threads discussing Gnome, and KDE threads discussing KDE. Maybe that's a little too much to ask for? I hope not.

Anyway, I wish all OSNews readers a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year! I'll dedicate a beer for ya

I can't believe it! I yet again wrote RiscOS when I meant RISC OS. Mind you, the point remains the same - please continue covering minority OS's

Edited 2006-01-01 17:16

"Oh Alex, isn't it fun to take your personal grudges out in the open? How's the new SkyOS website coming along? "

Precisely why people like to post anonymously. Here is an attack about something totally unrelated to the original comment. And what's worse it's coming from the Managing Editor. Someone who is trying to elevate the level of the comments. Instead he is resorting to personal attacks. Nice... Very nice.

Precisely why people like to post anonymously. Here is an attack about something totally unrelated to the original comment. And what's worse it's coming from the Managing Editor.

Mister, this isn't an attack-- it's a insider's joke from the SkyOS community, and Alex himself knows that too. Do not comment on things you know nothing about, please.

I find it rather intrigueing that you do not attack iExitium for attacking me and the crew.

Edited 2006-01-01 15:51

Inside joke or not it's irrelevant to the topic and to the vast majority of other people it appears as a personal attack. Save your inside jokes for an inside message board unless that is what you are trying to create here?

Sorry if you fell I'm attacking you but I’m only pointing out your hypocrisy. I don’t care what everyone else may say however as you are the Managing Editor I hold you much more responsible for what you write and say especially given what you expect others to do.

If you wish to improve the quality of the comments you should start with yourself and welcome open debate among the community no matter how people wish to post.

Inside joke or not it's irrelevant to the topic and to the vast majority of other people it appears as a personal attack. Save your inside jokes for an inside message board unless that is what you are trying to create here?

God, it mustn't be fun to be a in a group with you. As soon as two people laugh, you demand they shut up, just because they didn't involve you.

Yet again another perosnl attack by the Manageing editor. Way to go Thom...

You sure do see personal attacks everywhere.

"God, it mustn't be fun to be a in a group with you."

That's the "personal attack" in the comment. Whenever you criticize someone's personality or character, you are treading the line of making a "personal attack."

The bait here is ignoring the commentary that instigates the response that can be considered a "personal attack," and rationalizing it through an expectation of inequity under the guise of "professionalism." For example, if a party lies about another party, and the latter party subsequently refers to the former party as a liar, the latter party is attacking the former party.

From OSNews forum rules:

1. No gratuitous use of profanity, biting sarcasm, or personal disparagement, especially directed at individuals.
2. No personal attacks on story authors, other commenters or news editors of this web site.
3. Even if you are in violent disagreement or have strong feelings, find a way to keep your comments calm, and try to explain your reasoning, not just rant.

Emphasis has been added to relevant text fragments.

The rules as stated do not leave much discretion, so any variation from them by the staff or other posters can be construed as violations or hypocrisy. Since certain parties find entertainment in provoking authority figures to engage in hypocrisy, any opportunity provided will be seized upon.

Some consideration for altering the rules to provide sensible exceptions explicitly may clarify the matter.

My personal grudges? I had always liked you until I knew you not from SkyOS but from OSNews. You really are doing everything these people are saying. Hell, I'm replying to a personal attack (ouch, by the way). And on the administrative side of things, I can't believe how rewarding it is to see you become everything you hated about Kelly.

Overall, I like the idea of disabling anonymous posting. But I've never once seen an option to login when browing this site with my PDA, so how am I going to be able to post if I'm on my PDA?

You can post anonymously with PDA, text browsers and phones and such. In fact, you can NOT login via those devices.

We are thinking of creating a PDA/phone friendly login. Pure speculation though.

I disagree. I think if you reread Thom's post there were plenty of reasons for the change. Anyways, it is done - we should cease complaining about it.

Anyways, what I look forward to in 2006:

- Vista
- OSX on Intel
- Symphony OS 1.0
- Sky OS Final?
- Many more updates to alternative OSes, such as eCS, AROS, Risc, and Zeta. This all are the type of OSes that making reading OSNews a necessity.

Thanks to the staff for a wonderful 2005, and heres looking to next year!

That's uncanny, because any _honest_ regular reader won't be able to remember a single justifiable reason to remove anonymous posting in the first place. I read all articles at standard thresholds and don't miss many comments.

1. Other registered users were taking the trouble to mod down the anonymous (f)lamers in many stories comments' sections so you didn't find them particularly annoying.

2. You apparently missed the discussions being hijacked by roving mobs of self-styled vigilantes who felt the need to perpetuate the flamewars by attacking the staff.

There simply is no _ significant_ problem with anonymous users. If there actually was a problem I would agree with the action taken, but this is clearly not the case.

Sure there was. For example, it simply wasn't possible to discuss the original subject matter in some stories because every other post was from some anonymous idiot who couldn't refrain from nitpicking about inane stuff such as how the article was posted.

This is an irrational decision taken to satisfy the peculiar internal politics of OSNews as far as I can make out.

No, it's a good decision which has two important consequences:

1. It gives the registered users in the community a means of tracking who makes which comment. It's much harder to start a flamewar when everyone knows you're in the habit of starting them; someone inevitably pipes up and informs the community not to fall into the trap of responding to the flamer. Attaching a name to a lamer also gives him a score history which can indicate whether he cares to make comments worth reading.

2. Even though people can abuse the system - as you are doing ATM - it takes more work now than it used to. Between the anonymous posts and the newly registered nicks with low scores, you've gone and justified the OSNews staff's decision and made fools of yourselves in the process. And I doubt you'll ever realize it, which just makes it all the more satisfying. ;-)

"That's uncanny, because any _honest_ regular reader won't be able to remember a single justifiable reason to remove anonymous posting in the first place."

You don't speak for me on this issue. Because as a regular reader I can honestly say I applaud the decision to ban anonymous posting. As far as I am concerned the fact that someone posts inflammatory remarks that they are afraid to claim as there own is a very justifiable reason for the ban. If you are ashamed of what you have to say then don't say it. Are you too ashamed to post under a recognizable handle?

Bill

I just love how you've conveniently "forgot" to address what possibly is the #1 reason why many people (myself included) prefer registered posting:

"1. It gives the registered users in the community a means of tracking who makes which comment. It's much harder to start a flamewar when everyone knows you're in the habit of starting them; someone inevitably pipes up and informs the community not to fall into the trap of responding to the flamer. Attaching a name to a lamer also gives him a score history which can indicate whether he cares to make comments worth reading."

Since I read at a low threshold anyway I'm afraid the moderation has very little effect on what I end up reading.

You said that you read at a standard threshold (-1), so the comments I and others mod down to -2 or below slip below your threshold. If you take the time to read those, that's great. There's always the chance that someone will be modded down for no valid reason.

I don't notice significant abuse on a daily basis, certainly nothing to warrant an outright anonymous posting ban. There is always the occasional bad apple as can be seen with a number of registered users.

I did notice significant abuse on a daily basis, certainly enough to warrant an outright anonymous posting ban. And comparing anonymous posters to registered users is like comparing apples and oranges as I've already explained.

I've been on enough forums to discriminate between abusive behaviour and the acceptable cut and thrust of comment and debate. I'm not seeing anything abnormal at OSNews.

I've been on enough forums to discriminate between abusive behavior and the acceptable cut and thrust of comment and debate. I'm seeing a definite problem at OSNews.

Well it's a decision to solve an imaginary problem ...

Nope. And in case you didn't notice, these anecdotes and simple restatements of previous positions aren't helping to lift the ban on anonymous posting.

Mmm, I wouldn't say my post is a prime example of why anonymous posting should be banned. Neither would I class myself as a fool, though perhaps I shouldn't be too worried about your comment since your opening gambit consisted of explaining to me how moderation had saved my soul, when I had already explained I used a low threshold (-1) for comments and read nearly all of them anyway - which really does make the end to this post "all the more satisfying". ;-)

I didn't explain that moderation had saved your soul, nor was it an opening gambit; I merely said that it affected your perception of what you read. Moreover, you continue to prove my point by evading the issue.

If you can't see this, my guess is that you haven't been looking. If you thing unpopular views doesn't get modded down you haven't been looking. And while the world might not be a worse place for it, it certainly makes this site less attractive.

I don't see large swathes of posts moderated below the standard threshold - some, yes, but there are always a few posts which violate the rules. You should consider whether the posts in question were moderated down for other reasons. According to the rules, an otherwise good post can be moderated down for bad language, personal attacks, and other disruptive commentary. I've moderated some posts down for these very reasons.

On the other hand, if they were moderated down for their opinions, then that appears to be valid now. The warning for negative moderation includes a "Yes, I disagree with this user/opinion" link. I have no idea why this changed.

Further, why would anyone really need to know who wrote a particular posting?

It discourages chronic trolling. If a person wishes to continue trolling, he must go to the trouble of creating additional nicks and switching between them. Most people who want to troll do it impulsively and won't bother going through the process of circumventing the moderation system. And even if they do, it becomes a little suspicious when people with 1.00 scores keep showing up to defend the troll's actions. ;-)

You do have a brain, you can judge for your self, and not have to rely on that persons average score. This is especially true since staff here seems to make the totally bogus assumption that a posting that is modded up is somehow of better quality. ANYONE who has been watching knows this just isn't true, the chance is just as big that it got modded up because someone liked what they read. No point in arguing that, it happens here all the time. Thus scores are not only useless, they are worse than that as they might be directly misleading, since a high average might just as well mean that it was written by someone with popular views, even if what's in the post is horseshit. And on the other hand the oposite might be true for people with negative averages.

You are correct, of course, but the inaccuracy of the scores is the nature of the beast. It's a permanent work in progress. People have to keep checking whether a post modded +5 is really that good and whether a post modded -5 is really that bad and adjusting them accordingly. It works often enough because people are usually opinionated enough to doubt other posters by tinkering with the scores a bit.

So the conclusion is that disabling anonymous postings is a cure worse than the disease, since it detracts a lot, for no real gain.

And how does it detract? You haven't answered why anonymous posting is so very valuable. Do you fear that someone will visit you personally in anger because they disagree with your post on OSNews? If this were a political or otherwise hot-button-issue site, I might give you the argument. But it's not.

Post as a registered user. What's the worst that can happen? What value do anonymous posts add that registered posts cannot? I ask these questions honestly.

Edited 2006-01-02 07:51