the Confirmation (September the 29th)

    The most important reason why anonymous comments should not be banned is because it would limit the ideas and opinions people can have when they are anonymous. William Grueskin, dean of academic affairs at Columbia's journalism school, stated, "People who might have something useful to say are less willing to participate in boards where the tomatoes are being thrown." Also, Robert Bertsche, media lawyer and representative of the New England Newspaper & Press Association said, "By allowing anonymous comments, you're going to get things an information that otherwise would not come to light,". Would people be as interested in a Southwest Asian womens' rights as they are if women had not shared their experiences in the comments below? Comments often provide useful insight to the topic a news article is dealing with. In such cases, people who have opinions that others should be aware of may be unwilling to post their thoughts if their personal information is available to the public. Consequently, those people might not post comments any longer, and the rest of the internet is left with the less-diverse and filtered thoughts and ideas left among each other. 

    Another important aspect of anonymous comments is that they guarantee personal privacy and safety. Especially regarding sensitive topics, people should be given the right to express what they believe in safety. The news industry should be able to contemplate the various situations its readers are in and respect their rights of expression or speech, with the circumstances in mind. This can be accomplished through anonymity. Forcing people to post comments under their real names may lead to creepy Google stalking and if serious, violence. People who are vulnerable to discrimination, people who are afraid of reprisals for criticism, people who have minority opinions, people who have minority beliefs or personal practices and crime victims all have a right to express their opinions online, and anonymity can assure their safety along with their rights. With anonymous comments, people do not have to worry about their bosses firing them over what they posted online (which they had every right to), and people do not have to worry about suffering from oral or physical violence over what they wrote online about a touchy subject. Anonymity keeps people safe to express what they really believe.

First Draft- the Narration (September the 29th)

The Narration

              The anonymity of the internet has existed since almost the beginning of the internet itself. The initial intentions were to provide people  the freedom of expressing what they felt about a topic posted online. However, vile comments started to appear, and now, there is even a term to call the people who post abusive comments online: trolls. To deal with this matter, many news sites including the Huffington Post, ESPN.com, and Popular Science got rid of the anonymous system and encouraged their readers to post comments with their real names. Taking a step more, the Sun Chronicle newspaper launched a program on July that requires their readers to register to their site with their names, addresses, phone numbers, and credit card numbers. The number of people who registered from the 7th to the 19th recorded 22 people. There were 22 people who were willing to post the majority of their personal information online to share their ideas with another 21 people. Now, there's a need to remind yourself what the initial purpose of allowing online comments was. It was to promote diversity online. It was to allow other readers to know what other readers think about the same article that they just read. But how diverse could 22 opinions be on the worldwide web, especially when the Sun Chronicle is a local paper of Attleboro, Massachusetts? Not very. 

            An online leading commenting service corporation called Disques discovered in a study that contributors that were most productive online used pseudonyms.  A pseudonym is a fake name that commenters choose. Disques states in their study that using pseudonyms online are different from being anonymous. Their study concluded that online(Facebook, in specific) users who use pseudonyms contribute most to the online society, noting that they were accounted for 61% of all comments and commented 6.5 times more frequently than anonymous users and 4.7% more than people who used their authentic name. However, it cannot be understood how a pseudonym is different from being anonymous. Fictitious names are not real names. So if someone did the math and counted people who used pseudonyms as anonymous, it would be even more apparent how much anonymous comments contribute to the online society. 

1. What does everyone knowThey know that there are anonymous comment boards on news sites
They know that some are good and some are bad
do they know that recently, news sites are getting ride of the anonymity?
Do they know that there's really no such thing as zero anonymity online? 
if a news site forces people to be themselves online, less people participate, and how many fruitful comments would you get from that?

2. Research done on my topic

Disqus — a leading commenting service company — has published a study that found some of the most productive contributors online are those using pseudonyms. Pseudonyms are often used because they are more expressive than our birth name.

People whose political opinions differ from their neighbors or employers
• Crime victims
• People vulnerable to discrimination
• People with minority political opinions
• People who fear reprisals for political or organizational criticism
• People whose beliefs or personal practices put them outside the norms of their communities

Previous research has also demonstrated that what's written in the comments below the story influences how people interpret the story itself. In her New Yorker article"Psychology of Online Comments," author Maria Konnikova framed an analysis around the announcement by Popular Science that it won't allow commentsonline anymore because they undermine the integrity of the science.

http://www.nj.com/njvoices/index.ssf/2014/01/poll_should_news_sites_continu.html

the Huffington Post in December proved controversial: A news article announcing the change from anonymous posting to Facebook-verified posts was met with nearly 6,000 comments — many of them taking exception in unpleasant terms. “Some people felt we were limiting their right to free speech,” said Tim McDonald, HuffPost’s director of community.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/some-news-sites-cracking-down-on-over-the-top-comments/2014/05/07/4bc90958-d619-11e3-95d3-3bcd77cd4e11_story.html

"By allowing anonymous comments, you're going to get things and information that otherwise would not come to light," said media lawyer Robert Bertsche, who represents the New England Newspaper & Press Association.

Jean Balloon, whose comments have been recommended on the site more than 500 times to date, says she's gotten death threats from other commenters in the past.
"Die and die quickly," read one of the threats, about a comment she posted on a story about BP and the Gulf oil disaster. (the Wall Street journal)

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/07/19/commenting.on.news.sites/

https://disqus.com/research/pseudonyms/


3. Implications
What if i'm right? ???what if i'm right
What if i'm right and people ignore me?
No diversity online. No free speech online. 

First Draft- Introduction (September the 15th)

   Google, Bing, and Naver are all major search engines that can get someone around the world-through a computer screen. Often, they prove to be convenient when researching. The only glitch is that they don't just get someone to the website of the biology research center they need for their paper. They give you the address as well, along with the phone number and sometimes, the personnel's full names, photos and e-mails too. Now suppose that you work at this research center. Recently, you posted a comment on an online article about the increasing number of immigrants under your name. One day, you receive a disturbing e-mail from an unknown number abusively criticizing your views. Where could the sender have found your personal information? You are very sensitive about personal information online. You decide to Google your name, and there it is: your name, your photo and e-mail, available for anyone willing to type your name. For years, the beauty of the internet and in this case, the beauty of online articles, was none other than anonymous comments. However, more and more online news websites are abandoning the system. They are not seeing that anonymous comments are more of an advantage to have in the internet society than un-anonymity. It shouldn't be going anywhere, for whatever reason.







I don't really like it..but it is my first draft sooooooo

(Finds out that I basically have to start my outline and 3 paragraphs already written over again)
I should have read the syllabus more thoroughly. This is what laziness does to people. NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.