Pollster.com: Typekey Login And Our Comments Policy

March 17, 2008

As of today, in order to post a comment on Pollster.com, we are requiring that you log-in with a Typekey identity and that you set your Typekey preferences to share your email address with us. I posted on Saturday that this change was coming. Here are some additional details on why we are making this change and about our comment policy going forward.

First, we are requiring that you share your authenticated email address because of repeated complaints from our most loyal readers about an epidemic of abusive comments and "sock puppetry." Unfortunately, those problems have worsened significantly in recent days. We promise that (a) we will not display your email address in any form when you post, (b) we will never share your email address with anyone without your explicit permission and (c) we will not SPAM you with unsolicited mass mail (though we might want to send a personal thank-you or query on occasion).

Second, for those unfamiliar, Typekey is a free, third-party system that allows you to create a unique username. The registration is fairly painless -- you just need to be a real person (not a SPAM "bot") and leave a working email address with Typekey that can be used to validate your account. If you wish to remain anonymous, you can use a pseudonym when you comment.

Third, we consider it important to maintain a largely unmoderated comments section that allows for dissenting views and debate over the topics of interest raised by each post. Our one primary rule is that commenters keep the dialogue civil. As such, we will not hesitate to delete comments that we consider abusive, profane, hateful or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable, and as we deem warranted, ban the commenters that post them. To underscore: Terms like "stupid," "moron," "retard," "dumbass," "loser" and the like qualify as abusive. Clear?

Fourth, we will immediately ban commenters who use their online identity to impersonate any person or entity or who use multiple identities for a single Typekey account.

A more difficult issue raised by many of you is whether we need to moderate comments to eliminate those that stray "off-topic." While we are certainly a site where the main posts concern survey data and methodology, poll results are usually at the heart of the most contentious political debates. So we are reluctant to try to draw a line between discussions of polling data and the underlying issues and controversies they involve. However, we have limits. Please try to keep the debate civil, reasonable and intelligent.

We welcome comments or complaints via email about this policy, or any reports of technical glitches with the procedure. Hopefully, the comment bugs experienced recently are now are behind us.

-- Mark Blumenthal

March 17, 2008 in Pollster.com

Comments

Michele:

Thank you for doing this. :)

Posted on March 17, 2008 7:42 PM

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Ciccina:

Ditto. Its a shame you had to do it, but I'm glad you did.

Quite a few of us have had our moments, but I suspect that most of the aggro was the work of one individual in several guises.

Posted on March 17, 2008 8:49 PM

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Erik Hare:

Thank you. Perhaps we can discuss polls again.

I know! Let's take a poll on what people think of this! :-)

Posted on March 17, 2008 10:07 PM

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RS:

Hear, hear!
Thanks, Mark, Eric, and the rest at Pollster!

Posted on March 17, 2008 10:35 PM

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distantobserver:

I rarely posted, but read a lot. Of late it was increasingly hard to filter the content from out of the noise. Maybe the echo chamber will be a thoughtful room again now...

Erik ~ great idea about the poll, but let's discuss our Likely Poster model first ;) There might be a non-response bias.

Posted on March 18, 2008 12:14 AM

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Thatcher:

Glad to see this thing is up and running!

Posted on March 18, 2008 12:18 AM

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KS Rose:

Just a test to see if I can post.

Posted on March 18, 2008 12:45 PM

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BitJam:

Here's hoping for a greatly improved signal to noise ratio.

Posted on March 18, 2008 1:51 PM

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egc52556:

Thanks.

Posted on March 18, 2008 2:10 PM

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seanwal111:

Using the Mozilla Firefox browser, I just wrote a comment at pollster.com under a certain Typekey username, and now I'm writing this message under a different username using the Microsoft Explorer browser. I registered twice at Typekey, using two different email addresses. Thus Typekey doesn't stop sock puppets. An alternative way for a sock puppet to operate, using one browser only, is to delete the Typekey cookie and then sign in again under the other name.

Posted on March 27, 2008 2:09 PM

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James Maxey:

I beleive that Obama and Edwards is just as responsible as the DNC for all the confusion over the Florida and Michigan delegates. When Obama and Edwards found out that Florida and Michigan primary would not count they was glad because they knew Hillary would win those states and that it would give them some advantage over Hillary. So what they did I beleive they deliberate took their names off the ballot so if those states are mention again they could say their names are not on the ballot and the delegates could not be counted. That what you call manipulating a primary and causing a lot of confusion. Obama should concede after Hillary wins Pennsylvania because Hillary would have over 270 electoral votes. To win the presidential election you need 270 electoral votes. If Obama can not the states with most electoral votes against Hillary what make you think he can win those states against McCain. Popular votes do not win presidential election electoral votes wins presidential election. Gore won the popular vote against Bush need I say more. Dewey won the popular vote against Truman need I say anymore. Every vote must count.Pelosi and Obama and company are guilty of vote tampering you do not threaten people to change their vote or tell them how they should vote. When you try ti change the rule in the middle of the game that is rigging the primary in your favor.

Posted on April 1, 2008 3:03 AM

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