99 pennies for your thoughts

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/63730

It's more about the real names than the 99 cents. That's just a way to make sure the paper is getting real names, by requiring a credit-card as proof of ID. It's a one-time fee.

Personally wouldn't mind seeing newspapers link up with Facebook and require people to have an account with them to post. But I suppose you could fake one of thoes pages as well.

 

I have no problem with having readers giving their real names to leave comments. If you're not willing to defend your comments, you shouldn't post it anyway. The .99 cent fee is a little over the top, though.

 

Can't get past the broad, blithe disregard re Facebook security issues.

 

They could be like pay pal and return the .99 cents. Or they could do the Facebook thing, which I suggested to the Gannett Social networking coordinator about 14 months ago. I was told we couldn't do it at our paper. Of course we can't. That would make sense.

 

I have always been an advocate of having readers pay to post comments. They won't pay to read the stories, but maybe they'll play to be part of the discussion. Most will balk at the fee at first. But I think people who post comments have an overvalued sense of self worth and won't be able to resist.
Feel free to do all the name-calling and write all the hyperbole you want, at 99 cents a pop.
Oh and you can still write a letter to the editor for free.

 

Even better - charge more to use certain words in comments, Nazi should be $10, Socialist $10, Fascist $10, pretty much any "ist."

 

It's not even 99 cents a pop. 99 cents to do all the name calling you want.

 

If you're gonna require people to use their real names on letters to the editor, and even have someone go through the process of verifying the letter, you should use actual names on reader comments.

 

With all the support for it here, I think SportsJournalists.com should implement this.

 

This idea will make newspapers rich again.

 

Yes, because as we all know, 100 percent of the problems with anonymous comments are with people who call Obama names.

 

So your real name is CR19?