Who are you? Who, who, who, who? Montana Standard will now tell who posted old comments

[TheSportsPredictor]

Montana Standard newspaper plans to retroactively unmask anonymous commenters

Hope none of you posted anything naughty there!

 

[Shropshire Slasher]

Would be funny if it turned out the biggest troll was Brent Musburger.

 

[Doc Holliday]

I have a problem with this.

This is so typical of newspapers being ****ing cheap. .... In this situation too ****ing cheap to get software that will keep the old user names anonymous.

Inevitably, someone will get burned by this and probably lose their ****ing job or marriage or something, because of the cheap ****s running the paper.

 

[Ace]

I have a problem with this.

This is so typical of newspapers being ****ing cheap. .... In this situation too ****ing cheap to get software that will keep the old user names anonymous.

Inevitably, someone will get burned by this and probably lose their ****ing job or marriage or something, because of the cheap ****s running the paper.

Agree, and the editor seems to be making the usual excuses but seems more than willing to throw the "noxious" commenters under the bus.

Many folks making comments are horrible, but that doesn't mean you just change your policy afterward.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

Would the commenters have any legal recourse to this against the paper,say, if their comments got them fired from their job, because the paper broke the terms of service?

 

[Doc Holliday]

Fair question but I doubt a judge or jury would side with a snarky asshole anonymous internet poster.

 

[SnarkShark]

This is horse****. You can't change the rules like that.

 

[Gator]

Moral of the story: Don't be a ****ing asshole (nor a coward) and you should be OK.

 

[DeskMonkey1]

You know, it's like the policy we have here. We may look harshly at someone for saying something stupid but we have a "No outing" policy for a reason. What if ownership suddenly IDed everyone of us.

The "don't be an asshole" lesson doesn't cut it. The policy was for comments to be anonymous and retroactively changing that should be criminal.

 

[Riptide]

Good thing there's no wingnuts running loose up there in Montana. Otherwise it could get messy.

 

[PCLoadLetter]

You know, it's like the policy we have here. We may look harshly at someone for saying something stupid but we have a "No outing" policy for a reason. What if ownership suddenly IDed everyone of us.

The "don't be an asshole" lesson doesn't cut it. The policy was for comments to be anonymous and retroactively changing that should be criminal.

I've got something like 10k posts on here under an anonymous handle... but honestly, I'm not sure there's been a single one I wouldn't attach my name to.

I'm not sure I'm entirely OK with what the Montana paper is doing, but don't be an asshole just because you think you're anonymous. It's not that hard. The semi-anonynimity of the net has really crippled public discourse.

 

[Gator]

I'm in the same boat. With 2,000 posts, I'm probably considered a lurker here, but there's nothing I've ever said on this board in 10 years that I wouldn't say to your face.

 

[DeskMonkey1]

Don't take it as I'm saying it's OK to be an asshole. It's just that I've vented about work and the business in general and while I don't believe I've crossed any lines, it's still things I'd rather my boss not hear me say. Maybe I'm sensitive because I got outed on another message board in which over the course of 10 years I had vented about things ranging from marriage to work, only to have the person who outed me print some of the rants and mail one to my wife. Lucky for me she's the personality to understand people have to vent from time to time.

 

[DeskMonkey1]

This thread can no longer be seen from the Journalism Topics board. Glitch?

 

[SnarkShark]

This thread can no longer be seen from the Journalism Topics board. Glitch?

I can see it.

 

[DSzymborski]

I think it's totally lame to suddenly change a privacy policy for this midstream. Even if there's no legal issue, I find it a serious moral issue to promise people a particular level of privacy in their terms and conditions and then retroactively change your mind.

That being said, I almost always use forum names that can easily be connected with my name and given my fairly unusual last name, it usually takes about 15 seconds of work to out me. Noms de guerre have a tendency to backfire and not using an alias serves to keep me honest and not saying things from which I wouldn't want to disassociate.

 

[DeskMonkey1]

I can see it.

completely invisible to me. Maybe I was blocked by the thread starter

 

[Baron Scicluna]

In a similar vein, I don't know if this paper uses anonymous sources in their stories. But if you were a source and wanted to maintain anonymity, how could you trust that the paper would keep your name private?

 

[cjericho]

In a similar vein, I don't know if this paper uses anonymous sources in their stories. But if you were a source and wanted to maintain anonymity, how could you trust that the paper would keep your name private?

That and if they do use anonymous sources that would be a bit hypocritical considering this policy.

 

[MisterCreosote]

I think we'd all be wise to remember that anonymity, much like privacy, doesn't really exist on the Internet.