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New blog system complaint

I received this from one of my readers:

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"It looks like readers are now required to create an account and log in before they can post comments. I'm a regular reader of your blog and of blogs.msdn in general, but I nearly always comment anonymously because I've seen how my old usenet posts from ten years ago still pop up on google searches (I often send an email to the blog owner in case they want to contact me about the post).

Microsoft currently has two groups of developers that feel their voices have been ignored (VB6 devs and small devs/consultants unhappy with VSTS). I find it hard to believe that requiring people to log in will improve communications. I think what it will do to others is what it is doing to me, namely, causing me to stop posting comments to blogs.msdn.

If you want feedback from the community, you have to allow the community to interact with you on their terms. 

I consider myself a big fan of Microsoft. I used to say I'd drunk the Microsoft kool-aid more deeply than anyone I knew, but after watching VB6, VSTS, and now seeing that the borg wants to track all my posts, well, lets just say that kool-aid doesn't taste nearly as sweet as it did a month or two ago."

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I'm going to check in on this to see what's up.  I'm certainly fine with receiving anonymous messages.  It's possible that this is to combat the enormous amount of blog spam that we've been getting, but i don't know for sure.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    April 02, 2005
    Oops. The global setting for anonymous comments was turned off.

    I changed it to true, so now it is up to you the blog owner to enable anonymous comments on your own blog (which I believe is on by default).

    -Scott

  • Anonymous
    April 02, 2005
    Awesome! Thanks scott!

  • Anonymous
    April 02, 2005
    It doesn't look like I have to register to post a comment, but I do have to click a link to get to the form. Using Community Server myself for a very shrt while, from what I have seen of the source code it wouldn't take much to have the form placed into the bottom of the comment list, but that would have to be a global change for everyone to agree on.

  • Anonymous
    April 02, 2005
    Good move on the anonymous postings. I am in the midst of creating my own software for my personal use (and my wife's) so I understand the issues with spam.

    I allow posts, but an email is sent and the option is allowed to delete the comments. I can imagine this being a problem if I were a MS blogger getting the amount of spam that you must get.

    I must also say that I drink the coolaid and have since I realized that MS pays my bills. Having them track your posts when you are using their root domain - not so bad. I dont think blogger.com would do so - so there are options.

  • Anonymous
    April 02, 2005
    I guess it should be optional based on the blogs author (which I'm assuming it is if I'm not asked to make an account!) - but I find that it's nice to know your identity is semi protected as a comment poster, otherwise anyone can post anything by you.

  • Anonymous
    April 02, 2005
    This is sucktacular. The "post a comment" form needs to be on the same page as the "see all the comments" page.

  • Anonymous
    April 02, 2005
    Sorry to pile in with another complaing.... SharpReader 0.95.1 (latest version) is reporting all posts as "new" (which will be a big pain for a great many people -- up to 15 new posts are reported in every feed). The underlying reason would appear to be that the Author field has changed from a Full Name to the login name.

    It'd be great if this was fixed (even if it is too late for me!)

    --Ruben
    Ruben Bartelink | +353 86 885 2399 | www.bartelink.com

  • Anonymous
    April 02, 2005
    Keep the feedback coming!

    I'm sending it all along and i hope that it'll all get cleared up in a short while.

  • Anonymous
    April 02, 2005
    One more detail on the reason for the posts being flagged as New in SharpReader is that the times are approx 4 hours out (I'm at GMT[DT])

    --Ruben
    Ruben Bartelink | +353 86 885 2399 | www.bartelink.com

  • Anonymous
    April 03, 2005
    I don't understand why all blog systems are not using the method yahoo or hotmail are using when you create a new account - a graphic with a string that you need to type in to prevent people from using script to create accounts.

  • Anonymous
    April 03, 2005
    Terrance: Probably because we want to allow anonymous posting and not force people to go through registration just to communicate with us.

    That's my personal belief at least.

  • Anonymous
    April 03, 2005
    Hmm .. I feel that blog comments spammers will love Community Server.

    No needs to provide valid email to register and post :-(

  • Anonymous
    April 03, 2005
    I agree, just an arbitrary limitation to not allow seeing other comments when commenting. This system pushes 'comments are comments to the blog entry', instead of 'comments are discussion around the blog entry'.

    That's fine if people is expected to have their own blog and use trackbacks, but this system discourages anonymous/nickname discussion.

    Also the "post comment" link should not only be below the blog entry, but below the comments too, as some people Do Read The Comments before posting their own. I am just too lazy to write a comment which might be already written by someone else. If you want to make a Poll/Survey, there are other technologies than comments for that!

  • Anonymous
    April 03, 2005
    Joku: I'm sending your feedback to the appropriate parties.

  • Anonymous
    August 22, 2005
    Yes, we are required to log in before posting a comment and that is really annoying.

  • Anonymous
    October 27, 2005
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 28, 2005
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    November 02, 2005
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  • Anonymous
    January 04, 2006
    why is that so?

  • Anonymous
    January 03, 2007
    Congrats to Betsy and her team on completing the second half of the March Blog Massacre : blogs.msdn.com

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