>In the third phase, the commenting system was outsourced to Facebook This seems to be an apples-and-oranges comparison, no? Or at the very least, there's a co

>In the third phase, the commenting system was outsourced to Facebook This seems to be an apples-and-oranges comparison, no? Or at the very least, there's a confounding factor here: how difficult it is to start commenting. The average Internet user is far more likely to have a Facebook account than a HuffPo[0] account. Furthermore, Facebook does very little moderation. This means that in both the totally anonymous and Facebook real-name eras, commenting is just a matter of clicking a button to proceed, rather than registering an account, validating an e-mail, etc. Furthermore, when you run your own comment section you can build your own moderation tools which Facebook might lack. You also have the ability to restrict signups - even if you're using Facebook as an ID provider (e.g. those "Login with Facebook" buttons). If HuffPo gets a bunch of media attention they can shut off registration and the comment section will consist entirely of people who already got in before the huge crush of spammers. Or they could heavily moderate comments posted around a specific time if they built a tool for that. I'd like to know what would happen if, say, you had your own account system, but usernames were hidden from other commenters. Moderators could of course see and ban whole accounts if needed. I have a feeling it'd perform similarly to psuedonymity. [0] I had to fight the urge to call it HuffPuff.