Gary Sheynkman dot com

Commenting on blogs/forums/etc is always an interesting phenomenon to observe. Popular sites like Engadget or TechCrunch always have to deal with comment trash. How do I define this trash? Well… the web name for these people is “trolls” but I just call them douchebags.

For every insightful comment there is always a douchebag or 10 that bashes the author, the idea, or just blabs about something inconsequential and thus kills what has the potential to become a great conversation on the topic.

Some new developments on the interwebs will soon put an end to that though (in my not so humble opinion). People are very brave behind keyboards as long as their face is not attached to their anonymous profile.

In a recent conversation with Taj form WeJetSet I suggested a commenting system that might just avoid the douchebag phenomenon. The recent advent of Facebook Connect allows people to post comments as their authentic selves… at least as authentic as their Facebook profile is.

For example, if I use FB Connect to post a comment along the lines of “This is f-ing stupid” … it will show up on my news feed and my friends will likely comment on this event with something along the lines of “Gary, you are an idiot”. Thus I am less likely to post something really stupid.

A commenting system that allows users to just post from Facebook, Myspace, or Orkut (I do not know if other networks allow this yet) will create an ecosystem on the site made up of people who are accountable to their entire social network for their comments. These days you can even have Twitter posts be pulled in as comments with easy to use Wordpress plugins (see below ). This will certainly not guarantee that people will be insightful, but it will add some authenticity to the posters.

Yes, you are alienating potential readers, but at least you are doing away with the persistent problem of douchebaggary…. And who isn’t on Facebook (or MySpace or Orkut) these days anyway?